No matter how often I hear to "play it safe", I still like to risk from time to time. Anyway, as time passes by, you get to learn lots of things, and this leads to a higher degree of situations when you are sure that everything will be fine. Arriving in the IT zone, there's only one thing to mention: always play it safe. To do this, you need an UPS, first of all, but since I am not reviewing hardware products here, I'll get to my part - use a backup software!


Setup

Backup-2006 Studio is a program that could be as well called "Backup 2010", because it has all that some other backup programs will add in the next two or three years. Its last version is 5.1.5, and the setup package required to install it weighs 14.7MB in size. The trial version can be used freely for as long as 30 days, and installing the program is not hard at all, as you can see in the screenshots below.

Interface
Backup-2006 has an interface that is built around a few wizards, and the main window is also skinnable. Now, while using the wizards, all works fine, but there are too many areas that require your attention, and the program also has 3 modules - beginner, standard and expert. All in all, this is a program that needs a lot of attention to get comfortable with. Once you get over the first encounter feeling, interesting things start to surface...


Features

When opening the program for the first time, you are given the chance to choose the interface layout. My suggestion is to choose "beginner", and then switch to the more advanced "standard" or "expert" modes. While beginners are assisted all the way by a wizard, the other two modes allow you to manually set a lot of options for each of the major tasks that can be accomplished by this program - data backup, synchronization and even disk imaging!

To create a backup set, there's nothing else to do than choose New Backup Set by using the button from the toolbar of the main window, and you'll get assistance all along the way, especially when using the "beginner" mode. If you are wondering about some facilities, such as backing up to a FTP server or using an encrypted archive...no worries about it, you won't pay 55$ for nothing!

While synchronizing folders is not something that I use often, and there's not much to say about it either, I'll tell you a few words about the Disk Image tool.

There are 3 big things to do using this tool - disk imaging, partition cloning and creating emergency boot floppies (wow, there are still people using floppy disks on this planet?). The resulting images can also be compressed using one of the 3 archiving methods available - Zlib, Bzip or PPM. If this doesn't sound good for you, you can also split the files to fit on any storage device you can think of, there are a lot of things to do with this program!


The Good

Backup-2006 Studio is more than just "a backup application", and I would dare to call it "a backup suite". While having a lot of options for advanced users, its wizard-driven mode allows beginners to use it successfully too, and the 30 days trial period should be enough to learn how to use it properly.

The Bad

Most people are not used to read help files or two try a program twice, when first encounter leads to a dead end. I think that an interface assitant like the one from Microsoft Office would be really helpful for those moving from beginner to intermediate and expert with Backup-2006 Studio. In some situations, a bit of advice would be great (for example, a hint displaying why the Disk Image tool is not active when a backup set was not created yet).

Conclusion

Sometimes I use a backup software, but in most cases, I simply pack the senzitive data and burn it to a rewritable DVD disc or copy it to my USB stick. People that need backups all around the clock, logs sent through email, disc imaging and more should be delighted by Backup-2006 Studio, and even those without special will probably find that this program is a choice worthy of their attention. As usual, my final advice is to press the download link below and try it for yourselves...

Developer: RD Technologies
Price: 55$
Trial Link: Download