Ideal Windows backup software

TrueNAS General
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I am looking for the ideal Windows backup software that can work well with my TrueNAS.

My gold standard (at least on the client side) is macOS Time Machine. It offers effortless backup scheme, automatic backup thinning, and easy restores of files, folders and entire systems.

Is there good backup software with a similar set of features?

Macrium, perhaps?

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I use the free veeam windows agent for all my PCs and VMs.

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Thanks for the tip! How do you configure the share on the NAS for that? Any special considerations?

Would it be this: Veeam Backup & Replication Community Edition?

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I have been using Macrium Reflect with Site Manager as the control plane. This is a paid option.

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Nothing special. Just a smb share with a specific user only for the backups. This way its harder to get compromised by randsomeware.

I use the regular free agent for windows. Not the community edition. I think the community edition has more options.

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The Community Edition is the only one I could find that was truly free and not just a trial. Maybe what you have installed is older. Could that be?

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I use Macrium Reflect. Backups are important so I don’t mind paying.
I already used it to restore my system once and it worked flawlessly.

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I second veeam. Works good and has many options.

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I’m considering urbackup, i didn’t try It yet.
Glad if someone would Share opinion on It…
Seems have a lot of features, for free.

Actually im managing easy but manual backup with aomei backupper, It works well for full restore, but juicy features are not free

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I’ve been happy with Urbackup, but I’m kind of surprised there isn’t an app for it, even with TrueCharts (before they pulled their catalog).

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Macrium Reflect works great and restores just as well. I liked it when it was free but last year or so they dropped the free version. You might still be able to find it on a download site.

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I used Veeem in the past. Worked well.

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Thanks very much, Farout! Very different from Veeam Backup & Replication Community Edition. That one seems to be the full product and is much more complex than what I need. There would have been very much to dig into.

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What I don’t like about the free Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows is that it does not do hourly backups. Daily seems to be the highest frequency that can be chosen.

Thus I have retained Settings → Update & Security → Files backup → Backup using File History → More options (Backup options) to chose only a one-month retention for those, which are saved hourly. For longer-term backup I am using the Veeam Agent in parallel.

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That seems like a good plan.

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Still nothing like Time Machine on macOS.

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@Farout I did not know there was 2 versions, can you post the links for both so I can check. I always assumed there was the free one which could be upgraded with pro features.

Thanks

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This is the community edition.

This is the free edition.

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After following the links.

from https://www.veeam.com/products/free/microsoft-windows-download.html

  • Veeam Backup & Replication (Community Edition)
    • Provide centralized management for Windows servers and endpoints — up to 10 users/workloads. With the same UI, you can also protect VMs, cloud workloads, NAS, Linux and more.
  • Standalone Veeam Agent (for Microsoft Windows FREE)
    • Protect a single laptop or workstation.
    • A small, lightweight Veeam Agent, deployed and managed directly on a Microsoft Windows laptop or workstation.
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