UrBackup — The Complete Guide: Free Central Backup for Every PC in the Office
UrBackup is a client-server backup system for an office network. You install the server on a Windows or Linux machine or a NAS, and a client on every work PC. The server collects file backups and disk images from the clients while users carry on working.
UrBackup
UrBackup project (Martin Raiber)
Client-server backup for an office network: file and disk-image backups of every PC to one server while they keep running.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Fast incremental file backup — the client watches the chosen folders for changes.
- Live disk images — no need to shut the PC down.
- Space saving — identical files on several PCs are stored only once on the server.
- File restore — through the web interface or straight from Explorer.
- Full restore — bring back a whole PC from a bootable USB stick.
Who it suits
A small engineering office that wants central backup of every workstation, with one management interface and no licences. The code is under AGPLv3, and the site states it may be used commercially. Limitations: you need a PC or NAS to act as the server, and disk images are mainly supported on Windows clients. The server itself is a single point of failure — keep an off-site copy of it.
Related tools
For image backup of a single PC — Veeam Agent FREE. For scheduled file backup on one machine — Cobian Reflector. For copying the server to the cloud — rclone.
Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows FREE
Veeam Software
Image backup of a whole Windows PC, single volumes or folders, with bootable recovery media and bare-metal restore.
Get it from the vendorCobian Reflector
Luis Cobian (CobianSoft)
Scheduled file backup for Windows and successor to Cobian Backup: compression, encryption and local, network, FTP and SFTP destinations.
Get it from the vendor
rclone
rclone project
Sync and copy files to 70+ cloud storage services from the command line, and mount cloud drives as local disks.
Get it from the vendor
Duplicati
Duplicati Inc. and community
Encrypted, incremental, scheduled folder backup to cloud storage, SFTP, a NAS or an external drive, with a friendly browser interface.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
The most complete free solution for central backup in a small office: one server, every workstation covered, and a single file or a whole PC restored when needed.