One of my recent projects has been to find a good automated backup system that I can deploy across the computers in the house.  Even though we’re technically a household, with a family of this size and all of the different businesses (not to mention FamTeam), we rely heavily on computers.

I just recently counted the number of computers that are currently on our network, and we have nearly 20!  That’s not counting the handful of laptops that are offline at the moment.  So basically, I need to find a way to automatically back up 20 computers, and I would like for the backups to be nightly, automatic, and, obviously, reliable.

I have played around with countless different backup and synchronization programs, looking for one that will fit our needs.  Since I’m looking for something that will run on nearly 20 computers, I’m pretty sure that eliminates any commercial product from contention, because it’s going to add up real quick to buy 20 licenses for any product.  Because of that, I’m looking at free products.  So far, I’ve yet to find the perfect solution, but I have two strong contenders.

The first one is DataSafe Backup 1.0, the second is Cobian Backup 9.  I have been testing these two programs on different computers for a few weeks now.  Here are my thoughts on each program:

I like DataSafe because it has a very nice interface.  It’s intuitive, easy to use, but has some pretty advanced settings.  I like its ability to use hard links to create multiple full backups without wasting disk space by copying the same files more than one time.  Instead, the program will create a hard link, which will, in a sense, create a shortcut to that file on the disk.  The bottom line is that backing up a 100 MB file twice only takes up 100 MB instead of 200 MB.  A big, big plus if you want to create full backups, but don’t want to waste hard drive space.

Secondly, I like DataSafe’s lists of existing backups, providing an easy way to view/restore a previous backup.  There is also a log viewer and an area that shows the failed jobs, with detailed errors to help you figure out why a given job didn’t run (or finish).

A couple of things I would put on the wish list for DataSafe Backup would be:

1. E-mail support - The ability to e-mail results of backups, attaching logs and/or any errors.
2. Remote control - Have several (say 20) computers run the DataSafe client, and then have full control of their backups, including a log viewer, from the one server.
3. Bitwise (rsync-style) copying - This would be a really nice feature as well, because the beauty of rsync (as I mentioned near the bottom of this this Luke’s Notebook entry) is that when copying a file, if the file already exists (that is, if it has been copied before), the full file won’t be overwritten.  Instead, only the bits of data that have changed in the file will be copied.  So, from my understanding, that means that in the example of a 100 MB file, instead of copying all 100 megabytes again due to a slight change in the original file, only the pieces of the file that have changed are copied.  So that would speed things up tremendously, as well.

All in all, I really, really like DataSafe Backup.  I’ve exchanged a few e-mails with Gabriel Adomnicai, its programmer, and have actually suggested he adds these features.  The top two are ones that I would really love to see, especially #1.

Cobian Backup 9 is also an impressive program, and it actually does #1 and #2.  The remote control feature could be a lot better, though, as it’s kind of clunky and hard to use, in my opinion.  It’s a great idea, and if it was just a little easier to use, I think I would be sold.

The e-mail feature works nicely, and it will send a log (if requested) after each backup.  Still, though, just something about Cobian doesn’t quite do it for me.

I’m not totally decided yet on what I’ll use, but I am definitely leaning towards DataSafe Backup.  After a little more testing, I think I’ll have a verdict.  I will say this, though — if DataSafe would have an automatic e-mail feature, then the choice would be easy.

Welcome to my new blog pertaining to all things technology.  In the future, I want to have a place to share tips, relay stories, and give people a snapshot of how technology is used for me personally, for Arndt Computer Services, for the FamTeam.com website, and for the Arndt family in general.

So stay tuned for some (hopefully) interesting articles!

- Luke Arndt