Backup software is one of those things we all wish we never needed. Sadly, many of us also never use a backup application until after a catastrophic data loss occurs. Here's your chance to be proactive and grab a popular free backup solution before disaster strikes. And if you don't want to install anything, there's always the option to backup files using a scheduled task. I've become a fan of backing up to online storage, simply because I can access my data from anywhere, but whatever you do, pick something and backup. ;)
SnapBackup placed at the top of a crowded field of 174 backup applications with 13% of reader's survey votes. Snap Backup might rate as the ugliest app in the survey, with it's Windows 3.1 icon, but the important thing is that it works. You define what to backup and SnapBackup handles the heavy lifting.
2) Windows built-in backup application received 10% of reader votes. If you use Windows built-in backup, it's a fairly reliable solution for keeping your data safe. You can schedule backups and it comes with every copy of Windows (even if you have to dig around on the Windows XP Home disk to find it).
3) SyncBack received 9% of reader votes. This is my favorite choice of the free backup solutions in the survey. SyncBack includes built-in FTP support and helps to automatically shut down running applications so your backups won't fail due to the files being tied up by an app (which can be a problem for things like your email database).
4) Cobian Backup received 8% of votes in the reader survey and placed a strong fourth in this crowded category. One useful feature of Cobian Backup is it's ability to run as a service, so you don't necessarily need to be logged into your computer in order of your backups to run. Backups are compressed using 7-zip.
The other 170 backup solutions rated by readers received at least 1 vote each but didn't make up a meaningful percentage of all votes.
