Sarasota PC Monitor
Backup MYPC
A Software Review
by Herb Goldstein
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.The problem with making backups is that most people fail to comprehend its importance until it's too late. A computer was designed to create and store information. Unless you can afford to lose all the information and whatever else you have created and stored on yours, backups are a priority fact of computer life. I don't know of many computer owners who, over the period of time, have not suffered some electronic disaster or other that compromised the contents of their hard drive. If it hasn't happened to you, rest assured, it will. If it has, you don't need to be convinced about the importance of backing up your data.
Considering the size of today's hard drives, a good backup bet is an additional hard drive of the same capacity as the primary in the same computer. In this case, Drive Image from Powerquest is your best and probably your only bet in this instance. However, cautious computerists will opt for removable media as either the prime or secondary backup location. In addition, many users prefer to backup their data only, thereby reducing the size of the backup to where it will readily fit on removable media thereby eliminating the need for a second hard drive.
You can use a number of different devices with removable storage media for your backup. Tape is the preferred choice among many experienced users. Zip drives, Jaz drives, and more currently, CD-RW also play a role today. Regardless of your choice, you are going to need a good backup program to transfer the full or partial contents of your hard drive on to your selected removable storage media. If you want the recognizedly best, most efficient, competent, and easy to use backup software for your desktop computer operating in Windows 95, 98, or NT, look no further. It's BackUp MyPc from Stomp.
If the software publisher's name sounds familiar, you're right. Stomp has been featured as the publisher of the sensational program, Click N'Burn, the application that quickly and very easily burns CDRW's. When you install and run BackUp MyPc you will immediately notice it is very familiar, and well it should be. BackUp MyPc was recently acquired from it's original publisher, Veritas Software, under whose name the product was marketed as Back Exec, Desktop Edition. Stomp is now the marketing partner for Veritas and their BackUp MyPc will continue the line from this point on. Little has changed from Veritas' last edition of Backup Exec other than that it is now fully compatible with Windows XP. In addition, some internal change within the software's architecture makes it run very considerably faster.
A prime feature of BackUp MyPc is an automatic configuration that recognizes most tape, Zip, CD-RW, DVD-RAM and similar devices on your computer, and allows you to select your choice on which to make your backup. In the earliest days of Backup Exec, configuring the program to work with your tape drive was a job and a half. Fortunately, those days are gone forever. When you start BackUp MyPc, your devices will be listed in a small window present in your opening program screen. Here are some of the program's great features:
- An automatic backup feature installs itself with the program. Additionally, an AutoProtect feature will automatically decide whether to perform a differential or full backup, based on the time and nature of the most recent backup.
- BackUp MyPc gives you a choice of devices on which to backup your drive. The good news is that you can back up to a CD-RW , or Zip Drive as well as a tape drive. The bad news is that if you elect to backup to anything other than tape, you are for the most part wasting your time. A Zip Drive is way too small to backup an entire drive. A CD-RW is also too small and needs to be erased before each backup, making your backup time twice as long. Backing up to a device of limited storage capacity is OK if you are backing up only data files whose total capacity will fit. Of course, if you back up only your data files, you will need to reinstall and reconfigure all your programs in the event of disaster. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?
3. An excellent manual is provided with the program. A rare feature these days!
4. Tech support is available by phone and at stmpinc.com.
5. For emergencies, BackUp MyPc contains a Disaster Recovery feature that will rebuild your system from a boot disk, tape or CD along with your latest backup. This will work, even if your operating system is down. This is predicated on your having used media on which you backed sufficient information to restore at least the basics, if not the complete drive.
6. The program itself and the basic screen presentations are identical to previous versions That's good because the presentation in the former Backup Exec has always been honest, straightforward, intuitive, and extremely easy to use.
7. You can readily find any individual backed-up file(s) to restore by using BackUp MyPc's Rapid File Find feature.
8. Network users will enjoy the capability of data backups across a network. Peer to peer network data protection permits you to see all network drives in your backup window and readily select data for backup across your network.
9. Your registry and configuration files will be backed up by default, a crucial protection feature.
10. A One Button Backup and Restore feature allows you to launch a pre-configured setup of either with a single click.
11. You can at your selection perform full, incremental or differential backups.
12. Where more than one disk or CD is required, the program will perform media/disk spanning.
13. You can choose to compress your backup, thereby saving space on the backup media.
14. You can manage multiple backup jobs automatically.
15. The emergency CD that the program can create for you is bootable.
Our advise? Backup Exec, now BackUp MyPc, has always been and continues to be the industry standard and is simply the best backup utility around. It has our most enthusiastic recommendation! It sells for $79, or $69 if you download it directly from the stompinc.com Website. :
Copyright 2002. This article is from the April 2002 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/
The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,300+ members and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are members of the America Online Ambassador Program.
See http://www.spcug.org for all reviews from the Sarasota PC Monitor, go to the Newsletter Section.