- Quick specs
- Price: Free to try (30-day trial); $29.95 to buy
- Operating system: Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98
- Date added: March 22, 2007
- Total Downloads: 386,548
- Downloads last week: 1,559
- See full specifications
A newer version of Second Copy is available.
(Download doesn't provide access to previous versions of this program.)
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 267 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET staff on January 05, 2009
The program provides standard functionality for backing up and synchronizing your data. Like many similar applications, Second Copy is based on profiles that store information about what files to back up, where and when to do so, and so on.
The program can back up 25 versions of the same file, handy for those users who routinely make a lot of changes. All you have to do to create a new profile is modify a similar one. You can group numerous profiles and run backups automatically in the background. For more advanced users, the program offers FTP support, command-line options, and macros.
Its otherwise handy and clear interface would gain from integrating dialog and option windows in the common shell, but what it really lacks is a tree view for profiles. However, Second Copy's functionality and price are adequate for both small-business and home users, especially those comfortable with technology.
Publisher's description
From Centered Systems :Second Copy automatically copies files and folders from one location to another on the local drives, across the network, or to removable drives such as USB, CD-RW/DVD, or on network storage devices. It works in the background. Simply tell Second Copy, which files to copy, where and when to copy them, and forget about it. Its easy-to-use setup wizard helps to define 'profiles' that describe the source and the destination location, and the frequency at which to copy the files. It monitors the source files and automatically copies the new or changed files to the destination. It can compress and encrypt the files using the built-in compression utility. Automatic scheduling includes specific days of the week, hours of the day, or any desired time intervals. New features include 256-bit AES encryption, FTP support, e-mail notification, and support to run as a service, PKZip compatible compression, two-way file synchronization, and the ability to archive up to 25 old versions of files.
Version 7.0.0.171 fixes a bug in the include specification criteria for selected files.
What's new in this version:
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User reviews of Second Copy 7.0.0.171
- Average user rating: 4.5 stars out of 267 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 11 user reviewsSee all 11 user reviews
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8 out of 14 people found this review helpful
Version: Second Copy 7.0.0.171
"This is simple, effective and reasonable priced."
Pros: This application may be the best file backup program available. There is a "Beta" version for "Vista" but have personal issues installing "Beta" software on my computers. "Beta" means just that, "Beta", be careful, use at your own risk. But "Second Copy" is a familiar, old friend of mine. It's simple to use, works like a charm, has a nice GUI, does everything it claims it will do and sells for a very reasonable price. The free trial works, so it's certainly worth having a look, see.
Cons: It doesn't backup an operating system. It's strictly a file backup application.
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: Second Copy 7.0.0.171
Pros: It is a true Set-and-Forget backup programme. You can set it to back up every 10 minutes (your Word documents) to daily, weekly or whatever you need. Further it creates back ups of your back ups! Yes! You can have several generations of backup of your more important files.
Cons: The interface is not intuitive. I suspect that this Company loses a lot of sales from people who try it, and give up before working their way through the klutzy interface. However, for me, after taking time to understand how it works, I have yet to find anything as powerful and flexible. Certainly a 5-Star product/
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7 out of 8 people found this review helpful
Version: Second Copy 7.0.0.171
Pros: I have used Second Copy to back up my business data and now I am going to use it to protect my personal information as well.
It has a simple interface and works quickly. As you get more experienced with the program, you can control the way and what you back up
Cons: Skips files in use
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6 out of 7 people found this review helpful
Version: Second Copy 7.0.0.171
Pros: I wanted a program that would back up different files to different locations including a networked filer and schedule the backups at different times. I also needed the data to be easily recovered from the backup drive or filer using another networked PC.
I have tangled with a few programs for backing up data and have in general found them to be awkward in that they don't give the flexibility for different combinations of file selection, file destination and backup schedule time. These programs are also not easy to use for an average user in an organisation.
I was therefore highly delighted when I discovered Second Copy because it does all of those things and more, it is easy to use and it is relatively inexpensive. End of headache and start of a trouble-free backup experience! The programmers at Second Copy have to be congratulated for keeping in mind what average users of PCs actually want to do and presenting it in a very user-friendly way.
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3 out of 3 people found this review helpful
Version: Second Copy 7.0.0.171
"Efficient, clear, easy to use"
Pros: I got this "on the bounce" from Maxtor/Dantz/EMD Retrospect Express HD, which managed to lose the catalog to 15 months worth of backup, and could not rebuild it. After more than ten hours of following every suggestion I could find on the support site or elsewhere on the Internet, I just gave up and abandoned all those backups, and am starting fresh.
So things I like about Second Copy compared to Retrospect:
- The setup is clear, and you can either use the easy wizard or specify all the details you might want.
- Files are backed up in standard (or zipped) format, so there is no need for a special catalog--you just access them using the regular file system (or your favorite zip tool).
- You can always see, with Windows Explorer, just what is backed up, how many versions (and you can set the maximum number to keep) and how much space each is using.
- You can set up multiple profiles to back up different classes of files on different schedules, with different numbers of versions, to different places, etc. No need for one size fits all.
- There is a progress bar, so you can tell how you're doing. (You can also check by using Explorer to moniter the target directory.) With Retrospect, you could sit there for hours wondering whether it was making any progress, and the answer was usually, but not always, No.
- The same tool works for backing to a different part of your hard disk, to an external hard drive, to removable media, etc.
- You can try before you buy, but I bought as soon as I'd completed the first backup and inspected the results.
Cons: If you don't use the express wizard, and are careless about setting the Options, it will happily mail you multi-megabyte log files. A minor downside of the flexibility.
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