Computer Backup Software

D Fraser asked:


Backing up your personal and important data on your PC is something that everyone should do but very few actually take the time to do it. Why? Maybe it’s because they don’t know how, or possibly it’s because they’ve never experienced what it’s like to lose important files and never get them back.

In this brief article I’m going to look at computer back storage options and backup software and solutions. We’ll discuss the different types of storage you can use to store a backup and the different methods you can create the backup file(s).



Don’t Spend a Lot of Money on Fancy Gadgets

One of the biggest issues with buying anything technological is buying more features then are needed to get a job done. Why does this occur? Most of the time it’s because we start doing research about the different features available and then start dreaming about how great it would be if the software could do this or that. The reality is we almost never use those technical features, and they end up being as waste of money.

When selecting a form of computer backup storage keep this simple feature free idea in mind. Most times a USB drive (flash drive) or regular old DVD-R’s will get the job done. High tech alternatives such as tape backups and secondary hard drives will just complicate the issue.

Keep the Backup Software Simple

Having a place to keep all your files after they’re backed up is one step, of course before you can do this you have to create a backup. There is a simple way to do this with windows if you don’t want to buy anything additional. You could create a backup of everything with windows archive and burn the file to a DVD. Of course software alternatives will make it easier to update files in the backup set as they change and reduce the time you have to actually spend manually doing the work.

Some of the applications that can make this easier are Genie Backup Manager and Acronis True Image Home. Both of these programs offer simple to use formats, and allow you to pick and choose what files and folders you can to backup. You only need to do this once and the software will automatically remember to keep all new files in your backup set in those folders.

The key here is don’t get to weighted down in fancy features. All this does is slow you down and often you won’t complete your backup because of all the options.



Consider Doing it All Online

A great alternative to buying some type of media for computer backup storage and software to go with it are online backup services. These companies provide storage space for files online so it’s off site and secure. A simple software application that is downloaded to your PC handles the process of uploading the files you want backed up and restoring the files is easy as pie.

If you take one thing away form this article the thing to remember is that you must take action. Not backing up your files today leaves one more day for something to crash and you lose all of your important photos, videos, music and more.

There’s never been a better moment then this one to get started with computer backup storage. Just remember keep it simple and take action, because after you have a PC crash it’s to late.



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John Deprice asked:


You know that you should back your data up. But you still don’t because you don’t know what to get. Here is the overview of four budget backup solutions that I’ve personally used and can vouch for.

Acronis True Image 8.0 (Acronis)

Acronis True Image allows you to create an exact disk image for complete system backup and disk cloning providing the most comprehensive data protection. The disk backup file contains the exact copy of a hard disk, including all the computer data, operating system, and programs. After a system crash you can restore the entire system or simply replace lost files and folders from your disk backup, so you don’t need to reinstall Windows. Acronis True Image 8.0 is quite speedy, creating an image of a 46 gig partition in approximately 8 minutes with little compression. Restoring a complete image can be a lot longer than creating one, but with the built in Rescue Media Builder, its as easy as booting from that CD, telling it where the image is, and what partition to restore it to. You can wander off for dinner or TV and reboot your computer to the image you have saved, ready to go in roughly 30 minutes for an 80 gig drive. The time to save and restore images is hard to estimate here because larger partitions and more compression takes longer then a smaller partition and no compression.

Genie Backup Manager Professional (Genie Soft)

Genie Backup Manager Professional is a very easy to use yet powerful and flexible software that can backup and restore files, documents, emails, settings, programs and more to virtually any local or remote device including internal and external hard disks, FTP locations, across network, CD/DVD discs, removable media, memory sticks, and tapes. GBM Pro is perfect for users of all computer comfort levels. Novice users will find it easy to create their first backup job in matter of minutes after installing the software, thanks to its intuitive wizard-based user interface, while advanced users will appreciate the software’s extended flexibility and features such as preserving NTFS Alternative Data Streams, Email notification, Self executable backup sets, and scripting capabilities (GRunScript and GenieScript).

HandyBackup (Novosoft)

HandyBackup is so easy, you might actually find yourself backing data up. HandyBackup is designed for an automatic backup of your critical data virtually to any type of storage media including CD-RW devices and remote FTP servers. You can use HandyBackup to make a reserve copy of any valuable data on your system. Special addons are provided to facilitate the backup of MS Outlook, system registry and ICQ files. Restoring is as easy as clicking a button, but you can also use a number of advanced options. The program can be also used to synchronize files between two computers on a network.

HandyBackup is designed for MS Windows 9x/NT/2000/ME/XP. Strong file encryption and multi-choice zip compression on the fly, as well as many other useful features, will protect your valuable data. All backup activities are recorded in a log file. Detailed online help is available, which is always nice.

Backup4All (Softland)

The software performs all four fundamental backup types: full backup, differential backup, incremental backup and mirror backup. Using the wizard you can easily set up any backup configuration you wish. You can define powerful file filters and schedule your backups any way you want. Once a backup is performed, you can see what files have been changed since the last backup using the explorer-like tree view or you can read the statistics about the next backup execution. You can use the context menu from the tree to run standard actions associated with the file type. I now use Backup4all to do my day-to-day backup, and I recommend it for those who want a more automated solution. It uses its own file catalog to keep track of what’s been backed up and when. That’s the only completely reliable way to do it — you can sometimes miss files with other methods.

Another safety feature – all files and subfolders are included unless you expressly exclude them (by unchecking). This means that if new files or subfolders are added to a folder, the next backup will pick them up as well. Not all backup programs work this way. Once in a while you may not want to back up a file that has been added to a folder, and if you forget to exclude it, it will be backed up anyway. Better to have backed up and not meant to, than not to have backed up at all.

Download Links

Acronis http://www.deprice.com/acronistrueimage.htm

GBM Pro http://www.deprice.com/geniebackupmanagerprofessional.htm

HandyBackup http://www.deprice.com/handybackup.htm

Backup4All http://www.deprice.com/backup4all.ht



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