I am currently trailing GFI BAckup – which is free – against the all-conquering Genie Backup Manager (commercial), which has to be almost the defacto standard in home backup: I have yet to find a more complete system than GBM. However, my findings so far regarding the GFI offering:
GFI Backup is outstanding!
It’s a synch to set up and use – everything designed in a logical and almost foolproof manner: this is what you have to do to back something up:
- Click the word ‘Backup’ (see screen above)
- Select your source files…
- Select your destination…
- Specify any options, like encryption and when you it to run…
- Click Finish!
Could it be easier than this?
Well actually it could, because GFI Backup will actually search your machine for known file types and back these up, without you having to specify where your files are actually stored. This feature is also available in other backup software, but remember GFI is free.
Personally, this ‘autodiscover’ feature has never attracted me – if only for the reason that I like to know that nothing has been ‘missed’ from my backup. Still, it’s a very useful feature and nice to know it is available.
Another attraction is the ability to synchronise folders – something that is often missing from alternative solutions. You can ‘pair’ two folders to be synchronised and schedule this to repeat at intervals – just like the backup tasks – this really is set it and forget it!