.:Computer Defense:.

[Update: Added Screenshots]

A long time ago I decided that I would never review software that I was asked to look at, and that I probably wouldn't post deals sent my way unless they were truly valuable to my readers. So when I was contacted by Neobyte Solutions with a "special offer" for my readers, I almost hit the spam button. However, I've recently been considering personal backup software (storage is dropping in price and I have a number of systems with critical files these days), so I looked online and saw some features of Titan Backup that I really liked. The initial offer was a copy of Titan Backup 1.5 [download] for free with this serial: 000020-ACM8KK-1YXTMT-JZT4C6-JF18HG-VTR9BJ-VKM9KR-K2923Y.  They also offered a 50% off discount code [NEOB-SGKO] which could be used here to upgrade to Titan Backup 2.5.

I countered with a request for a few 2.5 keys that I could give away to my readers and they were happy to provide a couple. As such, I'm going to give away a few serials for Tital Backup 2.5 on Friday by selecting random people from the comments. Please be sure to include your email address so I can get back to you.

Now, on with the review...

The first thing that impressed me about Titan Backup was the small download size (~8MB), it was also a surprisingly quick install. I suppose I should preface this by saying that I've had limited experience with backup software, having abandoned it probably close to 10 years ago (so yes, I'd imagine it has improved quite a bit) and then using it only while I was working as a Sys Admin, and I found that software (I forget what it was, but it had Windows and Mac clients) to be horrid.

Options

After the install, I allowed the software to auto-run and I was looking at the Titan backup screen with four main panels - Backup, My Tasks, Restore and Sync. While Backup and Restore should be fairly obvious, allow me to briefly explain My Tasks and Sync. Every Backup you create is stored as a Task, you can go into My Tasks to manually run backups, verify their settings and check the schedule. Sync allows you to create synchronization tasks between two computers, or two locations on the same computer (or one computer and FTP)... well you get the idea.

Now the backup creation was very simple and straight forward. After clicking on backup, I entered a task name, folder name and description. I could also enter a notification email (primarily for scheduled backups) assuming I'd gone into options and configured my mail servers.

Clicking next brought me to the Source screen, where I could select from Registry, Files, Email and User Settings. While Registry/File/Email are fairly straight forward, I want to say I was impressed by the list of software included under User Settings.  Many text editors (I was disappointed that I didn't see Notepad++) were listed, along with media players, graphics software, instant messengers, IDEs (again seeing Komodo IDE would have been nice) and Utilities. Utilities included Putty, WinSCP, Total Commander and WinZip. Also included were windows settings (Power, Mouse, Connection, etc) and fonts/scheduled tasks.

Under the next screen, I found Destination with options of Local folder/drive, LAN, Removable Device, CD/DVD and Remote Location via FTP.  SFTP would make for a nice future addition but it was definitely a reasonable list.

The following screen allowed for me to enable Compression (ZIP) and Encryption (Zip Password or AES) and allowed me to select my backup type (Incremental / Differential / Rip & Replace).

The Scheduler Tab allowed me to select run manually, run once, Windows Startup, Windows Shutdown, Day of the Week, Run every X days, Run every X hours and even to create a Desktop Shortcut to use.

The final tab allowed me to select my error notification level and to select programs that should run before and after the running of the task.

I was ready to go in a matter of minutes and then I simply navigated into My Tasks and ran the backup. I have to say that the process was as painless and easy as software should be for the end user.

Given that my DVD burner hasn't  been working well lately (might be time to reinstall Vista), I decided to go with Backup to Folder. I selected 3.1GB worth of data (2980 files) and to use "high quality" compression. The backed up data is 2.96GB and it took 24 minutes to backup.  This would be perfect for backing up to a local FTP server.

I have to play more, I haven't given it much of a run down yet... but I plan on playing with it some more because I really like it (I'm installing it on my wife's computer tonight).  Remember though, I do have full versions of this to give away, so if you're interested in using it, leave a comment below.