Ocster Backup Pro, what is it?

I'm a subscriber of "Giveaway of the Day", and the above program is today's giveaway. But it doesn't seem to be a "real" backup, just certain files.

Can anyone clarify this, I thought it was a real (as in complete) backup program, I installed it on my notebook. I have Acronis True Image Home 2010 on my desktop, along with Macrium Free, so that's covered. Is it only a file backup, as it doesn't seem to be a full one?

Cat

When most people use the term back-up it is short for backing up your data files; it is not cloning the drive. Because hard drives weren't cheap nor as huge as they are today; it was not really practical to just clone the drive. The OS can be reinstalled from the DVD, the software can be reinstalled from the DVDs. Plus if backing up to a network or the web the shear size of harddrives makes it impractical. Only actual data needs to be backed up: spreadsheets, documents, access databases, etc. You set it up to back up your My Photos, Documents, My Videos, etc.; and this can be set up to happen daily or weekly, in fact with most products it can be personalized so, for example, documents are done daily and maybe videos/pictures could be weekly. There is no reason to clone the entire drive daily or weekly. You could clone the drive once after everything is installed with some other product, just to be able to restore the OS/programs quickly, and then simply take data back-ups with this product.

What Ocster claims (I say claims because I have no intention of trying it) to do IS A REAL BACKUP; cloning a drive with Acronis IS CLONING A DRIVE. When I say "be sure to back-up your drive" I mean the data, not clone it. In fact the data could be on multiple volumes/drives and you could "back-up your data" to tape (yes we used to use actual cassette tapes on PCs), optical media (CD/DVD), or a harddrive - good luck cloning to tape, CD, or DVD..

If you have the space & time to waste cloning every day/week etc that's fine but it's not normal; technically I would still say that is also a real back-up, just because you did get your data, but to be more accurate I would use the phrase "cloned the drive."

Windows 7 Backup and Restore does not clone the drive either, it backs up the data.

I understand where you're coming from. It is a real backup, only that of certain items, so that being understood, it doesn't meet my needs. If it were possible to backup the installed programs, registry keys, etc, I would gladly prefer to backup that way.

That way, whenever I needed to recover, I could format and get the trash off of my drive each time I decided to recover from a backup. Unfortunately, as far as I know, I don't know of any program that allows you to backup your installed programs (as this is a lot of work to reinstall them), and reinstall your OS, then apply the backup.

If a company were to write such an application, they'd be rich, because I don't know of one that allows you to reinstall your programs without imaging, period.

But I don't image weekly, or have any time frame. I do a full backup with Acronis whenever I install a major program, or like recently, when Windows loaded us up with updates. I don't auto backup, if I did, I'd need a ton of drive space. I keep the first (original, fully updated, with only the backup software). This allows me to "start fresh" without a total reinstall. And I keep two others, the last, and the one before that. Three is plenty.

Thanks for explaining, TM!

Cat

That's why you clone the drive (take an image) right after you have a fresh install: the OS and all your software and have performed all the registry tweaks and created all the user accounts and settings.

Only after this clone do you put the data on there: your pictures, documents, etc and these you Back-up daily/weekly/monthly depending on how often you change that data (For the most part this is everything under C:\Users).

If your system crashes you restore your clone image and then you restore the data files (C:\Users).

I see your point, but when a user moves things around a lot, as I do, that would be impractical. On my second partition, over 450GB, I have 17 VM's through VirtualBox, in addition to XP Mode. That's a lot of files, docs, pics to back up.

On my OEM partition, which only contains the OS (7 Pro) & XP Mode, this may be possible. But I prefer a simple backup solution that does it all in one sweep, the image backup. Acronis does offer file backups in addition to imaging, but I've never used it. Once again, if the file backups included installed programs, I'd be all for it.

But in a since, I do backup important things like pics, docs, certain emails. I use flash drives and copy to them, in fact, I have two 4GB flash drives nearly full. However, you don't need a program to do that, you just copy & save what you want. I suppose it may be easier using a program, though. Acronis True Image does that, too. I'll have to give that a shot.

But Ocster had to go, I was unfamiliar with it, and as you stated, I could have done the same with Windows Backup. It's been awhile since I've used it, but I have, and twice I've recovered with it, before going to Macrium. Unfortunately, the free version of Macrium doesn't do file backups, the paid version probably does. Acronis True Image does it all, including a boot time recovery option, at the prompt, hit F11, you're on the way to recovery.

Had I known that Ocster wasn't a complete backup program (full recovery), I would've never wasted my time downloading and installing it to begin with.

No wonder the rating was 52% thumbs up, 48% thumbs down.

Cat