Backing up doesn't have to hurt

There's a lot here, I'm sorry, but one day you're going to want it. So, put off backing up if you want, but bookmark this page right now and before you need to call in data recovery experts! Why bother with backup software at all? | Online backup services | Some cool backup ideas

Listen, I don't like this any more than you do but we all have to do it - or face the consequences. Do you not have a backup plan? I've got some secrets I'm going to share with you. And they'll make backing up quite painless indeed.

Already have a backup plan? Hmm. It may not be all it's cracked up to be. And it's probably costing you too much. But, never fear.

The problem is this: There are so many ways to backup. You can backup using just the facilities built into Windows. But you don't want to be doing that (read my hub on backing up with Windows). You can use several online backup solutions (my hub on online backups) but many have a price and all of them have your data.

So, close this page and bury your ostrich head in some data.

Or read how to get rock solid, dependable backup software free

First though, let me run you through some paid options.

If you've ever bought software in a shop - or online - you've probably not read the small print. Hardly anybody does, but the small print almost invariably restricts your right to take it back for a full refund. As incredible as that sounds you have less rights to return buggy, beta, half-finished software - that's highly over on price and under on performance - than you do... on a second hand whistle bought in eBay.

And there's no way to try the software first to see if it does do what it says on the tin.

Except....

Except, if you buy shareware. It's always been a brilliant concept to let you, the customer, try the product first and then decide whether to pay and, sometimes, even how much to pay.

Further, with most shareware companies, if you ever have a problem you can get support directly from the guy who developed the software! You can talk to him, make suggestions for improvements, get your suggestions incorporated, and even get free upgrades to new versions! It's crazy but it's true.

So, let's first look at some shareware options.

Shareware: PC Backup

PC Backup is available as shareware, in a 30-day trial version after which you must pay $59.99. Although in appearance its user interface is rather basic, it is not difficult to get to grips with. Setting up schedules, carrying out backups and performing restorations is all fairly intuitive.

PC Backup lacks some of the features found in the more sophisticated backup packages, however. For example, although it can backup your PC's system state and your "My Documents" folder, it has no other facilities for handling special files, such as emails or your internet Favourites. If you did want to back these things up, you'd have to track them down yourself on the hard drive and include them in the backup job as files.

It has no means of throttling CPU usage and, although, it can optionally compress your data, it does not allow you to alter the compression ratio applied. It can do disc-spanning but does not support FTP backup.

Its help facility is quite comprehensive, walking you through virtually all options in the UI with accompanying screenshots. If you run into difficulties, free technical support for one year by phone or email is included in the purchase price.

PC Backup allows you to create a boot disc for emergencies but is incapable of saving your data to single excutable files, something that is often useful in extreme situations.

It's worth noting that PC Backup comes with built-in virus checking and its virus checker can be updated dynamically over the internet so that's it's always able to handle the latest threats.

Shareware: Eisoo AnyBackup

Eisoo AnyBackup is available in two forms : a free edition and a commercial version costing $39.95.

The program comes with fairly impressive support for backing up special application files. Your My Documents folder, your Internet Favourites, MSN, font or Outlook files can all be added to a backup job just by ticking a checkbox.

Unfortunately, the free edition of the program suffers from severe limitations when compared to the commercial versions. For example, you're unable to back up to CD or DVD or even to an FTP site. There are no file encryption facilities, no logs of what has happened, no ability to handle open files and no incremental backup option. The standard edition of the software remedies all these deficiencies, but even it lacks features found in more sophisticated packages such as mechanisms for altering data compression settings, throttling CPU usage, saving to executable files, disc-spanning and so forth. For those with extremely simple needs, the free version may be sufficient, but it's hard to recommend the Standard commecial edition, given that its price point is comparable to that of other, more fully-featured software.

Eisoo AnyBackup comes with the usual HTML help facility. It's fairly comprehensive and comes with many relevant diagrams. It should be noted that it is extremely poorly written, however. Clearly whoever authored the text is not a native speaker of English and, though in most cases, it just sounds a little clunky, and you won't have any trouble understanding the meaning, in a few cases, it really is difficult to understand what is meant. The company appears to be based in China. It's a factor to bear in mind if you think you might ever need to contact their technical support. After all, if the prepared text is hard to understand, more ad hoc utterances from their technical support staff probably aren't going to be poetry either.

Shareware: HandyBackup

HandyBackup is another shareware offering, priced at $30 after the 30-day trial.

HandyBackup is able to backup a variety of special files, including those belonging to Outlook and Outlook Express, Registry settings and ICQ –related files. Unfortunately, to do this you need to download special plugins (one for each set of files) and these, too, must be paid for.

HandyBackup allows you to set its thread priority so you can control you much of a demand it will make on the processor’s resources.

HandyBackup’s user interface is professional-looking and easy to get to grips with. It even integrates with Window Explorer so you can right-click on a file to either back it up or restore it, as the case may be. You can also turn explorer integration off from the program’s options menu in case you’re one of those people who gets annoyed by right-click menu clutter caused by rude software inserting itself into places where it shouldn’t be.

