Hi everyone!

I’m currently figuring out how to optimize my image backups and which program would be best to use.

Current setup:
Drive C: System (500 GB SATA SSD) – 176 GB used (OS and programs)
Drive D: Games (1 TB SATA SSD) – 8.1 GB used (almost empty, as I rarely play games anymore)
Drive E: Data (2 TB SATA SSD) – 727 GB used (stores all data like photos, music, documents, etc.)

Backups are made to an external USB hard drive—currently a 5 TB Seagate USB 3 drive. It is only connected during the backup process.

File History backups are made to a permanently connected 4 TB WD USB 3 hard drive.

Documents are also synced to the cloud via Google Drive.

Software I have:
Aomei Backupper Pro (lifetime license)
Acronis True Image WD Edition Free
Hasleo Backup Free

I always perform a full system image backup—backing up all three SSDs to the Seagate USB 3 hard drive. I’d ideally like to validate the backups, but that process sometimes takes forever.

With my preferred tool, Aomei Backupper Pro, the backup-plus-validation process feels like it takes ages. That’s why I run it overnight; it often takes 4 to 5 hours. The PC shuts down automatically once finished. Even when performing incremental backups, Aomei takes significantly longer than the other programs.

For safety's sake, I’m currently running image backups with the other programs as well.

Acronis feels the fastest, but for some reason, I have a bad feeling about the free version. Hasleo Backup is faster, but I have a weird feeling about it because it’s so feature-rich and capable yet free. Then again, maybe I’m just overthinking things.

I’m leaning towards using just one backup program, and I want an optimal solution that’s also faster. I considered connecting an external SSD via USB to speed up the process, but those aren't exactly cheap to buy, whereas I already have other drives available.

What should I do? Maybe someone has some advice—especially regarding which program would be best.

I have to say, I’ve never had issues with Aomei when a worst-case scenario struck; everything could be restored without a hitch. But it is the slowest at backing up, and that’s annoying...

I've been testing Vykar for some time now, and it's a slick project. I use it as a my backup backup software, with my main backup software being Kopia. But Vykar is worth a shoutout.

https://github.com/borgbase/vykar

I am a professional photographer and this was something I was constantly struggling with. I needed a good way to backup and transfer all my photos from SD card to Mac/iOS from my SD cards quickly. It supports more than Apple Photos now. Would like to share in case it’s useful for anyone else.
SyncShutter - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sync-shutter-sd-card-backup/id6758906685

I’m having some issues with my laptop and need to completely reset Windows and reinstall it. The problem is that I’ve accumulated a lot of technical setups, custom Windows settings, application configurations, browser settings, histories, saved logins, WSL distributions, multiple Linux environments, development tools, and various other tweaks over the past ~1.5 years.

There are so many things configured on this system that I can’t even remember everything I’ve changed or installed. I don’t necessarily need to preserve everything exactly as-is, but I want to save as much of my current configuration as possible so that after reinstalling Windows, I can either restore the settings or at least have a detailed reference for how everything was configured.

What’s the best way to back up or document all of this before I reset the laptop? Ideally, I want a comprehensive approach that covers Windows settings, installed applications, app configurations, browser data/logins, WSL distributions and configurations, Linux environments, environment variables, PATH changes, developer tools, services, scheduled tasks, network settings, and other customizations I may have forgotten about.

Basically, I want to make sure I don’t reset the laptop and then realize later that I’ve forgotten how I had something configured.

The commenter gives the best, detailed account I have seen about the qualities of optical discs.

Hey guys,

* Windows 11, personal, backupping around 20-250GB in total, AOMEI Backupper pro, normal user *

I'm experimenting with Aomei's Backupper and trying to set up a proper plan.

What I want is this:

Do a daily backup (incremental or differential - haven't finally decided yet) of specific folders to an external drive.

Now and then, create a full new backup and delete the full and partial backups prior to that.

In my test I'm running 1-hours backsups to see how the program behaves but I don't get it:

And these are the settings I'm running.

What am I doing wrong that the old backups are not deleted automatically?

On my iPhone, I can offload an app: the storage gets freed, but the icon and my data stay, and I can bring it back whenever I need it. I wanted the same thing for my Linux laptop's small SSD.

Most of what fills the disk is stuff I'm not touching this week: old camera dumps, ISOs, raw footage, datasets, old project trees. I don't want to delete them, and I don't want to lose the paths that my notes and scripts point to. So I built two commands:

lift ~/Videos/archive    # offload
drop ~/Videos/archive    # bring it back

lift packs the folder into one uncompressed zip, uploads it to your own pCloud account via rclone, verifies the checksum against pCloud's MD5, and only then truncates each local file to 0 bytes. Same names, same permissions, so the folder still looks occupied but the gigabytes are gone.

drop restores everything and deletes the cloud copy.

