CyberLink's PowerBackup utility gets two thumbs up!
Written: Oct 19 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Flexible backup utility for individual files to almost any type of media.
Cons: No Linux or Mac support at this time.
The Bottom Line: This program is a great solution for backing up files on a Windows partition. The scheduling utility and restore work seamlessly.
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| ivplay's Full Review: CyberLink PowerBackup for PC |
I have been working hard to get my system backup plan in place for quite a while now, as I am afraid of hard drive failures and loss of data. I understand that sooner or later every drive will fail, regardless of manufacturer. Granted, I feel strongly about certain manufacturers over others, but I still understand that given time, they will fail. I began using Norton's Ghost for backing up images of my system once I bought Norton SystemWorks Professional 2004. After that, I noticed a rebate situation by which I could acquire PowerQuest's Drive Image 7 for free, and after using it I liked the program so much it took over as my main imaging software.
One thing I didn't like about creating images of my disks was the amount of time and space that was taken up for each image. I have an 80GB external hard drive that I use for storing my image files, and it doesn't take too many images to clutter up the drive, thus rendering the image software helpless. To avoid this, I was creating an image on a schedule of every 2 weeks and manually saving the critical files (financial software data, pictures, outlook .pst files, etc.) every two to three days. In that fashion, I had a reasonably recent full system backup and critical files more often than that to avoid loss exposure. However, it was tedious to remember to backup the critical files, and again it was taking up a lot of space to have full backups of our files every two to three days.
CyberLink's PowerBackup to the rescue
I was asked recently if I would like to review any Cyberlink software offerings, and while reading through the descriptions of their new products PowerBackup jumped out at me. This is a software utility that will scan your file systems and give you the option of selecting all or some of the files for a compressed backup either full, incremental or differential in scope. From the description I would be able to set the files that I wanted to backup on a more frequent basis than a full system image, identify where and how to save the backup file and set a schedule for the backups to happen seamlessly in the background. I was sold!
How to get it and what you need to run it
CyberLink's PowerBackup requires the following minimum system requirements:
Microsoft Windows ME, 2000, or XP Operating System
64MB RAM
Intel Pentium II processor, 300MHz or higher
10MB Hard drive space for installation
Keep in mind, these are the minimum requirements. If you are running this on a Windows XP platform, you will need much more RAM than this just to run the operating system.
I have personally never found this application for sale in a local computer store or noticed it on the internet at the computer sites I frequent, but it can be purchased directly from Cyberlink at their website:
www.gocyberlink.com
It is available for download as a trial version or outright purchase, and the trial download is 5.1MB in size. The purchase price is regularly $49.95, although the site is having an introductory offer, cutting the price to $39.95.
Installation
I received the retail boxed version of PowerBackup directly from CyberLink, opened it up and began the installation process. The process takes very little time and went just as smoothly as you could expect. During the install process you will be asked to input a 16-digit alphanumeric code found on the front of the jewel case for the CD. At the end of the install you will be prompted to register the product with CyberLink online, which also allows you to use the online support system.
So what does it do?
PowerBackup loads into the User Interface, which is set up similarly to most Windows XP screens. There is a series of drop-down menus along the top of the interface with some function hot-keys below this. There is a procedure pane along the left side of the interface from which you can start a backup job and a file directory pane on the right that takes up the majority of the window.
The easiest way to get started is to begin a backup procedure by selecting the files you wish to backup from the file directory pane and then use the procedure pane to step through the destination and method of backup. At this point you can choose to schedule the backup or run it. Sounds simple, right? It is...
Types of backups
There are three types of backups available for this program. They are full backup, incremental and differential. A full backup does just what you would expect and backup in total all of the files you have selected. It is recommended that you first perform a full backup of the your chosen files before moving into the differential and incremental backups.
A differential backup compares the files from the full backup with the files presently on the system and will save any new or modified files. The upside of differential backups is that for restoring files you only need the most recent differential backup along with the original full backup. The downside is that the file sizes are larger, as it will save each and every file which has been modified since the original full backup each time it runs a differential backup.
An incremental backup, on the other hand, only backs up files which have been modified since the last incremental backup. In other words, if you modify file X on day 2 compared to the original full backup, the incremental backup will backup the file on day 2. If you do not modify the file on day 3, the incremental backup ran on day 3 will not include file X, as it was incrementally saved on day 2. A differential backup will save file X on both day 2 and 3, as it differs from the original full backup. The upside is that the incremental file sizes end up smaller than with a differential, but you must save each and every incremental backup to do a restore.
Types of media supported
There are several types of media that you may want to write your backups to, and PowerBackup supports the majority of them! You can use CD-R's or RW's, both formats of DVD R's and RW's (plus and minus), DVD-RAM and even Dual Layer DVD's. An external drive can be utilized, as is my case. The user can also choose to save to a firewire connected drive, flash media, floppies, ZIP and Jazz drives.
