14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday, we had a new firewall here, but despite its obvious strong points, quality and customization possibilities, I don't have it on my computer yet. The other program family that waits at my door for being received is the one full of system backup utilities, so, today I am going to have one here for dissection.
Backup-2006 Studio is my choice today, and what I have here is a 30 days trial of its latest version labeled 5.1.4.215. The installation kit has 14.3MB in size and the setup process is not hard to follow. Now, let's see what can be done with this program and what you should expect to see.
There are three major tasks to perform with Backup-2006 Studio: data backup, folder, hard disks and network disks synchronization and disk imaging. You have three choices available when it comes to the program's interface layout - beginner, standard and expert. The beginner mode comes as an easy to use wizard that helps you create a new backup set, the standard one gives you some control and lets the wizard rest, while the expert mode gives you the ultimate power.
This main interface of the program is skinnable, good looking an easy to use. Its elements are the standard toolbar, menu bar, a tree view that shows all your backup sets and an area showing details about the last backup performed.
If you're a beginner, the best way to backup your files is to ensure you have selected the beginner mode in the Mode submenu, inside the View menu. After this check, click the New Backup Set button from the toolbar and you're on the right path!
Now, all you have to do is follow the wizard's steps - name your backup set, choose the items to backup, the destination (if you want to use a FTP server, then you'll have to select the standard view mode), the schedule settings, if you want to schedule this backup task for a later time or have it run on a regular basis, and it's done! Just press the OK button from the last screen, and you're ready to perform your first backup.
At last, select the set you have just created from the tree view and press the Backup button from the toolbar! When the task is complete, you can view the detailed results of everything that happened.
This is a basic backup procedure, but you can go much further than I have shown you so far. I'll leave the advanced backup stuff for you to discover and move to the synchronization feature.
The Synchronizer tool has a slightly different interface, but things are very clear here. You have three areas - Source, Target and You Get..., with the last one showing you the changes that will be performed once you have selected a source and a destination. There are three synchronization methods available (Source-Target, Source-Target-Source and Clone), and a lot of available options, like CRC-based comparison, versioning, compression, encryption and many more.
At last, we have the Disk Image tool, one that can be extremely useful for most of us. This one is very easy to use, and the main operations available are disk imaging, partition cloning and creation of emergency boot floppies (this was good some years ago, now a bootable CD/USB stick option would be much more useful). The images can be compressed using PPM, Zlib or Bzip algorithms, helping you to save space and stay safe at the same time. The images can be split into pieces to fit 650 or 700MB CDs or standard DVDs.
This is Backup-2006 Studio at first glance, and I am sure there's a lot more to discover, so all I can do is schedule some time for digging deeper into this program as soon as I can, because I think this is getting closer to what I am looking for, and I advise you to do the same. Now, let's check the conclusions!
The Good
This program can backup anything to anything, since it can even save files in use such as Windows system files and databases, and the destinations cover everything you can think of - network locations, optical discs or your own hard drive. The interface is very good and well organized, highly customizable, the documentation is comprehensive and everything comes for a very good price.
The Bad
The three distinct tools of this program have different interfaces, and this shouldn't happen, in my opinion. After all, Backup-2006 Studio can even be considered a backup suite, and from what I've seen so far, the best way to design the interfaces of a suite's components is to follow the same line. I also had some minor errors while using the program, but none that I was able to reproduce, so I can't tell if it was the program's fault or just my bad luck...
The Truth
I know it can get better than this, but I must say that Backup-2006 Studio surprised me with its excellent features, flexibility and price: only 55$! You have 30 days to decide if this program is worth your money, so start to backup your data NOW!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
