Windows Backup

[lasdem]

I have installed nas4free last week and I am still looking for a good way to realise backups of Windows Machines.
I would like to be able to restore single files which get deleted by accident, but also restore whole paritions if an hard disk fails.

At the moment I am experimenting with the default backup function of windows 7 and select an samba share as target.
(Control Panel\System and Security\Backup and Restore)
I like that I can specify which folders I want backed up and also backup an image of the system drive.
I think it is also possible to restore the pc with a restore dvd from such a backup.
But I have the feeling it takes a bit too long and sometimes it stops with the error that the network location is not available anymore.

I also looked into different other backup solutions, but most of them need software installed on the backup server, which I think might be difficult on my nas4free embedded install.

Any experiances or recommendations?

[raulfg3]

I use Acronis True Image, no need to install anything on Backup sever, only to use PXE enviroment to boot Acronis if you want ( but you can execute acronis in the clinet side if do not want PXE).

[lasdem]

Tank you, I will look into that =)

[juddyjacob]

I like FBackup

[sodalimon]

I had problems with Acronis. It definately refuses to start a backup on my NAS4Free SMB mounts. Tried several clients (never had the chance to try using bootable Acronis solution though. Will try now ).

Now I prefer using the ZFS Volume (that I created particularly for backups) over iSCSI.
A mounted NTFS volume is practical for both daily Windows 7 incremental (and system image) backups and Acronis images.
You can use sparse volumes for this as well...

But I'll admit, it kind of feels unsafe and less accessible somehow (cannot touch the files from within the NAS even if they're fully accessible on clients).