Considering EaseUS Todo Backup. Thoughts?

CuriousCamel

Hey everyone, I’ve been digging through the forum but couldn’t find a thread on this specific app, so figured I’d ask directly.
I’ve got this old Windows 7 PC that’s on its last legs. I’m shocked it still boots some days. Before it gives out, I want to make a full image of the system and save it to an external drive. Idea is to not waste time sifting through folders on the old machine (half the time it throws errors) , I’d rather capture everything as-is then mount the image on a new PC and extract what I need from there.
I found Easeus Todo Backup while searching around. It looks like it might be the right tool for the job, but I haven’t used it before.
Has anyone here done something with it? Is Easeus todo backup safe? Did it work out for you? Wouldyou recommend it? Any advice would be appreciated.

SocialImpactCoder

CuriousCamel I used EaseUS Todo Backup Free a while back, before they did that big UI overhaul around 2022. Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend it now.
When I let it upgrade, it completely changed the product. New interface and they moved a bunch of stuff behnd a paywall. You can’t clone a disk, a system, or even just a partition unless you upgrade to EaseUS Todo Backup Pro or Home.
What annoyed me even more was the performance. I’m not exaggerating, startup took close to 20 seconds on an SSD, and the menus were laggy. Just clicking around wasslow. I can’t imagine how itd behave on an old Windows 7 machine. Even if it technically runs, it’ll probably crawl.

If I had a case like yours, I’d skip go with Disk Drill for imaging. I just updated to version 6 and its drive imaging is really solid. Especially when the HDD has problems - it skips damaged sectors first to create a quick backup, then goes back and retries the bad parts without hammering the disk. Plus, once you got the image, you can scan it with the same app and find files that are still there or were deleted a while ago.
Only catch is that on Windows 7 you’ll need an older version, like 4.5. And, there’s a cap on how much data you can extract from a scanned image unless you upgrade. But it still works well.

if you want to keep it simple, you could just pull the hard drive from the old PC, plug it into your new system as an external, and do whatever you need from there.

HopeInSleep

Do you know what kind of shape the hard drive’s in on that old Windows 7 box? Like, is it just acting slow or are we talking SMART warnings and stuff like that?
Thing is, I don’t think EaseUS Backup is really built to handle a drive that’s already falling apart. I remember reading a post on Reddit where someone tried imaging a drive with bad sectors and the process stalled for like 30 hours. The software just couldn’t deal with the read errors and got stuck.
That’s kinda the problem with most general-purpose home backup tools: they’re great for healthy-ish systems, but once a drive starts to flake out, they don’t have the same level of error handling.

Naheri

SocialImpactCoder 20 seconds just to open? That’s a bit much. I’ve been using EaseUS Todo Backup Free off and on and didn’t really have that issue on my setup.
You sure it wasn’t something else slowing it down, like antivirus getting in the way or something? Not saying the UI is lightning fast or anything, but it’s usually up and running for me in maybe 5 seconds tops.Although when it’s running, it is kind of a resource hog. Not gonna lie CPU and disk usage definitely spike. I usually just let it run only when I’m not doing anything else.

CuriousCamel

@HopeInSleep There were some yellow warnings in CrystalDisk nothing critical, if i understand corectly. I think it flagged a few reallocated sectors or something like that.

HopeInSleep

CuriousCamel Well, if CrystalDisk flagged problems I’d definitely lean toward using something a bit more fault-tolerant. Tools like Disk Drill or DiskGenius are both solid for this kind of job.

CuriousCamel

@SocialImpactCoder I wish I could just pull the drive and hook it up to the new system, but the two machines aren’t in the same place, and I’m not in a position right now to be cracking open cases and moving parts around. That’s why I was hoping something like EaseUS Todo Backup could just image the whole thing and let me deal with it later.
Also, since you’ve clearly familiar with these apps do you know if there’s any real difference between EaseUS Todo Backup Server, Home, Pro? Like, is one better than the others for what I’m trying to do? Or are they all basically the same?
Appreciate the suggestion about Disk Drill too, might give it a try. How do I make an image with it?

SocialImpactCoder

CuriousCamel for your case, the different versions of EaseUS Todo Backup don’t really make a big difference.
The higher-tier smostly adds features you probably won’t need here: Outlook email backup, email notifications when a job finishes, pre (post) backup commands, file exclusions, that kind of thing.
As for Disk Drill, it’s super simple. Just open it, look at the left-hand panel, and click on Byte-to-byte Backup. Pick the disk you want to image, hit Create Backup, then choose where to save the image file. That’s it.
Just in case you don’t know (which I doubt, but still) you’ll need at least as much free space as the full size of the disk you’re backing up.

7nationArnie

I wouldn’t recommend this tool at all. Just like with any EaseUS software avoid it like the plague.
I used EaseUS Todo Backup Home and ran into a total mess. Backup went through fine no errors, but when I needed to restore, I got “Invalid data” erro. The image was basically trash, couldn’t do anything with it.
I moved on to Macrium Reflect after that. It’s a little more technical at the beginig, but at least it actually works when you need it to. That said… it was partially on me. I just assumed that having a backup image meant I was golden. Turns out, not so much.
Learn from my dumb mistake: always check whether your backup is viable before you lose access to the original. Mount the image, open some files, make sure it’s solid.

CuriousCamel

@7nationArnie yikes, that’s rough. I probably would’ve made the same assumption that if the backup completed, I was good to go. Definitely appreciate the heads-up.

Quick question on Macrium Reflect Is it free? And will it run on Win 7?

SocialImpactCoder

@naheri There’s nothing wrong with my system, trust me. It’s not antivirus, nothing like that. The slowdown started after that big update around 2022 EaseUS Todo Backup was never the same after that.
They revamped the whole engine and performance just tanked. And I’m not the only one who noticed. Just Google it, I’m not gonna pull up the threads for you, but there are plenty of posts out there from people saying the same thing.

crimsonKing

I’m surprised by all the negativity. I’ve relied on EaseUS backup software (the Home edition) on both Windows 10 and 11. It’s served me well. What keeps me using it is how flexible the backup jobs are. I can tune backups the way I want, then tie each job to a specific schedule or even an event. I’ve had a good run with it so far.

SocialImpactCoder

@crimsonKing if EaseUS backup software has been working for you that’s great. No denying it has some solid scheduling and customization options.But for what OP needs (imaging a sketchy old Windows 7 PC that might already have some bad sectors) I still don’t think it’s the right tool. It’s just not built to deal with that.

roman-demian

Hey @CuriousCamel we actually have a full guide on Best Backup and Recovery Software, and it includes a full breakdown of EaseUS Todo Backup too: pros, cons, and what types of situations it’s best suited for. Definitely worth checking out.

CuriousCamel

roman-demian Oh nice, thanks for that. Just took a look thersa lot of options in there I hadn’t even heard of. Appreciate it!!!