Over the years, I have used many back-up programs. I've been amazed by how unintuitive
many of these programs can be. I'm also shocked by their relative inflexibility. Between
interface problems and lack of features, most have been a tremendous disappointment.
By way of example, I presently own and use a Castlewood ORB which backs up 2.2 GB of
data onto a tape cartridge. It's fast and USB-based and rarely gives me problems, but the
prepackaged backup software, Professional Backup, is far from being professional. In fact,
it is downright awful, and I have been aching for a replacement for some time now.
Along comes GRBackPro.
Quite a breath of fresh air. The interface is straight-forward and tabular. In fact,
because it looks like any number of programs you already own, learning the tool is pretty
easy -- even without reading the well-written Help file.
For a test, I selected two directories at random from my hard drive. It
backed them up quickly and efficiently, and the restore went smoothly, too. Nothing
tricky. Click and backup. Click and restore. I wish the other tools out there that claim
to be "push button easy" were really this easy.
Unlike a lot of other backup tools, GRBackPro
comes with many useful features including a simple and direct scheduling option for
unattended backups. My old Seagate software had this feature, and I loved it. Now if I can
only remember to rotate my backup tapes on a daily basis . . . (might be a nice feature
for GRBackPro to
add at some point in the future -- some kind of check routine that compared tape data to
the last backup log file to remind me I might want to swap tapes).
GRBackPro supports
Windows 2000/NT/98/95 which is nice for those of us who still have the older operating
systems but may want to upgrade sometime in the next millenium without having to upgrade
all of our other software. You can even install GRBackPro as a service, leaving it running in the
background, minimized to the System Tray. This is very considerate programming.
GRBackPro is
very flexible in that you can backup entire drives, folders or just a few selected files.
You can synhronize archives -- deleting destination files that no longer exist, create and
password protect ZIP files, and it supports network configurations and workstation
backups. You can copy or compress files -- your choice. And the reporting facility is
rather detailed which is nice for those of us who are somewhat distrustful of our systems.
Details -- give me details, and GRBackPro does this well, too.
All told, you would be hard-pressed to find a better backup software program. You can
download a demo version of the software to test it out by clicking here.
GRBackPro
