14 DAY TRIAL // Backing up your data used to be a tedious, time consuming job. But updating the backup files was worse as you had to start the job from square one. Nowadays, the Internet is flooded with all sort of software promising an easy and fast backup. The price is in total agreement with the importance of the job.
From the myriad of applications designed to create backups of your data few of them truly deserve your attention. And the difference is made by the small, apparently insignificant details appended to the application.
Genie Soft's specialization is providing the best solutions for creating backups and safekeeping them. The home edition of their backup manager comes at a $49.95 price and with a 15 days trial period. During the evaluation, you can fully test the application to its inmost corners with almost no restriction.
The interface is nice and easy and handling it proved to be a walk in the park. There are no X factors to be searched on the Internet for their functionality and the built-in backup and restore wizards come to the aid of a perfect newbie.
The main options of the application are displayed at the "front desk" of the main application window and the preferences for configuring the software and creating a quick backup are in the shadow of the left hand panel. There are two modes available from the beginning: "easy" and "normal". I took the hard way just to see which are the additional options at my disposal.
The difference between the two is that "easy mode" assists you only in creating a backup, restoring a backup and scheduling it. It is complete with all the options from the "normal mode" but the additional options are no longer available in the side panel menu, but in the menu bar. Switching from one mode to another is made by clicking on the lower right side or left side corner, respectively.
The backup options are quite varied in this version, just as in the professional edition. The locations to save the backup include the local computer or a LAN residence, removable disks, a remote location via FTP, CD/DVD media or an online location on the publisher's servers. The professional version also included a tape device, but for home use these are the most appropriate.
The items that can be backed up include the user profile with all the data (email in Outlook 2000 to 2007, Windows Mail, Desktop, My Documents, Registry, Windows Settings, IE, contacts etc.), folders on the local disk(s) and on the computers in the network and even the plugins to some of the softwares installed on your computer. Genie will detect the ones available on your system. However, newer versions may not be supported (like the latest Opera version).
The publisher's website makes available for you a series of plugins for different day-to-day applications like Firefox, Nero (though the version available is 6), Opera, E-mule etc. These plugins can be downloaded for free and are installed automatically. The settings for the backup can be made in one of the final steps of the wizard. The list of options available in this section comprises the type of backup (normal or incremental), compression level to be used in order to save some space, security settings (ZIP password protection or AES-128bit encryption) or make a self-restorable backup (can be restored even if Genie backup is not present on the target machine). For incremental backups you can limit the number of increments to a maximum number of thirty.
Scheduling a job to start at a certain time on a certain day of the week or month is a cinch. Genie Backup Manager's scheduling function is wizard-like and will guide you through the entire process. The buttons at the bottom of the window (Backup Type and Advanced Options) will cover all your needs by letting you select the type of the task (normal, incremental, mirror or default), select one of the power saving options, verify the backup after the process is complete and they also sport power management options for laptops.
Backup restoring job is not as complicated as described before as there are few settings to be made in this case. By default, the application will restore the files to the original location. However, the user can choose an alternate location for the files. The wizard you got accustomed to while creating the backup file is available here, too, so there will be no trouble to the task at all.
Regarding the software configuration settings, Genie is quite rich in options and functions. The user can change the sounds played when different actions are complete, set the default backup folder, make the appropriate settings for CD/DVD burning (enabling Joliet file system, caching disk image before burning, finalize disc, enable "burn proof" technology, eject disc etc.), set the cache size for the online backup, cataloging, make the e-mail notification settings etc.
Just like the professional edition of the application, Home Edition of the software comes with a small but useful utility called File Access Manager. This tool makes possible backing up the open files. For using this instrument, you will have to download it from the publisher. From the specs of the publisher it seems that this utility is not supported by Vista platform.
The Good
Genie Backup Manager, be it the Home Edition, did not fail in its endeavor of creating healthy backups of my files. The burning engine worked fine and wrote the backup file to DVD as specified by the publisher.
The scheduling function and the various types of backups available make this tool a must for every home user. Additionally, it is now Vista compatible and is able to backup Outlook 2007 and Windows Mail.
The Bad
The price is one aspect I wouldn't overlook. Indeed, there are many useful options available, but let's not forget that competition in this field is fierce and most of these options you will not use on a regular basis.
The security of the backup is limited to ZIP password and AES-128 bit encrypted countersign. Some users may require more than this.
Compared to what there is today on the market regarding to file backup, Genie backup Manager takes a tad more to complete the job.
The Truth
The fifteen days for trying the application are more than enough to test it and decide upon buying it. The backup options are amazing and you can practically backup everything from every location (LAN or local) and restore it to virtually any place.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
