Help with picking back up software.

[Charles1]

Ok so I am looking for a back up program that I can try then buy that allows me to back up a files to an external hard drive as well as to a remote computer such as Crash plan

Thing is there are so many that offer free backups and cant do what I want them to do.

I need my back up files to be backed up and be able to use them if I unplug the hard drive and plug it in on another windows based pc. Similar to what Syncback SE does it backs up files and you can still see the same file on the back up. No compression/encryption or file broken into smaller files that I cant access unless I reinstall the back up software.

So with that said does anybody know what software can do what I want and yet allow me to back up to another computer like crashplan and still be able to see my files without installing the back up software in order to restore.

Key thing here is that I want an excel file to get backed up and be able to see the excel file on the external HDD/remote pc thus if the files gets sent to pc2 from pc1, pc2 can see the file and use right then and there.

Hope this makes sense.

Additional Comment:

more like a copy of the file is what i mean by backup.

so pc 1 in the office backups aka copies excel to pc 2 in the office as well as backing it up to pc 3 at my house.

can this be done?

Additional Comment:

ok I found second copy 8 it does what i need still need an auto file transfer to my home pc from the office.
Any ideas? Was looking into log me in backup solution but I still have the problem that it breaks apart my files so that I cant use them at home.

[thread]

If you're a little tech-savvy, you can look at rsync. (free, and will do what you want)
rsync will make two directories have the same content, with compression (for sending over lan or similar, but can be run locally) and only copies the parts of the files that have changed. The first two options when googling "rsync windows" (deltacopy and rsync.net) seem to have good options.

To make it automatic, just add the command to windows' scheduler.

Another option is MS's "Sync-toy" powertoy. It works very well for one source, one backup, but I've seen it get confused if one tries to make it more complicated.

[Odanez]

At home I use Cobian Backup for all my backup tasks. It will take some time to learn all its features, but it has a lot of them. It's free and can do just about anything you need from a backup program

[apw63]

Cobian Backup is what I use at home too.

Andy

[Charles1]

Yup thanks guys went with cobian and then I just do a file transfer to my house via log me in.