The Six-Point
Guide to Buying Backup Software
for PCs
Many people and businesses
lose their data because the product
they've bought doesn't live up to its
initial promise. With hundreds
of backup software vendors on the market,
people usually perform searches on such
generic keywords as backup software
to find themselves with millions of
documents to sift through before making
an informed decision. With so
many pages, people typically look at
the first ten or twenty entries and
either buy the first thing that comes
near their budget, give up, or
end up buying software too expensive
for their needs.
Before buying backup
software you
must look at your real needs,
and then make a list of product-attributes
and related features that will satisfy
them. Next, look at computer-magazine
reviews of software vendors and compare
their products with your needs list.
Check whether the vendors have
been in the business for several years
and if they have a reputation for great
customer-support and product innovation.
The most difficult of these stages
is building the attribute and features
list. The Six-Point Guide to Buying
Backup Software should give you thorough
knowledge of what attributes and features
you should look for in any backup software.
I will briefly describe each of the
attributes, explain them, and detail
all the related features.
1. Ease of Use: You need
to ask a set of questions in relation
to how easy it is to install and configure
the software, to use the product to
back your data and to use the product
to restore your data. For example:
- Is the install interface clear
and unequivocal?
- Are the steps
written in plain English and do not
leave any place for choosing the wrong
options?
- Is the product easy to
use and user friendly?
- Is the
user-interface built in a Windows-familiar
environment?
- Are the user-interface
and the commands intuitive?
- Does
the product allow step-by-step backup
and restore?
- Can the product be
used by non-technical people?
- How
easily can the user browse around the
various options to set up backups and
restores?
- Can the user easily
browse around the documents and application
settings to set up backups?
- Are
there any shortcuts to this data and
settings?
- How easily can the user
browse the backup archive to find and
restore multiple or single files?
2. Value for Money: Money
is always an issue, otherwise we would
all be living the life of the rich and
famous! However, this may not
always be the case with backup software.
We usually advise people not to
look at the price tag on its own but
to make calculations as to the relationship
between price and functionality, and
price and time spent on backup and restore.
For example:
- Does the vendor offer
limited functionality with the bare-bones
product, and and expect you to buy pricey
add-ons in order to provide the required
protection?
- Does the product sacrifice performance
and reliability for price?
- Are
upgrades and patches available at a
charge? In relation to the time
factor, buyers must beware - some brands
may be more costly than others to administer.
If, for example, the compression
technology of the particular product
is not strong, it takes longer to perform
backups as the data backed up is spread
over a larger number of media (taking
up more storage space). Therefore,
although a product may be less pricey,
it may be more expensive to run in the
long term.
3. Reliability: The issues
of reliability are three-fold -
(a) does the product consistently
deliver 100% accurate restore of the
set of data that was backed up? This
includes such aspects as: reliable schedules,
accurate reporting and fault logging
features (whether you are alerted when
and if things go wrong), and validation
of data integrity. Data validation
or verification is extremely important
because there are certain technologies
(e.g., bit level validation) that guarantee
that your data restores are 100% accurate.
(b) Does the product secure
your data from prying eyes? Although,
at face value, this may not be important
to the user, think about the consequences
of somebody stealing your backup files
and looking at (or distributing) your
personal data. Therefore, ask
whether the product has password protection
and supports the best levels of encryption.
(c) Is the vendor reliable?
Does the vendor provide technical
and customer support? Is the vendor
slow to answer?
4. Performance: The product
must be fast and it must not sacrifice
sheer power for reliability, value for
money, and ease of use. You must
be able to backup your data securely
and accurately in a few minutes and
not spend a fortune on such basic functions.
5. Depth of Feature Set: What
features does the product have? How
does the product compare to other vendors?
The features that you should have
are - compression, encryption, scheduling
and reporting, popular media support,
high data volume support (as few products
have actually overcome the problem of
memory leakage), validation or verification
of data integrity, full and incremental
backup feature, restore multiple or
single files to original and to any
location, and strong fault-logging.
6. Breadth of Backup and Media
Coverage: Finally, make
sure that the product backs up your
PC (or notebook) and supports a strong
list of backup storage media including
CD, Pen Drives, and Zip Drives.
Uniblue
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Copyright
2004 K.J. Vella
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