Let's face it. Nobody backs up their PC. Sure, if you need to do your Spring reformat and/or reinstall, or install a new hard drive, your backups are probably out of date, or you've probably missed something. Even in my own network, where I advocate constant backups, I don't always practice what I preach.

Backing up is boring. It ranks right up there in the excitement scale as defragmentation (which I'll bet nobody does either). It takes up time, and you'll have to go through all your backups to decide if something is missing. Anyone who uses a real Windows OS; i.e., Windows 2000/XP, probably knows a backup utility, based on Veritas' Backup Exec, exists, but do you actually use it? I do actually, but it isn't very powerful, and not very intuitive. The actual Backup Exec program is a lot better, but it's an enterprise level application. Translation: it's expensive.

Having good success with Stomp's RecordNow Max, and reading about a thousand reviews on Backup MyPC, I decided to give it a try. Admittingly, I was a bit hesitant, as the name itself doesn't exactly blow me away (read: Product is for n00bs), it has been getting good press lately. Having a large amount of experience with backup applications such as Backup Exec, ArcServeIT and various disk imaging programs, I didn't have high expectations of the product. Here's a bit of what they have to say...

"BackUp MyPC is a powerful yet easy to use data protection and disaster recovery solution for a single computer or peer-to-peer network. Conveniently backup important files or your entire computer while you're not even around using our advanced scheduling system.

BackUp MyPC backs up to Recordable CD/DVD, Tape, Zip, Jazz, and other removable media drives and employs disc spanning and data compression which typically can double your media capacity for significant savings.

In the event of hard drive crash, system failure or even just plain-ole' simple human error, you can then restore a single file or your whole hard drive with BackUp MyPC."

Immediately, when I opened the UPS parcel, I noticed the weight of the box. Being simply software, this could only mean one thing... a huge manual. It's a stretch, but I'm going to say that the manual included with Backup MyPC is one of the best (and largest) manuals I've come across for any backup application. It doesn't miss anything, and it is well written and easy to understand. I wish others would follow Stomp's example and produce well written documentation as well. Here are the rest of the specifications...

Easy to use interface

Backup and Restore Wizards that guides you through each procedure with clearly defined instructions.

Disaster Recovery allowing you to restore your system from a boot disk (currently not available under Windows XP).

Peer-to-peer network data protection

Unattended backups with flexible scheduling

Maximize media using significant compression

One button backup and restore

Perform full, partial or differential backups

What is going to be important for the majority of you is the scheduling, compression, and the ability to perform full, or differential backups. A full backup is self explanatory, but a differential is the real killer. Rather than constantly backing up the same folder, over and over again, the software can backup only files that have changed since the last full backup. This can save a lot of time, and because all of this can be scheduled, it can be done while you're not using the PC, much like what you should be doing with virus scanning.

As you may know, Stomp is a software partner with Veritas, who themselves are a household name for any IT manager. This adds a lot of credibility to the company, as it allows them to borrow, and improve on some already great software.

Installation is straightforward, and you'll need a reboot once it's complete. Every Microsoft OS is supported by Backup MyPC, except for the Server versions. This is a shame, but since it's really only the business sector that should have servers, let them pay the big bucks.

Upon initial startup, the first screen you're going to see is the backup scheduling wizard. You can also choose what to backup (new or changed) here, before proceeding to the next screen.

The next screen opens up a Windows Explorer type interface, and it's a simple matter of checking off various check boxes to select whatever it is you want to backup.

Finally, you set the options such as compression, and to verify (highly recommended) if your backups are successful. It's not very customizable though, and I suggest closing this wizard and doing things the old fashion way.

You'll be presented with yet another splash screen where you're presented with most of the application's options. Because you'll be backing up for the first time, you'll want to start with a blank job.

Again, an Explorer window will appear. Like before, you just select what files or drives you want to backup. I chose to backup our site (always a handy thing to do in case we get hacked ), and because it's our first job, we selected all the files. Later on, as we create another job, we'll only select new and changed files. Backup MyPC supports recordable CD/DVD, Tape, Zip, Jazz, and external or networked drives, but I decided to back it up directly to my hard drive. It's a lot faster, and I'll back it up to CD later (I probably won't, because I'm lazy, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't. We're actually doing it this way to show you what you shouldn't do ).

If you go into the options, you can select other things you'd like to do. I always compress, and log the backups in case something goes wrong. You can also set it to overwrite previous backups, or to make a new one and catalogue them. It's actually better to do it this way, in case you actually need an older backup. Trust me, it happens. The logging is important, because 99% of all backup software will not backup something that is in use at the time of backup. If it doesn't backup, you'll know, and you can do it manually afterwards. Note that you can also password protect your backup, so you need not worry about people restoring your porn, confidential files to their PC.

Once you've gone through the options, click start, and the backup begins. Like I mentioned, you can schedule this as well, and it's the way I think most of you will do it, especially if you have gigabytes of data to backup. Keep in mind that if it's this much data, you'll have to be around to swap CDs if you backup to your recordable. Compression will vary, but it did a good job with our site as it knocked about 20% off the total file size. How fast it backs up will be dependent on your hardware. It's not as fast as Symantec Ghost, but considering it's a Windows application, it was fairly quick.

Backing up is easy, but what good is it if you can't restore it. So, as a service to our readers, I deleted the site off my hard drive. Yes, I'm sure a few of you would wish it stayed off, but the live site is still online.

If you have any comments, be sure to hit us up in our forums.

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