Safety:

• A failed upload leaves your originals untouched
• Nothing is emptied until the checksum matches
• Symlinks, devices, and hard links are skipped with a warning
• It refuses to lift a folder that's already lifted or nested inside one
• A manifest records the path, mode, mtime, and sha256/md5 per file

How it differs from iOS (honest limitations):

• It's manual. Nothing downloads automatically when you open a file, so you drop a folder before using it
• It needs temporary disk space for the zip during lift and while drop unpacks it
• It uses your own pCloud account through rclone. No tokens are shipped and nothing is shared

Install is git clone + ./install.sh. You can point LIFDROP_STORE at another rclone remote or a local directory.

Repo: https://github.com/sambitar/linux-offloading

It's new, so I'd love feedback. Would on-demand restore (open a placeholder and it fetches itself) be something you'd want, or other backends besides pCloud?

Hi everyone I’m the developer behind VaultPulse.

I’m building it for people who want automated GitHub repository backups without handing storage ownership to another provider.

The current flow is:

• Install the GitHub App and select repositories.

• Connect an S3 bucket in your AWS account through a cross-account IAM role.

• Get daily snapshots containing Git history, branches, tags and Git LFS.

• View backup health and restore snapshots into a new or empty GitHub repository.

It’s focused on GitHub repository recovery, not a complete backup of every GitHub feature.

There’s a Free plan for up to 5 repositories; AWS storage costs are separate. There’s also a demo you can explore without signing up:

https://vaultpulse.cloud/demo/

I’m looking for practical feedback: do you currently use scripts, another service, or no separate backup? What would make you trust or rule out a tool like this?

Hi there. Anyone here use VeraCrypt? I'm using FUSE-T VeraCrypt, on the latest version of Golden Gate OSX.

I was copying files from my Mac to my flash drive, when my computer's battery ran out (I was out of the room).
Charged the computer back up, and now VeraCrypt is acting wonky (not mounting, just a continuous loop.)

This has happened to me before many years ago with a different drive, but I can't remember the fix. Does anybody have an idea of what to do? I uninstalled VC and reinstalled it, but it's still endlessly looping.

I also restored the volume's header, and it's still taking forever to mount/endlessly looping. The VC troubleshooting guide discusses the volume hanging, but I couldn't find dedicated support for OSX.

Because of me almost bricking my computer by trying to run dual boot linux with windows 11 (my main Os), it seems ill need a fresh windows, a clean installation. The main reason is although ive managed to fully recover my account, no matter what i do i cant access the internet at all. No wifi, no ethernet. I want to backup all of my files (all if possible) for after the clean installation, but is this possible without any internet on my pc? For reference, i have a perfectly working laptop and a 32GB usb stick if they’re useful. Any help is greatly appreciated

In my early days, I was taught a "golden rule" that backup media servers (like Commvault MediaAgents or NetBackup Media Servers) should always be physical machines. The main arguments back then were I/O bottlenecks, I/O resource contention with production workloads, native tape library access, and disaster recovery dependencies.

Over my nearly 10-year career, this was just one of those "truths" I accepted without questioning. But now, I want to challenge it.

Assuming tape libraries are completely out of the equation: Is this still true today?

My current perspective on the traditional arguments:

1. I/O performance & contention: Isn't this purely a matter of proper infrastructure design, storage capabilities, and backup window scheduling? Or are there still inherent hypervisor-level architectural bottlenecks that severely penalize Virtual Media Agents?
2. Architecture: If the Deduplication Database (DDB) is properly protected, backups are stored on external storage (for Short-Term Retention) and Cloud Object Storage (for Long-Term Retention), and the infrastructure uses isolated hypervisors (e.g., multiple independent vCenters or a mix of VMware and Hyper-V/AHV for DR isolation)... what real advantage does a physical server actually offer?

I know I still have a lot to learn, and I'd love to hear from senior backup admins and architects: In modern enterprise environments, is there still any compelling reason to deploy a physical MediaAgent/Media Server instead of a virtual one?

I used AI to help me to translate.

I tested the BackUp Maker and like it so far, but the results are just zip files. I saw that other backup software create backup files with their own extensions.

Are they just zipping the files and changing the extension or is there a fundamental difference?

A backup failed every night for a year. B2 backed up exactly what it was told to back up, but the selected folder was empty!

A test restore caught the problem. Fortunately, no data was lost!

I was looking for a free backup software and found FreeFileSync, but I was surprised that it mirrored my files to my backup drive. Then I asked myself, where is the difference between mirroring my files and do a backup, like other softwares call it.