Can anyone recommend free backup program for use on Windows Server 2012 Essentials? There are lots of options that a free for personal use, with paid version for businesses, but there is no consideration for using WSE at home for personal use.
I've got an HP N40L microserver that contains the original HDD for the OS, plus 2 WD Red 3TB drives, and I've just got a Seagate Archive 8TB. I want to use the WD drives are my "active drives", for network backup and Plex media, and the Seagate drive to backup the other drives in the system (with the option of overspill for any large non-critical files/folders). The Reds are currently JBOD, but now I have the Archive drive to backup them up, I am considering putting the two Reds as a RAID0 (using the N40L hardware RAID).
I don't want to use the built-in Server Backup option, because you essentially lose access to the destination drive.
Free software options that I've identified are Iperius Backup and AOMEI Backupper 1.6 (old version runs on WSE, current 2.5 does not).
Iperius ticks most boxes, with the exception that the free version will not backup any open/active files (it does not use VSS), and you cannot create a boot disk.
AOMEI does use VSS, so it gets everything, but it does not allow selecting files/folders for backup, only whole drives or partitions; and it does not manage the number of backup images stored.
I like that AOMEI uses VSS and has a PXE boot tool, but I don't want it to backup the folder that contains the network backups (i.e. of other PCs in the house). I could keep the 2 WD Red drives as JBOD, with one being for network backup and the other for everything else; but then I need to be more mindful of managing disk space.
Right now I'm leaning towards having both - using AOMEI to image the boot drive and using Iperious for the WD Red storage drives.
Has anyone used these two programs? Any other thoughts?
I've got an HP N40L microserver that contains the original HDD for the OS, plus 2 WD Red 3TB drives, and I've just got a Seagate Archive 8TB. I want to use the WD drives are my "active drives", for network backup and Plex media, and the Seagate drive to backup the other drives in the system (with the option of overspill for any large non-critical files/folders). The Reds are currently JBOD, but now I have the Archive drive to backup them up, I am considering putting the two Reds as a RAID0 (using the N40L hardware RAID).
I don't want to use the built-in Server Backup option, because you essentially lose access to the destination drive.
Free software options that I've identified are Iperius Backup and AOMEI Backupper 1.6 (old version runs on WSE, current 2.5 does not).
Iperius ticks most boxes, with the exception that the free version will not backup any open/active files (it does not use VSS), and you cannot create a boot disk.
AOMEI does use VSS, so it gets everything, but it does not allow selecting files/folders for backup, only whole drives or partitions; and it does not manage the number of backup images stored.
I like that AOMEI uses VSS and has a PXE boot tool, but I don't want it to backup the folder that contains the network backups (i.e. of other PCs in the house). I could keep the 2 WD Red drives as JBOD, with one being for network backup and the other for everything else; but then I need to be more mindful of managing disk space.
Right now I'm leaning towards having both - using AOMEI to image the boot drive and using Iperious for the WD Red storage drives.
Has anyone used these two programs? Any other thoughts?