Although it handles the basics well, HandyBackup lacks the sophisticated features of some other backup packages. For example, it has no mechanism for verifying a backup after it’s done; it has no disc-spanning facilities; and it has no options to create backups as a single executable file, or emergency boot discs for use when your entire system crashes catastrophically.

If you can do without some of the missing features, it does handle basic backup operations perfectly with a user interface that’s pleasant to use. It’s also an extremely resilient piece of software, able to operate in all versions of windows from Vista right the way back to Windows 95.

Shareware: Novabackup

Novastor has been providing respected backup solutions for quite some time. The latest version of the product, version 8.0, has been updated to sync well with Windows Vista. This is reflected in the new user interface which bears a strong resemblance to the ribbon-style UI found in the latest incarnation of Microsoft’s Office products. Unfortunately, Novastor’s implementation of this new user interface style struck me as garish and unappealing but, on this, tastes may differ.

The program makes it easy for you to backup music, photos or emails, allowing you to include these in the backup job with a single click. It does this by scanning everything on your hard drive, however, making the process annoyingly time-consuming unless, of course, the backup is unattended. Facilities for backing up the Windows Program database and System State are also included.

Disappointingly, there are no options for compressing the data or limiting CPU usage and there is no support for FTP backups. Although Novabackup performs all of the basic backup functions you would expect competently, it really lacks the more complex features that would justify its $49.99 price point.

Shareware: Genie Backup Manager

Genie Backup Manager is perhaps the most fully-featured shareware backup package available. Indeed, it can stand comparison with the leading commercial packages such as Acronis and Norton Ghost.

Its tutorials are impressive. As well as the usual HTML help facility, there are a number of animated Flash tutorials which walk you through the program’s basic operations.

Genie Backup Manager can backup data to a single executable file. This can be invaluable in some situations. For example, let’s say you want to restore the data to a laptop which doesn’t have GBM installed on it. But it could also create potential problems. Imagine that you had saved 4Gb of data to the archived executable then, one day, decided that you needed a 20kb text file you had saved in it. Are you going to have to unpack 4 Gb of data just to get to that one file? Fortunately, the answer is no. GBM comes with facilities for doing partial extractions from its backed-up data, even when the backup was saved in executable form.

Genie Backup Manager has remarkably extensive support for backing up special application files. The program actually scans your hard drive, detecting the applications you have installed. Once it detects a supported program, it will make a checkbox for it available on the backup screen. Then all you need to do is click it and your settings and data for that program will be included in the backup job. All in all, it’s much easier than you having to rummage through your hard drive, trying to find the appropriate files for all of the software you want to back up. The program ships with built-in support for registry settings, email packages, Windows fonts and many popular application packages. If you’re favourite software isn’t supported by default, you can visit the Plugins download page on the Geniesoft site to see if a relevant plugin is available there. You’ll find a huge variety of plugins on offer. If, after searching, you still can’t find support for the software you want, you can visit the Geniesoft forum and request that a new plugin be developed! In most cases, they’ll be happy to accommodate you.

The major missing features in the Home version of Genie Backup Manager are its inability to handle backups to tape and the lack of any mechanism for limiting CPU usage. For these, you will need the Pro version of the software which also contains other advanced options, such as scripting support, automatic disc-spanning and more advanced encryption facilities.

The Home version of the software costs €39.95 and the Pro version €59.95.

Freeware

The only thing better than low price is, of course, no price. Freeware software is given away for you to use at no cost. The motivations often are that the developing is hoping he'll get recognition, or make enough of a name for himself to get a good programming job. Whatever the original intentions, if a Freeware program works for you then you can't argue with the price. And some of them are very good indeed.

Freeware: Crazy Backup

There are two good things about Crazy Backup. The first is that it’s free. The second is that you won’t have to spend any time familiarizing yourself with all the great, sophisticated features that it has – for the simple reason that it doesn’t have any.

Crazy Backup is a singularly unpretentious piece of software. In truth, it’s nothing more than a file syncher, able to shuttle files and folders between different parts of your PC. There is no support for writing to removeable media or network drives, and there are no facilities for file compression or encryption. There is not even a Help facility but, not to worry, you won’t need one. Only a mentally-challenged zombie could fail to grasp the operation of a program this simple. You don’t even need to install it. It just runs as a simple executable.

If all you need from backup software is some basic automation of the file copying process, Crazy Backup could be just what you’re looking for.

