system back up

I'm using windows 7 back up service and did my first back up since the reinstall. I did a complete back up, files and folders and a ISO. My back up hard drive is a seagate 320 GB (showing that I have 298 GB), a clean drive. The back up took up 67 GB, and then the following weeks auto back up increased the volume to 83 GB. At this rate with in a few months my hard drive will be full just doing back ups. This can't be right can it? Is there a setting I can change so it only backs up just the file and folders after the initial back up?

No, there is no incremental setting. They use block segment back-ups which is supposed to mean that only blocks of data that have changed should have been updated but afterwords you still have a complete back-up every time. There is an option in control panel\backup and restore to manage the amount of space but for the short time I used it it just seemed to keep growing.

Just go into backup and restore and delete some of your old backups, I personally only keep the last three weeks worth. Yes you can also set it up to only file and folders just poke around=d in backup and restore I am sure you will figure it out.

Any good suggestions to a simple alternative backup software...whether it be free or paid.

Macrium Reflect Free

Macrium is fairly decent software. Acronis True Image is one of the very best, but I have heard of issues with it crashing on Windows 7 64-bit systems.

Macrium - great. I treated myself, long ago, to Acronis. I have kept up to date with later versions ever since. Over several years, it has been a life saver and, for me anyway, has not once even hiccuped. (64Bit thoughout on my computer, 32 Bit on the older laptops)
Incremental settings. Selective restore. It is not even necessary to have Acronis installed. It offers the opportunity to create a boot CD. I would suggest this as an essential - for Macrium also.

There are those that swear by Norton Ghost, I'm not one of them.

For what it matters I personally use Acronis. The software is deceptively simple at first glance, but it has plenty of functionality for those that need it. It's not free, but there can usually be found some good sales on it that make it very cheap... especially around this time of year.

Backup Maker
https://www.ascomp.de/