Is Windows 7 Built-In Backup Really Effective?

[Vicenarian]

Ok, so I've never really given this much thought; but is the built-in backup functionality of Windows 7 effective enough to be used alone for a small-business? Until Windows 7, I've always used 3rd party tools. However, since almost every edition of Windows 7 has backup built-in, it seems a shame not to utilize it. It's simple to set up, and seems to do a good job.

Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[MotzTech]

For a businesses I would say no.

A few reasons are
* It is a basic backup at best.

* It does not offer any type of reporting to let you know the backup completed. I can fail day after day and unless the customer looks at it, they won't know. I had a customer bring in a dead machine with a blank backup drive, because the tech who setup the backup never bothered to follow up and make sure it ran, which it never did.

* It is prone to failure. Any problem with the backup will hose the whole process. I had an entire system backup fail because some permissions where set wrong. Had I not followed up with the customer, the backup probably never would have run.

When is comes to business data, it's better to play it safe with a proven system, they to go cheap.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Works well, image based backup. However, for a small business...who is going to manage it? Can do Essentials Server....
But...with business networks...often you keep a generic image for the fleet of desktop computers...and the My Docs folder get redirected to a share on the server....thus ending up on backup.

 

[pc-quebec]

With a business you install Windows SBS 2011 essential and it take care of the back-up of the workstation for you, then you simply back-up the server.

I test it many time in my lab and also with customers, if as exemple, the hard drive of the pc come defective, you simply replace it, put the recovery DVD that come with SBS 2011, and voila, it will put everything back, it will go on the server, you choose the PC you want to restore, and it will place everything at their place like before, OS and Data

If you don't want a domain and have less than 10 pcs , WHS 2011 so the same thing , it cost only $ 60 for the OS, not bad ...

 

[Vicenarian]

Ok, how about for a home-based business. In other words, just one PC. Would you consider Windows 7's built-in backup to be sufficient in such cases?

I use it on my own PCs, and it seems to do a pretty decent job. Granted, I've never had to restore anything from my backups so far.

 

[mraikes]

Ok, how about for a home-based business. In other words, just one PC. Would you consider Windows 7's built-in backup to be sufficient in such cases?

I use it on my own PCs, and it seems to do a pretty decent job. Granted, I've never had to restore anything from my backups so far.

I haven't dug into Win 7's, but unless it repeatedly alerts when backups fail, I wouldn't use it for any purpose.

I steer my residential and SOHO customers to Crashplan's free offerings for local backups. Bulletproof operation for computer-to-computer backups and external drives. Near real-time backup of changed files. Very easy to restore a single file or an entire backup.

Regular backup status reports and alerts via email. With a setup like that no one can ever claim they didn't know if the backup was running or not. And it's free.

 

[ljtechservices]

I wouldn't suggest it's use to any customer unless they had no other means.
The primary reason is that you have to manually delete the backups or the drive gets full.

Motztech's post summed up the best reasons not to use it though.

 

[pc-quebec]

Ok, how about for a home-based business. In other words, just one PC. Would you consider Windows 7's built-in backup to be sufficient in such cases?.

one PC .... Make a system image on an external hard drive or DVDs . For your data use Goodsync to put your data on an external drive. Better than a back-up as it accessible from any pc without restoring, you plug it and you access the files. A lot of my customer use it for their servers too, on a workstation they plug an external hd , in the night files are copied , the next morning they swap the external drive for another one. Goodsync just add the files who was not there before.