Backup your Data

American Eagle Outfitters learns a painful service provider lesson

2010-08-30T23:09:00.000-07:00

By Lucas Mearian at Computerworld
Aug 30

As American Eagle Outfitters learned in July, even if you do everything right to ensure you have disaster recovery and business continuity plans in place, Murphy's Law sometimes takes over. And problems can be compounded if you rely on an outsourcer for disaster recovery services.

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Backup to DVD

2009-08-04T04:13:00.000-07:00

Backup to DVD is very popular backup method. It’s main advantage that it’s rather simple for any user. DVD discs are rather reliable and could contain a lot of information. Most of people prefer backup to DVD because it’s easy transportable way of backup. You can use DVD for regular backup and for hard disk backup also. Very popular backup to DVD software contain built-in DVD burning tools as far as automatic disc erasing.

FTP Backup for the Smart

2009-06-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

FTP backup gets necessary when it comes to backup data on out-of-location remote server. If ordinary external HDD or DVD cannot fit all the needs of backup then FTP backup will be the right solution. If you are searching FTP backup software which doesn’t get you to jump through to many hoops here is the best solution.

Smart Backup is an inexpensive high-speed FTP backup tool for Windows 2000/XP/Vista offering local drive and network storage features. Data already present in backup volume without any changes will not be copied once more. This ability increases backup velocity mainly in the case when backups are done on regular basis. Just choose a file or directory to backup by marking it for backup in Explorer context menu. No need to open Smart Backup.

FTP backup ability should be used to make backup exactly to the FTP server in remote geographical location. Smart Backup provides a full-featured scheduler to plan a backup job and make a schedule to automatically refresh backup every day, every week, or as well in any selected period of time. Search function designed carefully to easily find any file or directory on HDD local drives. Backup software also includes options to select files to backup, so just select FTP as your backup destination and it will safeguard your data perfectly.

Zip backup - Argentum Backup

2009-04-30T00:07:00.000-07:00

Argentum Backup is a small and handy backup tool that lets you forge zip backups of your folders and documents with ease. Zip backups performed by Argentum Backup protect your valuable information from malware and viruses, hardware malfunction, accidental overwrites or deletes of the data. Zip backup is a very convenient backup method as zip archives can be easily shared on any computers running different operating systems. Argentum Backup performs zip backup both by schedule automatically and manually on demand.

The application features multiple templates for auto backup of the Windows registry, the desktop folder, Outlook data, and instant messenger: ICQ, AOL etc, of course, including simple files backup. Argentum Backup is the best option for auto folders and files backups: simply set it up during the initial start and let Argentum Backup handle all the backup activity. After you have specified up a backup schedule, there is a backup copy of your information always ready.
Иoth beginners and advanced users are likely to find Argentum Backup as a very useful and easy-to-use piece of software. Its pro options include different backup methods, file masking, powerful stacking, effective AES-256 symmetric encryption, etc. The stacking option lets you to save a number of backed up data copies and control earlier versions of your files.

Argentum Backup is fast as it requires only little system resources. The program has received many awards, including PC World Best Buy and PC Magazine Editors' Choice award.

Backup to HDD - Drive Backup Personal

2009-03-30T03:57:00.000-07:00

Paragon's Drive Backup Personal backup utility that supports backup to HDD is still a head behind in the number of its features than its competitor Handy Backup, but after all not everybody needs the missing options. The ability to backup to hd and restore individual folders and files together with imaging partitions and drives nearly equals Handy Backup and Paragon. If only Paragon’s restore feature were a little bit friendlier, you could throw out “nearly”.

Paragon Drive Backup seem to simplify selecting separate files and folders to backup to HDD a great deal, but at the same time restoring them is much more time consuming. When you browse, instead of a separate window with the list of the backed up files, you have to navigate a tree in the same browser you used to select the archive. This approach becomes practically manageable in case you're restoring from a long-path network location. Still another, more serious issue is that users can restore files only to their initial location. This becomes troublesome if you need to recover an older file version and at the same time not to overwrite the newer files.

