|
How
do I go about buying Backup Software? Part 1
Irrespective
of whichever backup software you end up buying (obviously we
hope it's WinBackup), there are some things you should know
before you decide. No, this is not a sales pitch in favour of
WinBackup. On the contrary, it is a 6 Point Buying Guide to
buying backup software, outlining the questions you need to
ask about the product before buying it.
Many people and businesses lose their data because
the product they've bought doesn't live up to its initial promise.
With hundreds of backup software vendors on
the market, people usually perform searches on such generic
keywords as "backup software" to find themselves with
millions of documents to sift through before making an "informed"
decision.
With so many pages people would typically look
at the first ten or twenty entries and either buy the first
thing that comes near their budget, or give up or end up buying
software that is too expensive for their needs. So, how do you go about buying Backup Software?
Before buying backup software, you must first look at your
real needs and make a list of product attributes and related
features that will satisfy these needs.
Second, look at the software vendors who are
reviewed by computer magazines and compare their products across
your needs list.
Third, look at whether the vendors have been
in the business for several years and whether they have a reputation
for great customer support and product innovation.
The most difficult of these stages is building
the attribute and features list. The Six Point Guide to Buying
Backup Software should give you thorough knowledge of what attributes
and features you should look for in any backup software. Due
to constraints of space, I have split this guide in two parts.
In Part One I will briefly describe each of the attributes
while in Part Two, explain each attribute and detail all the
related features. A Six Point Buyer's Guide to Backup Software
1. "Ease of Use": Ask, how easy is it to install
the backup software? How easy is it to set up the first backup?
How easy is it to use the backup software regularly and to create
backup schedules? How easy is it to restore data?
2. "Value for Money": this
is rather subjective and does depend on your budget. However,
don't just look at the price of the product. Think of how long
does it would take to use the product. How long does it take
to make backups and restores? As a home user, this may not be
that important but as a business user, you wouldn't want to
spend half an hour just to run your daily backups.
3. "Reliability": Many backup
companies focus only on the backup side of things rather on
the restore. Just think, what is most important in backup is
the ability to restore data without losing anything. Therefore,
ask, can I install the product, set up a schedule and then rest
assured that my data is being backed up with 100% accuracy??
What levels and types of data validation does the product have
to guarantee restores?
4. "Performance": Of course,
you must have a product that is fast and that does not sacrifice
reliability, value for money and ease of use for sheer raw power.
Who would want to have a 100% accurate restore product that
takes one hour to backup a few hundred megs of data!
5. "Depth of Feature Set":
What features does the product have? How does the product compare
to other vendors? Many times you would have to draw up these
comparison sheets unless the vendor has done it for you.
6. "Breadth of Backup and Media Coverage":
Finally, make sure that the product backs up your PC (or notebook)
and supports a strong list of backup storage media including
CD, Pen Drives, Zip Drives, etc..
This
article continues exploring each of these points in detail in
Part TWO.
Experience Uniblue products
Click here to run a demonstration of:
RegistryBooster 2 - Clean, repair, and optimize your system.
SpeedUpMyPC 3 - Maximise system performance.
SpyEraser 2 - Protect your PC against privacy threats.
|
