Abelssoft Backup

A proper backup solution should back up your files and data on a regularly-scheduled basis. But it should also be able to create a disk or system "image" that can fully restore your system to a new or reformatted disk drive when disaster strikes. Easy-to-use backup utility, Abelssoft Backup can do that -- and it's free to try for 30 days.

Abelssoft Backup's user interface is very easy to use, spare, and clean. That's fine with us, especially the "easy" part; this tool's look is a refreshing break from some other backup wares we've tried, including premium solutions costing a lot more. And its wizard-based, app-style operation made setting up and running full backups a piece of cake. Abelssoft Backup starts with two steps: create a new backup or open an existing one from the list of available backups. We had no backups yet, so obviously we needed to create one. This tool offers all the features we've come to expect from a full backup solution, such as full or incremental backups, compression, scheduling, and automatic shutdown, plus some extras like optional password protection. Our initial backup of our entire C drive took about as long as our usual backup tool does (at three times Abelssoft Backup's price, incidentally! Ouch!) and used a similar amount of disk space.

Top-edge buttons access Abelssoft Backup's Manual, Settings, and Emergency Backup; the latter creates a Bootable CD and 1:1 disk image for recovering your entire system. Restoring a disk is a drastic measure! Abelssoft recommends the main backup tool for daily use, and we agree. But we strongly recommend that you create (and label) a Bootable CD and a full backup (to a remote drive) as soon as possible, and update or replace it regularly (we keep two and delete the older one when we take a new backup) as well as running regular backups. Abelssoft Backup is an impressive (and affordable) full backup solution.

Editors' note: This is a review of the trial version of Abelssoft Backup 2013.