My Favorite Backup Utility (It's Free!)
Fri May 5, 2006 12:02PM EDT
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I'm on a bit of a backup kick this week, so I want to wrap it up with a testimonial for Cobian Backup, an excellent backup utility that is completely free: No registration, no advertisements, no crippled features, no nagging, no begging for donations (though they are, of course, accepted).
Cobian succeeds where most other backup programs fail because of one key feature: Simplicity. I can't count the number of times I've seen people diligently install backup software on their machines... and then never use it all because it's too complex. I can't blame them. Most backup software seems to be targeted at enterprise IT people instead of average users who simply want to set the program to back up their files and forget about it.
Cobian is named after its developer, Luis Cobian, who proves that a single programmer can succeed where a big company fails miserably. Cobian also promises a new version of the software for release this summer. Called Black Moon, it looks even better than the current one.
But hey, I'm open for other suggestions: Got a backup utility you swear by? Tell everyone about it in the comments!
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2 Posted by seamusfurr on Tue May 16, 2006 8:44AM EDT Report Abuse
Agreed. Please stop writing articles that only 95% of readers will find useful.
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3 Posted by dmg122884 on Sun May 21, 2006 11:28PM EDT Report Abuse
I use SyncBack. It is a little more complex than some others I have tried, but it has excellent features, and it is free.
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4 Posted by bok2762 on Mon Jan 1, 2007 2:33PM EST Report Abuse
Windows comes with its own backup software already built into the OS.
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5 Posted by acclfw on Mon Jan 1, 2007 4:17PM EST Report Abuse
I prefer tar & gzip myself. Free, simple, easy to use & I can automate it with cron & perform incremental backups as I desire. No spam, no registration, nada! It'll even backup across platforms, I can access my mac & pc files and back them up too via the network. Oh, wait, I'm probably in that Enterprise IT category. Silly me! The problem with backups for home users is a mix of complexity and time. It takes time for that backup to occur. Many people turn their PC, Mac, or other system off when done with it so it must backup while in use. Frankly having my PC backup while I'm doing something slows me down so backups get disabled. The one touch button backup on an external hard drive is a good idea but would be better if the external hard drive could access my files without impacting me and what I'm doing. The problem there is that software is needed to tell it what files to backup, again impacting me or what I'm doing. Therefore backups become inconvenient until we need them. For me I run a raid-5 NAS and store my important files and data there. If a drive fails I simply replace it with no data lost. Its not a perfect solution, it has its limitations like anything else but it works well for me. Again, I'm sort of in that enterprise IT/Geek area.
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1 Posted by jamie_sofla on Tue May 16, 2006 8:44AM EDT Report Abuse
It would be nice if "PC backup" was specified in the story. The assumption that everyone uses a PC is somewhat offensive to me. SuperDuper (shirt-pocket.com) is an excellent Mac backup solution.