According to Wikipedia, “Backup software are computer programs used to perform backup; they create supplementary exact copies of files, databases or entire computers.” Its not often that our laptops or PCs crash, get lost, or corrupted. A good enough reason we neglect to make a backup of all our files. But electronic devices are not perfect and in today’s highly dangerous web environment, its so easy to click a link and find your whole computer shutting down in an instant. If you believe in being safe than sorry, you should consider doing that data backup right away. There are plenty of data backup tools available in the marketplace and if you are in need of a free data backup software solution, we hope our review of EaseUS Todo Backup Free will help you make an informed decision.
What To Look For in a Good Data Backup Utility
So now that you’ve decided that a backup is essential, how do you decide which tool to pick up? You’ll want a tool that has plenty of features but is still easy to use. You cannot afford to get overwhelmed with too many options. At the same time, the tool should make data recovery also just as easy. If you are a home user and are not familiar with how to pick up a good backup software solution, a tool that includes these features is generally a good option.
- Compression: Software compression is important as it helps save space on your backup media.
- Automatic Scheduling: A good backup should be able to run automatically at a preset time without manual intervention.
- Broad Device Support: The more new drives the program supports the better.
- Backup Types: A good free program should be able to offer full backups, incremental backups and differential backups.
- Disaster Recovery: The backup should be easy to restore. The data backup should preserve the original data files and paths so you don’t have to reorganize everything after restoration. Having the ability to restore files without the need for the backup program is an added advantage as is the ability to restore data to dissimilar software.
- Security: It is always advisable to have the ability to password encrypt your backups.
- Verification: A good data backup utility must be able to verify that the copy of the original is correct.
- Help and Support: A good backup solution must always offer good help and support tools such as FAQ’s, Knowledge base, telephone/email/chat support too.
- Manage Backups: Having the ability to manage data backups is another important factor that will help you keep track of your various backups and remove them if not needed, saving storage space.
EaseUS Todo Backup Free 7.5 Review
Now that you know what to look for in a good data backup program, let’s see how EaseUS Todo Backup Free 7.5 stacks up. EaseUS Todo Backup is a comprehensive backup utility that integrates well with Windows and is compatible with Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP ( if you’re still using older versions.) It backs up data, system, hard disk, partition or individual files to various destinations including to a CD or DVD; local or external drive; iSCSI device or network destination. It also offers support for the latest HDD standard as well as support for USB 3.0. Let’s take a look at some of its key features.
Intuitive Interface
The tool offers an uncluttered interface displaying all the options clearly. A wizard guides you easily through the backup process, which is ideal for users with no tech skills. You can select a file destination, view if you have sufficient space to make the backup, add a backup file name and description, set schedules, add password encryption, compress the backup as well as prioritize the speed of transfer all from within the options in the wizard. You can also choose to backup based on specific file types such as documents, files, pictures, videos and so on.
Multiple Backup Options
EaseUS Todo Backup offers four backup options to choose from: Disk/Partition Backup, File Backup, System Backup, and Smart Backup. You can do full backups, only backup changes since the last back or last full backup, as well as selectively back up specific files, folders or file types, including network shared files. Smart Backup in fact tracks and monitors selected files and when any modification is discovered, it will automatically create a backup of the newer version. That way you never have to worry about losing any of your recent updates.
Cloning
This advanced tool lets you clone your hard drive in the event of a disk upgrade or disk replacement.
Image Integrity
This is another advanced feature that lets you check the integrity of the image file to ensure that the backups can be restored successfully.
Cloud Backup
The free edition of EaseUS Todo backup also offers options to do a system backup to your cloud service accounts such as Dropbox and Google Drive among others.
Recovery
You can recover your entire Windows system backup in minutes to the specified location. The tool offers a flexible restore system allowing you to recover individual files from a file backup image without needing to restore an entire image. It also offers a pre-OS recovery environment where you can use the tool from the boot menu if your system won’t boot. If you are looking for recovery to dissimilar hardware, or if you wish to migrate to a virtual machine, you will have to go in for the paid, Home edition, which offers those additional features.
Backup Management
The tool offers several handy tools to manage your backups. You can view, edit, update or delete backups, view logs of backups, split backup image files to different sizes to fit different types of storage devices, select compression levels to save on storage space and avoid unauthorized access to your backup image by password protecting your backups.
Additional Tools
There’s also a handy set of tools including secure wipe, a bootable disk creator and Mount/Unmount to preview disk partition content from backup image before recovery.
Lifetime Updates
You get a lifetime of free upgrades automatically.
Final Thoughts
In a quick check of the features of EaseUS Todo Backup Free against what we discussed in our “What To Look For in a Good Data Backup Utility” section, you can see that EaseUS Todo Backup Free meets up with pretty much most of the features including multiple backup options, (image backups included,) selective file backups, and password encryption services. One aspect that EaseUS Todo Backup Free 7.5 does not however offer is the ability to open the backup files without running the tool.
If you are in the market for a free backup and recovery software that offers comprehensive features necessary to get the job done, EaseUS Todo Backup Free is as good as any other tool you’ll find in the marketplace. And unless you are extremely keen for your choice to include specific features such as backup of Outlook email or Registry files, EaseUS Todo Backup Free should be an effective backup system that will take your mind off the unwanted and unexpected problems of data loss.
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