Backup4all Professional 9.9.962

Overview

Computer users are becoming more and more aware regarding the safety of their data, thus they keep regular backups of their files in case of accidental loss. Various backup programs exist, and Backup4all Professional is one of them; it has all the features a complete backup solution has plus a lot more, including storing backups on SFTP/FTP servers and removable media (CD/DVD/Blu-ray discs or USB drives), creating full/differential/incremental/mirror backups, schedule future backups and others.

Installation

As soon as you run the installer you will be prompted to choose installation language. Then the installation wizard will open and guide you through the installation procedure. In one of the steps you’ll have to select between Typical, Custom and Complete installation (Typical installs only the main features of the program, Complete install everything included in the package and in Custom you get to choose which features you want to be installed). You’ll also have to configure a few settings afterwards, such as select default destination for backups, associate .blc files with Backup4all, start “One Touch Backup Agent”, install SCSI Pass Through Direct layer and some others.

Supported operating systems are Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, 7 and 8 (32/64-bit).

Interface

The program’s interface is simple and all the features are well-organized. It has the menu bar at the top and the toolbar below it for accessing important features quickly, whilst a pane is located on the left-hand side with a list of all created backup jobs. You can see which files and folders are included in a particular backup job just by clicking on it (the included items will be displayed in the box in the main area of the window). Details of a selected file related to past backup jobs can be viewed in the information box at the bottom of the window. Last but not least, the status bar shows the progress and status of active backup jobs.

Pros

It’s really easy to create a new backup job. Simply click on the New Backup Wizard toolbar button (it’s the first button from the left) and then let the wizard guide you step-by-step. Throughout the procedure you will enter a name for your backup, select where you want to save it (in your computer, in a network, FTP server or SFTP server), choose the items you want to backup and define the type of the backup. Four backup types are available in Backup4all: Full, Differential, Incremental and Mirror backup. Full backups contain all data that you selected to backup and is the most complete backup type. However, it takes longer to create and restore a full backup, and that’s why the differential backup only contains files that have changed since the last full backup (this is equal to short creation and restoration time). An incremental backup works in a similar way, with the only difference being that it stores all files that have changed since the last full, differential or incremental backup. A mirror backup is an exact copy of a full backup, although it cannot be compressed or encrypted. Speaking of which, the backups can be compressed normally as ZIP files if they are less than 2GB big, and if they aren’t then Backup4all will automatically compress them using ZIP64 technology since it allows file compression of unlimited size and is compatible with any ZIP software available. In addition, the encryption methods used are 128-bit, 192-bit and 256-bit AES encryption.

Open and locked files can be backed up without problems thanks to the program’s ability to use Volume Shadow Copy Service.

You can add filters when choosing files/folders to backup so that you can customize the backups as much as much as you need.

You can define a master password in order to lock the application and prevent unauthorized use. To unlock it the user must enter a password to start using it.

Running the program using command line arguments is supported too.

Cons

No cons.

Alternatives

A few very good backup applications are NovaBACKUP (paid), Cobian Backup (free), Duplicati (free), Genie Backup (paid), Acronis True Image (paid) and Handy Backup (paid).

Conclusion

Backup4all, with its amazingly rich list of features, is one of the best software that you can count on for regular and advanced backup tasks.