Freeware: Syncback

Syncback from 2BrightSparks is backup software that comes in both a commercial and a free edition. Many shareware companies have adopted this approach to marketing their software, no doubt using the free version as a way of luring in punters, who will spend some time getting used to the software, only to find it doesn’t do something they want it to do, and quickly shell out for the full version. In many cases, the practice seems rather tawdry, since the free edition of the software has so many limitations as to make it almost useless. It is common, for example, to find that the freeware version of a backup package is unable to write to CD, DVDs or FTP sites. Uh, right. So where do you backup to then? Elsewhere on your hard drive appears to be the usual answer. It is refreshing, therefore, to find at least one piece of backup software that adopts a different approach. With Syncback, the free version of the software has most of the features of the commercial edition. Moreover, it is very fully-featured in its own right, offering some sophisticated options that are lacking in some better known and much costlier applications. For example, it has options for altering the compression level applied to your saved data. You can set the thread priority of the program so that, if you like, it can run quietly in the background, with minimal use of your comptuer’s resources. It also, of course, does all of the standard things such as backing up to CD, DVD and network locations including FTP sites.

Syncback’s user interface is rather distinctive. It doesn’t look like most Windows software and, instead, adopts a more wizard-like approach to presentation. It may be a little off-putting to first time users but it’s not difficult to get to grips with and, within minutes, you should feel comfortable with it.

The program does have some significant limitations. It cannot save your data to executable files or do incremental or different backups. It lacks any support for special application files such as email or ICQ. You can, of course, save this data as you would any other data on your hard drive but you will need to browse through your folders and select it manually. Perhaps the severest limitation of Syncback is the way it handles restoration. It takes an all-or-nothing approach, meaning you cannot select a single file or group of files from a large archive and restore them. You have to restore all the files that were saved in a backup job. Moreover, you must restore them to the original location. You cannot specify an alternative location. Syncback also cannot format blank CDs or DVDs on its own. You will need to do that with other software first before Syncback can write to them. And although it supports scheduling, it does so through the Windows Task Scheduler interface. It has no scheduling capabilities of its own.

The commercial edition of the software was mentioned before. It costs $30. What are its advantages compared to the free version? Well, it allows you to encrypt your data or to save it to a self-extracting archive. It can handle open files (files which are in use) on the latest versions of Windows. It comes with a more extensive help facility and, according to the company, performs backups more quickly. Disc-spanning and bandwidth throttling are also among its list of features. All in all, not bad for the price.

Freeware: Cobian

Cobian Backup is one of the most popular freeware backup offerings. Among its notable features are support for FTP, archive compression (as ZIP or SQX files), and a number of encryption algorithms. Although it lacks the ability to write to removeable media, it does allow you to structure your backed up data into chunks of variable size so you can prepare it for saving to optical storage later.

Everything in Cobian is a task. You do backups by creating highly configurable tasks and then running them. Backups can be full, incremental or differential and can be scheduled to run automatically.

Apart from its inability to write to removeable media such as DVDs or CDs, Cobian Backup’s major limitation is its rather primitive approach to restoring from backup. Essentially, in Cobian, a restoration is just another file transfer task. So, after you’ve set up a basic backup task, transferring files from one place to another, you simply create another one, this time transferring the files back. If you’ve opted to use encryption or compression on the initial backup, however, things get a little complicated. Cobian has no support for automatically decrypting or decompressing its backups. This has to be done manually. Tools are included in the software to do this and you can access them from the file menu. You need to manually navigate to the location of your saved backup, and apply the decryption tool to the saved file.Once that’s done, you need to apply the decompression tool to what remains. It all feels rather absurd and you’re left wondering why it couldn’t have been automated but, hey, it’s free right?

Despite a few frustrating features, there’s no doubt that Cobian is one of the most creditable free backup applications out there. It’s a tight race between it and Syncback to win the overall crown.

Freeware: Jaba

Jaba is a freeware backup program from Hitek Software. Written in Java, it has the customary Swing UI which most people tend to find a little clunky. Although spruced up to look quite good, it nonetheless lacks the grace of a native platform application.

Feature-wise, it’s rather basic. You create tasks to do the things you want, then schedule them to run at certain times. For each backup task, you select the files and folders you want to include and the desired save location. When the task runs, your files and folders will be bundled up in a zip file and shuttled to wherever you specified. This can be elsewhere on your PC, on another computer on the network, or on an FTP site.

No compression or encryption of your data is supported. Nor is there any means of throttling bandwidth or CPU usage. There are no facilities which make it easy to back up special application files, and you cannot write to removeable media.

There is no manual and the program’s Help file is rather disappointing. Strangely, it seems to be a generic Help file which applies to all of Hitek Software’s products, rather than to Jaba per se. Despite this, the program is not difficult to use and you’re unlikely to experience major difficulties here.

Although lacking in sophistication, Jaba is perfectly adequate for basic backup tasks. Just don’t expect anything more than that.

So...

After having reviewed a number of backup packages, it’s time to offer recommendations. If you don’t mind spending a little cash on your backup software, Genie Backup Manager is probably your best choice. It does almost everything and its special file support is unrivalled and eminently useful. If free is what you’re after, you can’t beat Syncback from 2BrightSparks. It has a shedload of features and will cost you absolutely nothing, although a cheap commercial version of the software is also available if you want a few more bells and whistles. And it may be a good idea to check the integrity of your hard disk before going through the trouble of backing up.

What's your excuse for not backing up today?

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