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Full CD-R/CD-RW Support and Disk Spanning; Integrated ZIP compression; 128-bit encryption; Remote FTP backup


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Handy Backup - Backups Made Easy

Review: Handy Backup
Version: 4.0 Build Sept 2nd 2004
Reviewer: Womble
Provided By: Novosoft Inc
Review Date: October 2004


Testing:

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The amount of tests I could perform with this product are pretty much endless. I have decided to go with the main tests of backing up from my Hard Drive to various devices in Full and Incremental mode along with the restoration of the data to the original location. These in essence will be speed tests and tests to see if everything works as stated.

I will also test the FTP functionally of the program by doing the same tests but with a reduced amount of data.

In addition to this, I will try out the synchronization mode offered. Here I will use the Mirror both folders option. I will add the changed data to both folders at the same time to see if the mirror both folders function works correctly.

At the end I will use a few of the other features to check they work and to see how much of an overhead they add to the backup and restore times.

Comparable Data:

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To gauge how well the program was performing I used the Windows Copy and Paste feature to back up the data to various backup locations and mediums I have decided to use. This will give a set of results to compare the work of Handy Backup in different cases.

A. Source Hard Drive to Backup Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully copied in 1:12 minutes.

B. Source Hard Drive to CD Writer (Using Nero 5.5)
a. Original data was successfully copied in 2:57 minutes.

C. Source Hard Drive to USB Pen Drive
a. Original data was successfully copied in 4:25 minutes.



Test One: Full Backup:

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This test will back up the entire test folder containing 200MB of data to the selected backup location every ten minutes. Between each backup I will change 20MB of data and add a new 2MB file.

A. Source Hard Drive to Backup Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully backed up in 1:11 minutes.
b. First changed data was successfully backed up in 1:12 minutes. The new file was also backed up.
c. Second changed data was successfully backed up in 1:14 minutes. The new file was also backed up.

B. Source Hard Drive to CD Writer
a. Original data was successfully backed up in 3:08 minutes.
b. First changed data was successfully backed up in 3:11 minutes. The new file was also backed up.
c. Second changed data was successfully backed up in 3:15 minutes. The new file was also backed up.

C. Source Hard Drive to USB Pen Drive
a. Original data was successfully backed up in 7:31 minutes.
b. First changed data was successfully backed up in 7:56 minutes. The new file was also backed up.
c. Second changed data was successfully backed up in 8:27 minutes. The new file was also backed up.

Test Two: Incremental Backup:

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This test will back up the entire test folder containing 200MB of data to the selected backup location in the first example and then will back up only the changed data every ten minutes. Between each backup I will change 20MB of data and add a new 2MB file.

A. Source Hard Drive to Backup Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully backed up in 1:10 minutes.
b. First changed data was successfully backed up in 0:11 minutes. The new file was also backed up.
c. Second changed data was successfully backed up in 0:12 minutes. The new file was also backed up.

B. Source Hard Drive to CD Writer
a. Original data was successfully backed up in 3:10 minutes.
b. First changed data was successfully backed up in 0:32 minutes. The new file was also backed up.
c. Second changed data was successfully backed up in 0:41 minutes. The new file was also backed up.

C. Source Hard Drive to USB Pen Drive
a. Original data was successfully backed up in 7:25 minutes.
b. First changed data was successfully backed up in 0:50 minutes. The new file was also backed up.
c. Second changed data was successfully backed up in 0:52 minutes. The new file was also backed up.

Test Three: Restoration Of Backup:

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This test will restore the entire backup test folder containing 200MB of original data to the original data location.

A. Backup Hard Drive to Source Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully restored in 1:55 minutes.

B. CD Writer to Source Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully restored in 0:42 minutes.

C. USB Pen Drive to Source Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully restored in 3:24 minutes.

Test Four: FTP Tests:

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These tests will use the reduced amount of data to test out the FTP functionality of the program.

A. Full Backup from Source Hard Drive to FTP
a. Original data was successfully backed up.
b. First changed data was successfully backed up. The new file was also backed up.
c. Second changed data was successfully backed up. The new file was also backed up.

B. Incremental Backup from Source Hard Drive to FTP
a. Original data was successfully backed up.
b. First changed data was successfully backed up. The new file was also backed up.
c. Second changed data was successfully backed up. The new file was also backed up.

C. Restore Backup from FTP to Source Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully restored.

Due to problems with both my connection and backup host server, I won’t post the times I got here. The three times I ran the tests, the results fluctuated wildly. I don’t believe that the program was responsible for the results after running other tests on my connection and backup server.

Test Five: Synchronization Of Backups:

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This test will back up the entire test folder containing 200MB of data to the Backup Hard Drive in the first example. The first changed data will then be added to the Source Hard Drive folder and the second changed data will be added to the Backup Hard Drive folder.

A. Mirror Source Hard Drive folder and Backup Hard Drive folder
a. Original data was successfully backed up from Source Hard Drive to Backup Hard Drive in 1:12 minutes.
b. Both folders mirrored the changed data of each other in 0:18 minutes.

Test Six: Additional Tests:

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These tests are to see if the rest of the program works as stated. Once again the original 200MB of data will be used in all of the tests.

A. Full Backup from Source Hard Drive with Encryption to Backup Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully backed up from Source Hard Drive to Backup Hard Drive with Standard Zip Encryption in 1:20 minutes.
b. Original data was successfully backed up from Source Hard Drive to Backup Hard Drive with BlowFish Encryption in 1:26 minutes.

B. Full Restore from Backup Hard Drive with Encryption to Source Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully restored from Backup Hard Drive to Source Hard Drive with Standard Zip Encryption in 2:02 minutes.
b. Original data was successfully restored from Backup Hard Drive to Source Hard Drive with BlowFish Encryption in 2:29 minutes.

C. Full Backup from Source Hard Drive with Compression to Backup Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully backed up from Source Hard Drive to Backup Hard Drive at Low Compression Quality in 1:20 minutes.
b. Original data was successfully backed up from Source Hard Drive to Backup Hard Drive at High Compression Quality in 2:09 minutes.

D. Full Restore from Backup Hard Drive with Compression to Source Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully restored from Backup Hard Drive to Source Hard Drive at Low Compression Quality in 1:04 minutes.
b. Original data was successfully restored from Backup Hard Drive to Source Hard Drive at High Compression Quality in 1:06 minutes.

E. Full Backup from Source Hard Drive with Encryption & High Compression to Backup Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully backed up from Source Hard Drive to Backup Hard Drive in 3:46 minutes.

F. Full Restore from Backup Hard Drive with Encryption & High Compression to Source Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully restored from Backup Hard Drive to Source Hard Drive in 1:22 minutes.

G. Full Backup from Source Hard Drive using TimeStamps to Backup Hard Drive
a. Original data was successfully backed up in 1:15 minutes. The TimeStamp was correct.
b. First changed data was successfully backed up in 1:18 minutes. The new file was also backed up. The TimeStamp was correct and original data was not erased.
c. Second changed data was successfully backed up in 1:20 minutes. The new file was also backed up. The TimeStamp was correct and original plus first changed data was not erased.


Next we'll take a look at the positives and negatives of Handy Backup...

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Summary:
1. Introduction
2. Installation
3. Program Run Through
4. Test Machine And Data
5. Testing The Program
6. Positives And Negatives
7. Conclusions
8. Final Word



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