Search code examples
backupwindows-vista

Windows Home Server versus Vista Backup and Restore Center

I've been using Window Home Server for my backups here at home for most of a year now, and I'm really pleased with it. It's far better than the software I was using previously (Acronis). I'm thinking about a backup strategy for my work machine and I'd like to know how WHS compares with Vista's built-in backup and restore features. The plan is to do a full backup to a local external hard drive and backup the documents folder to a network drive on the server. Anyone have experience using the Vista backup feature like this?

Solution

  • Chris,

    They're different beasts. WHS backup is pretty much automatic and uses deltas - Vista's is manual and I don't believe offers incremental updates.

    While your solution (Vista + network copy) would preserve your data it has two problems I an see;

    1. Your documents will only have the latest revision. If you find something was corrupted a month ago it could be very awkward to recover it. Vista's shadow copies may help though.
    2. As soon as you install a program/patch/config your Vista backup is out of date and needs remade, or these repeated if you reinstall.

    These might not be dealbreakers and indeed Vista's backup is pretty decent, it's just nowhere near as good as WHS. In my opinion WHS leaves almost everything else standing, you can be sure this tech will be in the "big brother" server versions shortly.