Opinions/Suggestions needed

[cassandra_7]

Alan is trying to help his father get a backup system in place for their computers.
He's not had a lot of luck with online suggestions and reviews, so I'm turning to my friends and their geeky expertise.

We need: Backup software that will automatically backup data to (an external drive?) and has some form of encryption.  It should work under windows xp, and be as ... straightforward and simple as possible.  You know how parents can be with computers.

All suggestions welcome.

Thanks in advance!

Comments

[glassrat.livejournal.com]

I use Good Sync, I downloaded it from majorgeek website

[avatar1983.livejournal.com]

Look at http://www.areca-backup.org/ Is free, should do what you need, pretty straightforward. Just buy a cheap external drive, set it up, and you're ready.

[littlejenny123.livejournal.com]

I used Deltacopy. Don't ask me about encryption though, I haven't a clue, I don't encrypt my backup because I want to make sure I can access it no matter what.

[blackbeltduck.livejournal.com]

Why does it need to be encrypted, is his father a top sekret politiks official? Encryption offers a layer of complication for the uninitiated elderly population should you wish to retrieve things. *snark*

Why not just make a small script that says (U drive being whatever you want to call your external hard drive):

xcopy.exe /m /y /e /i /h /k "C:\Documents and Settings\AlansDad\Desktop" "U:\Documents and Settings\AlansDad\Desktop"
xcopy.exe /m /y /e /i /h /k "C:\Documents and Settings\AlansDad\My Documents" "U:\Documents and Settings\AlansDad\My Documents"

Then add your own touches of what you want to save.
Then send to dad and say "ok dad, connect your external hard drive once a week, click on this icon." This gives Dad-unit something to do every week and makes him feel interactive with his computer.