EaseUS Todo Backup Home Review

Following the lucky streak of recently reviewed O&O DiskImage Professional, EaseUS Todo Backup Home is put in the spotlight, now at its 6.1 revision.

Designed for home users, this disk imaging application contains a rich set of features dedicated to guaranteeing data security, including incremental and differential backups. These result in PBD images, while drive cloning merely creates a duplicate of the source.

Pricing, installation and interface

The trial edition of EaseUS Todo Backup Home runs for 15 days and disables the snapshot feature, after which users may purchase the full version for $29/€24. Installation is quickly done and requires a default directory for saving backup images.

The primary application window has all main features neatly displayed on the left side and upper part of the screen: "Backup," "Recovery," "Clone," "Tools," "Home," "Management," "Logs," and "Snapshot." The first component handles disks and partitions, system files (necessary for Windows to run), files, and emails via Microsoft Outlook.

Creating a disk/partition backup

The disk and all belonging partitions are graphically represented in a list, along with details like file system type, drive letter and total size. Selecting one or more partitions (or entire disk) for backup triggers EaseUS to automatically calculate the new size needed in the saving directory. Sector-by-sector backup includes blank sectors as well, in order to create an image as close to the original as possible.

As far as backup options are concerned, compression mode can be disabled or selected between normal, medium and high, in order to reduce image size. Plus, when sharing the PC with multiple users, it is advisable to protect the image with a password, courtesy of EaseUS.

Large image files can be automatically or manually split into smaller pieces, while the CPU priority can be adjusted to allocate more resources to EaseUS or other applications. Additionally, email notifications may be scheduled on task completion and/or failure, while FTP properties can be edited for saving images to another host.

Advanced users have the possibility of setting command lines for execution before and after the backup operation, as well as limiting the write speed. Settings can be restored to their default values on the current or all pages.

The program is able to preserve a limited number of image files or everything for a limited time, depending on the user's preferences. Moreover, tasks can be scheduled on a one-time or recurring basis, or at an event's execution (system startup or shutdown, user logon or logoff). Administrative privileges are mandatory.

During a backup job, EaseUS shows a progress bar, elapsed and estimated remaining time, along with log details such as task name, start time, compression level, and backup content. Plus, the computer can be scheduled for shutdown right after the operation is done.

Both successful and failed backup tasks are added to the "Management" section where they can be re-run in full, incremental or differential backup mode. Before doing so, their plans may be edited, while images can be verified for errors or mounted on a virtual drive.

Backup activities are recorded to the "Logs" area, where it is possible to view their execution time and result, plan name, operation type, error code (if any), computer ID, and descriptions. A search function is provided, while logs can be filtered by start and finish time. The entire list can be exported to a TXT or XLS file for closer inspection.

Creating a system, file and mail backup

The only difference between a system backup and a regular drive/partition backup is that, in the first one EaseUS automatically selects the drives needed by Windows to run. In case of folders, a tree view is provided to easily select multiple directories for the job. Microsoft Office 2003/2007/2010 and Outlook Express are supported for mail backups.

Measuring performance