I am looking for free drive imaging software, W7 compatible with the feature to back-up to external media (USB drive)

any recommendations?

Thx

I've used Paragon Backup & Recovery and DriveImage XML. Both are solid programs, but DriveImage XML is a bit slow.

Macrium Reflect is another free backup solution.

I haven't tried it, but have read some good reviews. Worth checking out.

Edited August 13, 201015 yr by Supernova

I assume you are looking for free software according to FSF like GPL or compatible licenses.

Here is a list. with both free and non free software.

http://en.wikipedia....loning_software

I have used Partimage but the NTFS support is experimental so I cannot recommend Partimage for windows machines. Use it on your own risk. It's your data...

What I think is important is to have some kind of policy so you don't run into unexpected problems.

One such is to use only backup software that are using a storage format that is openly described. That way you can retrieve the data eve without the software that created the volumes.

Another one is to use only free, copylefted software so you never tun into licensing issues.

What is the reasons you look for imaging rather than backing up per project or other criteria?

I usually backup partitions only on machines that have a setup that is not possible to recreate, for example when there is some nasty hardware, interface card for machines that requires drivers with complicated parameter settings and stuff like that. I never tale partition backups on office computers. It is normally quite easy to install all software if you just keep a bunch of CDs on order.

For the daily projects I work with I use a distributed version control system. (Git is my favorite) The distributed nature of it makes it easy to push the whole history to a server somewhere or to a USB drive, NAS or just anything.

Martin

Edited August 13, 201015 yr by siamect

Why not use W7 built in imaging app?

I use the Seagate DiscWizard (all my drives are Seagate) to create an image of my two main PCs onto a USB drive over the LAN once every two months or in-between if I made a big change to a PC.

Data back-up is of course done daily.

opalhort