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Cover Story: Tools for Trouble-Free Computing

Whether your PC is brand new or showing its age, the best utilities will keep it in tip-top shape.

Lincoln Spector

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File Backup

Best Buy: Stomp Backup MyPC

Failing to back up your data is playing with fire. Imagine losing your address book or that big project due tomorrow.

If timely access to your data is essential, you need a more sophisticated solution, one that includes regular, automated, incremental backups to a network. Average users won't need such precautions: Backing up files and settings you've created or changed should be enough.

If your hard drive goes down, however, you'll have to reinstall everything. The best way to deal with day-to-day backups is to use a CD-RW drive. Consequently, we tested four programs--Stomp's BackUp MyPC, NewTech Infosystems' Backup Now 2.5.1, Dantz's Retrospect Express 5.6, and Iomega's QuikSync 3--that can back up using CD-RW drives.

Stomp's BackUp MyPC, formerly Backup Exec Desktop by Veritas, wins top honors for its ease of use and lack of serious flaws. Setting up a backup routine is simple, using either the wizard or dialog boxes. You can easily define full and incremental backups, schedule them, and restore files.

At first glance, NTI Backup Now 2.5.1 seems every bit as easy to use as BackUp MyPC. But the longer you work with Backup Now, the more shortcomings you discover. For instance, when Backup Now fails to back up a single file (which is quite common among backup programs), it doesn't mark the files it did back up, and as a result it backs them up again--modified or not--next time. Backup Now offers only limited support for storage devices, but a new version, 3.0, will include support for additional media and devices.

If Best Buys were awarded on ability alone, Dantz's Retrospect Express 5.6 would win. One very nice touch: Retrospect can restore a drive to the state it was in after its last backup (even recognizing and not restoring files that were purposely deleted).

But Retrospect Express is difficult to use. For example, instructing it to back up specific folders involves defining the folders as "subvolumes"--a procedure that's neither obvious nor clearly explained. (Dantz says it will address this problem in the next version.) This is software for people who have time to read the manual.

Iomega's QuikSync takes a different approach: It backs up automatically in the background while you work. However, QuikSync can't support CD-RW drives without the help of software that isn't included. But a program such as Roxio's DirectCD, which likely came bundled with your CD-RW drive, will do the job.

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