Yeah, Dantz is useless for full system/disaster-recovery type backups. Only good for data-file backups, and even then not so good.
Unless they've changed it significantly since I've last used it, they arbitrarily limit features of the "Express" edition of the product (as opposed to the "Workstation" version, for several hundred dollars), in ways that are unacceptable, IMHO.
For example, you cannot do a binary bit-by-bit compare between the files on your HD with the backups. You can select "verify", when you are doing the backup, and then after the backup complete, it will attempt to do a binary comparison verification, but that is the only time that it is possible. If you try to start one manually, all it does is read the backup media and check the stored CRCs of the files on the backup media with the data from the backup media. It will not allow you to do a manual file-compare, without initiating an entire additional backup job and selecting "verify" again.
Another issue, you can create secheduled backups, or you can create user-specified backup jobs, but not both. So you either have to give up the benefit of scheduling, if you want to choose what to back up, or choose the schedule, but have to deal with their pre-defined backup selection patterns.
There is yet another issue, a very subtle bug in the program, that I hope has been fixed, but probably not, since it's so subtle. When backing up files, the files are kept track of in a database, by CRC32. "duplicate" (as defined by matching CRC32 values, and maybe file size) files are not backed up twice, only once. I've forgotten the exact details of the bug, since it's been a while since I've last used the program, but there was some issue, where two files, that had matching CRC32 and file length, were backed up from two different source locations on the HD, during two different backup sessions, and a piece of media was marked as 'missing" from the database, and because of that, it refused to restore the other file from the other backup session, since it duped the second one against the first, because of a "file match", and that file was in the database as being backed up on the media that was lost and marked "missing".
Secondary to that, I've actually encountered data-corruption in the restored files, that Dantz did not catch, but I was able to find using some other backups and doing binary file-compares. That particular issue was very disturbing to me, and suggests that their software doesn't recieve enough real-world testing.
In its favor, though, the UI is very nice and easy-to-use, and it otherwise was simple to use. But for a "power user" kind of backup solution that Dantz promotes it as, it falls very short. In fact, they should just call it for what it is, a trial version that you have to pay for, because it lacks features that I consider essential and necessary to being considered a "real" backup program. (Support for manual binary file-compare between source and backup, user-defined selection of source file criterion, and user-defined scheduling for backups.) Even my "free" Arcada backup software bundled with my old backup tape drives included those features, as does MS's OS-included backup software. To leave those out is ludicrous, for any "serious" backup software company.
I do know that they also support doing automated network backups of a number of client machines to a backup server, but you will pay serious money for those versions of the software. I've never tested their more-advanced versions, so I can't say if they lack any features or not.
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