One of the most prominent options in Paragon Drive Backup Personal is its ability to span the backed up data on its own when you perform a backup to HDD. The tool also supports backup to flash drives apart from backup to HDD. Thumb USB drives boot much faster, given a PC supports this option and boots from a thumb drive. Otherwise backup to hard disk may turn out a smarter decision.

Backup to HD: East-Tec Backup 2009

2009-02-27T03:27:00.000-08:00

In this article we will describe great quality product by EAST Technologies – East-Tec Backup 2009. It offers wide list of supported storage media, but we will mainly look at the product as backup to HD solution. However, it is also possible to back up to CD, DVD, FireWire, USB, remote locations and many other destinations.

When it comes to backup sources, East-Tec Backup allows backup of files and folders with availability to include or exclude specific file types, backup of Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora and some other widespread e-mail clients, backup of settings and bookmarks from popular web browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera), backup of Windows registry, etc. Your backup to HD can be done in fully automatic mode without any intervention if you set up a flexible scheduler, which also can execute commands and applications before or after running backup tasks. User-friendly wizards and interface will help you set up your backup to harddrive process. Strong encryption will protect your copies, while ZIP compression will save your storage capacity.

The main disadvantages of the program include the absence of some features like hard drive image backup and ODBC databases backup. Of course, these features are not needed by lots of users who want to back up their important data, but their absence can be considered a disadvantage for some. The program costs $39.95, but you will probably overpay for wide list of features if you only need to use simple backup to hdd. The program performs very well as a complex backup solution, which includes performing backup to HD.

HDD backup with Active Backup Expert

2009-02-27T03:23:00.000-08:00

Active Backup Expert is a program which is the most efficiently used as a backup to HD utility. The feature that will probably help you with this routine is a friendly filter, which lets you easily include or exclude files of specific types. For example, the folder may contain many different types of files, while you need to back up only photos. In this case, the filter will allow you to easily find and select them. Another helpful feature for backup to HD is the backup screen, which shows all your previous backups and their exact location.

The program supports full, incremental and differential backups, but, unfortunately, there is no hard drive image backup. What we also didn’t like is that there is no support of registry backup, address book backup, favorites backup and email backup.

Instead of showing reports on complete backups, Active Backup Expert allows saving your own comments on each backup job, which can be considered as advantage or disadvantage by different kinds of users. The program keeps a log of backup warnings, but you may spend some time searching for it.

All things considered, interface and the whole program is usable for backup to hard drive, but requires some time for adjusting.

If your primary requirement is backing up files and folders and you are looking for a simple backup to HD solution, Active Backup Expert may be your choice. The program is not expensive and offers all the needed features for backup to hard drive and some unique ones in addition.

Backup to DVD with CopyToDVD software

2009-02-02T03:12:00.000-08:00

This article will review the software tool called CopyToDVD, which wasn’t primarily designed for backup, but can be used for uncomplicated backup to DVD. The interface of the program is easily understandable and doesn’t require much time to find the needed buttons and menus. You can start doing backup to DVD either from the Windows Shell, or from the application menu. The program can burn whatever you want: files, pictures, music.

Developers can use CopyToDVD to add a burning feature to their applications. All DVD burners are supported by the program, letting you back up to DVD+R, backup files to DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD+RW. Moreover, your data can be burned to Blu-Ray. Of course, burning CD’s is also supported by CopyToDVD. The software tool is well-integrated into Desktop (XP Autoplay) and runs under Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows Me, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP and both 32 bit and 64 bit Windows Vista. It’s also possible to create .iso file and hear prompt voice at the task completions.

As CopyToDVD wasn’t primarily designed for backup purposes it lacks some very useful backup features. There is, for example, no option of automatic search of backup sources (Outlook data, Windows registry, etc.) and no possibility of setting up the backup schedule. But if you need a software utility to periodically perform manual backup to DVD, CopyToDVD can be a very good choice.