Restoring data
Let's assume that you have backed up your data and a failure occurs, for whatever reason. Now you need to be able to restore your data, right? To be sure, you will not be able to restore without loading into windows and starting PowerBackup. Once you have achieved this, restoration is simple.
Select Restore option and Select Source of backup. Point the program to your backup files and select the file. At this point you will need to choose the destination of the restore, which usually will be Original Location. You can also choose to restore to an alternate location of your choosing or a single file which you create at the time of restoration.
At this point you need to tell the program to either Overwrite older files, Overwrite all files, or Do Not Overwrite files. Overwrite older files will only overwrite files which have older dates than the files of the same name found in the backup file, while the other two are self-explanatory.
You can also choose to compare data from the original files on the disk to the backup file. You can then choose manually which files need to be restored, although I have not personally used this function.
Scheduler
All of this is very useful, but without the scheduling function it would be of limited value to me. I wanted to be able to 'set it and forget it', so to speak. When you set up a backup of files, it will ask you if you want to schedule the backup to occur on a set schedule. The scheduler is quite easy to use, and very similar in nature to the scheduler present in Windows Task Manager. You can choose to backup daily, weekly, or monthly. Under daily, you can choose a period of 1 to 6 days, making it convenient to set a custom schedule.
My experience
Backing up data
When I received the software, I had been trying to save my files on a 2-3 day basis on my own. Obviously I was not completely successful, and probably had up to 2 weeks between backups. If I had a hard drive failure or corruption of my windows system files, I would have lost all of my data, or at least had a long and tedious repair in store.
With that in mind, I set up PowerBackup to run a full backup of my Microsoft outlook files, my Quicken files and the My Pictures file. I didn't want to lose all of our emails or the address book present in Outlook, as this can significantly impact your ability to communicate with family and friends. The Quicken files are used to keep track of our checking and savings account balances, and any loss of data requires endless data entry, so this was not desirable. Finally, my wife has decided that our My Pictures file CANNOT be lost at any cost. This is our primary method of photo storage, as we solely use a digital camera for saving our memories.
Sidenote: In order to save the Microsoft Outlook .pst files, I first had to change the preferences in the Exclude tab to allow the program to backup hidden files and folders. Once this was done, it was possible to place a checkmark in the file location and go forward to selecting destination and method. The Quicken data files and pictures posed no such problem...
I chose my External USB drive and maximum compression along with a full backup and let it rip. This first full backup was 1.475GB of files compressed and saved as a 638MB file in five minutes and 30 seconds. Not too bad, I thought. If i had been saving to a CD-R or -RW it would have easily fit!
Next I set up an incremental backup to be performed every two days at 11:00 PM, once again saving to the external hard drive. By doing so, I am able to minimize any loss of data to two days at most, which is where my wife and I are comfortable with the risk. By scheduling, you will start a process running in the background to allow PowerBackup to start when scheduled. This background process absorbs about 7MB of RAM, and while running the total goes up to between 20 and 27MB of RAM utilized. The processor consumption for my computer is fairly small while running, but I have a 2.6GHz Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading enabled... This may or may not be the case for your system.
Restoration
If you have read my review of Norton Internet Security 2004, you already know that my installation of Windows was hosed when trying to uninstall Norton Internet Security. This required me to use Drive Image 7 to restore my previous partitions. The partitions were almost a full two weeks old, so I used the restore option to restore my critical files to their original location, thus giving me back my pictures, outlook emails and addresses and Quicken data. This process went amazingly smooth and worked like a charm, and I think it saved me several hours of data entry and frustration.
Tech Support
I have never had to use the tech support for this product, which is a testament in and of itself. However, I have used the tech support for other CyberLink products such as PowerCinema 3.0 and PowerDVD 5.0. If needed, your first line of defense is to go to the website and check the FAQ and troubleshooting guides available at www.gocyberlink.com.
If you cannot find your answer on the web, you can also fax in your problems to (866) 2-8667-1300. You must have a registered product and include your CD-Key to get a reply. Telephone support is also available at (866) 2-8667-1298. Again, this is only offered to registered owners, and support is only available between 9 AM and 5 PM Taiwan time from Monday through Friday.
Overall
This product provided a solution to a problem I didn't even know I had at the time. I think that most folks out there would like to save particular files from their file system without a complete image being produced each and every time, and this product fits that need perfectly. I know that I will continue to use this for incremental backups of my critical files between images of the whole partition every two weeks.
The only thing that I would like to see added to this product is Linux support, as I am now running a dual-boot system with Fedora Core 2. The lack of proliferation of Linux to computer owners as a whole will probably keep this on the back burner for a while, however. If you have a Windows machine with critical files that you do not want to lose, this is a great product that will fit the bill.
Recommended:
Yes
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