Automatic and scheduled backups with Backup Platinum – hot or not?
Everyone has important, sensitive or otherwise ‘not to be deleted’ data on their PC. Of course, we all know we should make backups, as computers, with hard drives and Windows in particular, tend to corrupt or crash and take your data with them. Making backups is a totally different point though; nearly everyone knows they should but I only know very few people who actually make those backups and store them in a safe way – and I’m not one of them.
As the title of this article already suggests; I’ll be mainly looking at Backup Platinum, a software package that is manufactured by SoftLogica and is yet relatively unknown, a point they’re currently improving using the sponsored blogging website ‘SponsoredReviews’. Even though this review is sponsored, no questions about my opinion are asked so I’ll do my best to deliver my ideas unbiased and to the point.
I know first hand that repeating the process of making backups is usually annoying, time consuming and sometimes even difficult. Take for example the build-in backup wizard of Windows; it’ll allow you to copy files or folders from one location to another in a special (unusable) format by following a wizard. Using your task scheduler you can somewhat automate it, as long as you don’t forget to turn on the PC and logon at those moments.
This kind of automation is one of the strongest points of Backup Platinum; scheduled tasks can be added without trouble, making sure you wont be able to forget the backup jobs.When you’ve installed the program you’ll be taken to the main screen, which will show you a whole lot of controls and allows you to set new backup tasks. While the main screen might look complicated to some users, it’s actually relatively easy; you can simply ignore the big log window and buttons you don’t understand at first, all you need is the big ‘New Item’ button together with the ‘Backup’ button.
When adding a new item, you are first presented whether you’d like to synchronize or backup data, allowing you to sync your laptop with your desktop when plugging it in at home when you’re back without having to worry – an alternative to ‘real’ backups. When I picked the backup setting, I was impressed by the amount of options to choose as backup source: Several often used and important sections include the registry, my documents, favorites, e-mails and even Windows settings, it’s almost surprising you can also manually select files and folders to backup.
After you’ve checked your backup sources another strong point of Backup Platinum comes forward; the many types of destinations to save your backup. Options include of course locally saving the data (not recommended), sending them to a shared drive on your network, an FTP server (of i.e. your hosting company) or simply burning them to a CD or DVD. As you can see on the screen shot above, it’s even possible to pick an alternative destination, in case of failure – or simply to have multiple copies. These options make the backup process pretty reliable.
Later in the wizard two other useful options come forward; compression, encryption and automation. In the wizard multiple compression and encryption options are available, you can either zip all files individually, together and combined with blowfish compression – or not. I’d personally recommend encryption when you’re sending the data over FTP as this traffic is ‘plain’ and could easily be tracked, potentially revealing your data.
Personally I think Backup Platinum is just as close as it gets to being the ideal backup solution: it’s feature rich, can be ran automated and does its job fast, very fast. However, I do think there are a couple of points that could be improved or added:
- A simple mode for less experienced users or first time users – right now the application might scare newbies.
- More explanations (using mouse hovers or descriptions) on the more advanced options in the wizards, this will make the application easier to use in its full extend.
- One on one copy mode; right now it’s not possible to make a backup for the boot sectors of your hard drive, which does could turn out handy in case of software problems.
Besides those points I haven’t got any complaints about the software, everything seems to work as it should and just as fast as it should; a perfect combination. I’d be more than glad to use and recommend this application for the upcoming years, especially if I’m provided with a full serial (winks at SoftLogica) and else I’ll surely considering to get a license after the 30-day trial period; no more Norton Ghost for me.
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