Last week I wrote about creating a disaster ready USB flash drive of all your important information in the case of an emergency. The follow through of it can be a bit time consuming though. What if there was a way to automate a step of the process?

The biggest problem with making backup copies of anything is actually doing it. Transferring the data to a flash drive or external hard drive, burning to disc or uploading to your FTP server can be time consuming. This is where a slick piece of software called Backup Platinum starts to really shine. The idea being, automated backup of any file and copying it to just about anywhere you want. Perfect to do while you are sleeping at night, at work during the day or if you need this for a work application, running at night when no one is there.

The website itself is super slick with a great layout and very colorful buttons. Finding out exactly what the software is and how it works is easily available on the site and they even offer online support! Navigation couldn’t be any simpler.

After reading through the homepage I headed to the download page and was delighted when I saw that a full 30 day trial was available and there are no limitations to it! All software should be free to try, it is an added bonus that this particular software is full featured and nothing is held back. The install file is only about 3mb in size and on a high-speed connection should only take a minute or so to download, be aware that this is only available for the Windows platform though. After installing the software, I was immediately asked to answer some questions, my experience went as follows:

The first window asks if you want to create a backup or synchronize. This is a nice option, as certain itmes you would want to synchronize like Outlook or directories on your computer that you change files in a lot. I chose backup for a directory of images on my desktop, just to try it out.

The next option asks to choose a save-to location, choices are:

  • Local
  • CD / DVD
  • FTP

In this case, I chose to go locally. Note, you can specify any drive on your computer if you choose local, such as a USB flash drive, if one is plugged in.

You have the option to add a username and password at this stage as well, I did but still don’t know what its good for yet.

The next option is how you want your files stored and you have several options. Of them, I chose to use the as is, meaning to keep my files exactly as I have them. There are options to compress them into a zip folder (which you can password protect) and encryption options. Using a zip folder would make the most sense if you were backing up onto an FTP server to help save space.

Lastly is the options to set auto-run times and dates. I was only testing the software out so I chose to just back it up, however the options in this step are great as you can do several different times and dates depending on your needs.
Following the backup is a summery of what occurred, again helpful to ensure that everything went as planned.

Who should use this software? Anyone who is at all concerned about any sort of data and doesn’t want to be bothered with doing everything manually. This also could work really well in a small office setting.

Why should you use it? Because it sure beats the hell out of doing everything manually and it never forgets to run.

What does it cost? Prices start at $67.00, which I honestly think is a bit high. If the price point were closer to $20 I think it would be more inline with what a consumer would be willing to spend to save the time of doing it manually.

Advantages of this software? Slick looking, easy to use, great customer support and the ability to encrypt data.

Disadvantages of this software? High price point and no support for Mac or Linux.

Overall I really like the software, having had hard drives fail on me and spending hours recovering friends’ hard drives can not only be time consuming, it can mean the loss of important information that you may not be able to get back, ever. Backing up data is often overlooked and not done on a regular basis by most computer users, when hard drives fail or something happens to critical data, they are left out in the dark. The price point does make it a little less attractive then I’d like, but there is most defiantly value to using it.

Backup-Platinum.com

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored review

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