NTI's Less-Than-Reliable Backup

The promise of set-it-and-forget-it data backup is appealing. Unfortunately, I found that NTI's Shadow 2 did not always work as advertised.

Shadow 2 functions in the background to maintain a copy of your main drive's data on a second drive (internal or external). You can mirror specific folders, select your backup location, maintain multiple file revisions, and retain copies of deleted files.

I set my shipping version to watch the My Documents folder, maintain five revisions for each file, and detect changes as they occurred. In this real-time mode, the program detected all my additions, deletions, and revisions--until I edited and resaved some bitmap files in Windows Paint.

At that point, alarmingly, Shadow 2 failed to back up my modified bitmap files. When I reset the program to check at 1-minute intervals instead of in real time, it had no problem with the Paint files. (NTI says it will have corrected the bug by the time you read this.)

Given the program's inability to guarantee a backup, my willingness to rely on it evaporated. Some additional, minor usability problems hardly helped its cause. For instance, Shadow 2 won't prompt you to make an initial backup. Also, when any file first changes, all unchanged files get resaved as revisions, wasting time and space. And finally, it provides no log to tell you which files have changed or been added.

Shadow 2 shows signs of real potential, offering an easy setup with straightforward instructions and an affordable price. But until NTI takes care of the aforementioned bug--and addresses some of my other criticisms--I can't recommend this program.