Better Windows backup app than Crashplan for Small Business?

[ChrisR]

I've had Crashplan for Small Business (and Crashplan Home or whatever before that) for our Win10 box for years now. It's USP for me is that it backs up to a local disk as well as the cloud, which seems like a good idea. But every now and then it stops backing up, and then it becomes a pain. I'm currently at the point of having uninstalled it (as per instructions, after restarting failed to solve the issue), and it won't let me install it without 2 factor set up on my account, which needs an authenticator, which I have on my Mac (elsewhere in the house). So at the moment, one annoyance is leading to another, hence the question.

I know this comes up many times, and Backblaze often comes out as a reasonable choice, but I'd previously discarded it as not having a local solution. But maybe now there's an alternative local solution, something like Time Machine?

I can't remember whether it's a 500 MB drive or 1TB (probably the former), and there's only 200-300 MB on there, so no huge quantities to backup. Something more robust than CSB for the cloud part would be ideal!

Thanks for any ideas!

 

[ChrisR]

OK, no comments on this, so let's simplify my question. Assuming I'm going to choose something like Backblaze for a cloud-based backup service, is there anything reasonably similar to Apple's Time machine for Win10 boxes, using a USB drive?

I'm thinking of something that will do incremental backups, keeping old versions, allowing intermittent connection (to help defeat ransom attacks) and perhaps 2-3 different drives (allowing me to alternate them and store at least one off-site).

Any suggestions? Please?

 

[Boots]

I use Macrium Reflect, but the free version has been withdrawn, so you'd need to buy it. I have it set up to automatically backup my machine to another internal hard drive each morning, and an external hard drive when I feel in the mood. The purchased version will allow full and incremental backups (i.e. only backing up files changed since the last incremental backup, or full backup as appropriate), the free version only supported full and differential backups (i.e. everything that has changed since the last full backup).

I have had occasion to restore individual files and found it very straightforward.

I will probably buy the software if the free version stops working.

 

[JonathanRyan]

Another Macrium Reflect user here. It's fit and forget until you need to restore something then it's super easy.

I don't recall ever paying for it so maybe I got in early enough for a free license.

But....what are you planning to backup? Cloud storage like One Drive satisfies many use cases.

 

[ChrisR]

Another Macrium Reflect user here. It's fit and forget until you need to restore something then it's super easy.

I don't recall ever paying for it so maybe I got in early enough for a free license.

But....what are you planning to backup? Cloud storage like One Drive satisfies many use cases.

I don't want only cloud backup, which was the USP of Crashplan: you got cloud backup and the option of backing up to a local drive. But I suspect I can get BackBlaze and Macrium for around the same as the Cashplan licence (US$ 12 per month).

 

[JonathanRyan]

I don't want only cloud backup, which was the USP of Crashplan: you got cloud backup and the option of backing up to a local drive. But I suspect I can get BackBlaze and Macrium for around the same as the Cashplan licence (US$ 12 per month).

One Drive is stored locally and remote - so you could use Macrium to back up the local copy to a local (delta) backup. Alternatively, you could set Macrium to back up to an Azure File Share.

It's a bit more techie to set up but would be very cheap - Azure hot storage is about 1.5p / GB / month. Cold storage is a fraction of that. You can auto expire backups after x days.