Backup Now, Recover Later

"If you don't backup now, you'll regret later." This is not advertising; it's reality, and most of us get to know how much truth it contains when an irrecoverable data loss happens. Since none of us wants such an event to occur, some precaution measures must be taken...

Today's backup tool is called Cobian Backup, and its latest version is 8.2.0.171. The setup package has 7.9MB in size and installing this program is really easy, and the best part is that you don't have to pay anything for it, leaving us with only two things to do: check the interface and features, as usual.

Despite all my expectations, this freeware program looks good. In fact, it looks very good, its interface is well organized and you shouldn't have any special problems while using it, even if this is your first backup tool ever. The main window contains the menu bar, the toolbar, the backup tasks pane and the work area.

The best thing to do next to discover this program's features is to configure a new backup task, because this is the only thing you'll do with this program - backup your data - although I wouldn't be really surprised to see in the near future backup programs that can also download torrent files, browse the Internet and defragment your files… but let's get back to our subject now!

Before creating a new backup task, you should think about the list. A backup list contains one or more tasks and can be saved and imported as needed. All the list related tasks are available inside the List menu, but let's move to the Task menu and create a new backup task, shall we?

The New Task command can be started from the Task menu or using the Ctrl+A keyboard shortcut, but if you want a different way to do it, there's also a toolbar button for this purpose. The Properties window of the backup task you are creating has seven areas, and this is what we're going to explore next...

The General settings require you to enter the task's name, backup type to perform and other options. Next, the Files area is used to choose the source and destination for the backup, and despite the fact that you won't be able to backup your data to any optical drive, secure FTP locations or network drives can be easily used as backup locations.

A backup program without a scheduling feature is like a hammer without tail, but this time, things look great, since the Schedule area takes care of this problem.

The archive types supported are ZIP and SQX, with encryption methods going up to 256bit RSA-Rijndael and giving you the chance to use public encryption keys that can be generated with the Decryptor and Keys tool that's part of this program. If you worry about size, stay calm - ZIP files over 2GB in size are supported without problems!

Leaving the Archive area behind, we move on to the Special one. Here, you can set file inclusion and exclusion filters, and nothing more, while the next area – Events - allows you to choose certain events to happen before and after the backup, such as running programs or starting system services.

The Advanced area lets you choose to run the backup task as some other user, and I don't have to tell you how this can be useful, since we all know how hard it is to perform certain tasks without full administrative rights...

The options of this program are excellent, and let you choose to email the log files, limit FTP transfer speed, protect the user interface with a password and set advanced archiving options. Unbelievable, but you get all this for free!

The Good

Cobian Backup is a good backup solution that's easy to use, reliable, has a good looking interface and a rich amount of features, but best of all, it's free!

The Bad

In the future, I would like to have the chance to backup my data to CD/DVD drives and maybe the ability to create bootable recovery disc sets.

The Truth

Backup programs usually come for money, and good backup programs always come for a price, but this time it seems I was wrong. Cobian Backup is a very good backup tool that comes for free, and there can be only one choice: get it and try it for yourselves as soon as possible!

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: