Acronis True Image has also been recommended in other discussions.
Tim
I have to disagree with the other posters who recommend Trueimage, at least the Home edition. The last two versions of the Home product have been bug ridden and very problematic for many. Some don't realize just how problematic until they try to restore and get an unpleasant surprise (corruption, lost data, refusing to restore...). It seems the Trueimage Workstation Echo product has held up much better, though most consumers wouldn't think to buy it instead of the Home version.
To answer the OP question, yes, nearly all NAS products come with a packaged backup program. In the case of the Readynas, its NTI Shadow, a somewhat crap program. Shadow has potential, but is feature strapped, does not support copying open/locked files and I've found its a bit of a resource hog and crashes a bit too frequently for my liking. Other NAS backup programs may be better, but I doubt any of them support copying open/locked files in 2000, XP or Vista.
For general backup look at
Syncback SE or Pro. Great product, but can be brutal to setup if you are impatient and don't want to go through its myriad of granular settings. It has an Easy mode setup, and that may be good enough for some users. Syncback is robust and reliable, has tons of options for backing up and sync, it supports copying open/locked files, although it will NOT run as a service.
A great free backup program that will run as a service and has a lot of great features is Cobian V9. I cannot say much bad about Cobian backup except that it does not offer a restore option. The author feels that if you need to restore, you can copy and replace the files manually. I still wish he wrote a restore app. Cobian will copy open/locked files and is very reliable. Best of all, its free! **Only for x86 Windows.**
www.cobiansoft.com
There's other good backup programs, such as Superflexible File Sync, Fileback PC, KLS Backup Pro and AJ Systems Easy backup. The nice thing about KLS Backup and Easy Backup is that they include plugins to backup Outlook data/profiles, as well as many other apps. It makes it very helpful when transitioning from one PC to another. Both have quirks and some lingering bugs, but their positives outweigh the niggly bugs. Both KLS and AJ Systems are expected to release new updated versions soon. **KLS will run natively on x86 or x64.**
Some people swear by Genie backup and Backup4all which also support plugins, but I'm not a fan of either. Genie refuses to run and/or crashes on some systems and Backup4all wasn't so great last time I banged on it. Their new version looks better, but I cannot recommend it at this time. You can try their free fbackup product if you choose. Its basic, no frills, but surprisingly support copying open/locked files.
For disk imaging your best options are Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery (like Norton Ghost 14 but supports bare metal restore as well as other features), Storage Craft's Shadowprotect Desktop, Macrium Reflect and Drive Snapshot. Drive Snapshot is slick because its a single file, no install required. The downfall is that restores are done command line or through a Bart PE CD. Restoring Drive Snapshots saved on a NAS may be difficult unless you create a Bart PE CD.
Everything I listed here can be found with a google search. Hope that clears things up for ya.
