Back when I used my Zip (100MB) drive for backups, I was very happy with the software Iomega gave me (perhaps it was called "1-Step Backup"?). Now I have a CD-RW drive, and I would love to have software that does the same thing as the old thing did, but will write to CD-RW (and CDR) discs. So, the ideal backup software would do the following:
- have a nice GUI for selecting files and directories from all over my machine, Explorer-style
- filter-out by file extension and whatnot
- compress the data
- span multiple CDs automatically, prompting for the next CD when one is full
- allow me to save the back-up settings to run it all over again
- does not need to have a driver and filesystem for the CD (whatever that Roxio DirectCD thing is)
- be easy enough to use without reading a help file or wondering what certain words mean(*)
Some other nice features, though ones I could survive without:
- scheduling automatic back-ups
- freeware
Does this software exist or am I asking for too much? Do I care if it needs to write a file first to the HDD? Of course not... that's what I do manually. My current solution, which is a PITA, is to use the Windows back-up tool to create a huge back-up archive, compress is via zip, and then write to CD. I haven't had to span disks yet, but will need to soon. I imagine there are ways to do it (use RAR instead of zip, for example).
Comments? Suggestions? Flames? (just kidding there on that last one)
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(*) I've looked at this Retrospect thing, the trial version, and it makes no sense to me, even after reading the help file. What use is it if the vocabularly it uses is not defined anywhere?
- have a nice GUI for selecting files and directories from all over my machine, Explorer-style
- filter-out by file extension and whatnot
- compress the data
- span multiple CDs automatically, prompting for the next CD when one is full
- allow me to save the back-up settings to run it all over again
- does not need to have a driver and filesystem for the CD (whatever that Roxio DirectCD thing is)
- be easy enough to use without reading a help file or wondering what certain words mean(*)
Some other nice features, though ones I could survive without:
- scheduling automatic back-ups
- freeware
Does this software exist or am I asking for too much? Do I care if it needs to write a file first to the HDD? Of course not... that's what I do manually. My current solution, which is a PITA, is to use the Windows back-up tool to create a huge back-up archive, compress is via zip, and then write to CD. I haven't had to span disks yet, but will need to soon. I imagine there are ways to do it (use RAR instead of zip, for example).
Comments? Suggestions? Flames? (just kidding there on that last one
)---
(*) I've looked at this Retrospect thing, the trial version, and it makes no sense to me, even after reading the help file. What use is it if the vocabularly it uses is not defined anywhere?
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