I normally don’t use backup software even though I am supposed to. That is why I recently bought a new 320GB hard disk and to save space on it, I will compress the data coming from my laptop. The software that I will use is Backup Platinum, a new backup solution for Windows XP.
At $67 per license, it’s certainly going to cost you a bit more than XP’s built in backup solution or other free solutions, however in my testing I found it to be an extremely easy to use solution with quite a bit of flexibility.
The entire product weighs in at just under 3MB in size, which made downloading it from their site easy.selection.jpg From initiating the download of their 30 day trial to executing my first backup took me just under 10 minutes.
On installing Backup Platinum, you’re first greeted with a wizard to create a New Item. This is the backup set you want to create. You can use the wizard to either create a new backup job, or set up files to synchronize (i.e. copy) from one machine to another.
You can choose to backup individual files, registry keys, folders or a number of other items such as Explorer Favorites, Windows Settings, Modem settings or more. In many of these options you can use Shift-Click or Alt-Click to select multiple objects. For some reason you cannot do this with registry keys, which was a minor annoyance.
You can choose to store your backup files locally, ship them off via FTP or write them to a CD or DVD. In my test, I backed up the registry and the Windows directory on a fresh XP install and burned it to DVD. I also chose to encrypt and zip the files to save space and give them some protection via Bluefish encryption.
The restore was as simple as the backup. I inserted the DVD, and clicked on the icon named Test1 (that’s what I had called my backup job). I was automatically directed to choose whether I wanted to restore11restore.JPG these files to their original location or choose another location. I chose to restore them to a folder on my C: drive. I then entered my password (remember, I encrypted them) and the restore began. Restoring the data took significantly longer (just about an hour) but executed flawlessly.
Conclusion: While the pros will have much more sophisticated tools at their disposal, Backup Platinum is a good choice for the SOHO user. It’s speedy, relatively inexpensive, fully featured and easy to use. If you don’t have a technical support person keeping your computer backed up on a regular basis, I can recommend you use Backup Platinum over the built in backup utility in XP.
