Path: menudo.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: schaefer@di.epfl.ch (Marc Schaefer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: ABackup version 2.11 Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.applications Date: 13 Jan 1993 15:30:28 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 220 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <1j1cikINNigd@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: schaefer@di.epfl.ch (Marc Schaefer) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: backups, hard drive, shareware PRODUCT NAME ABackup V2.11 BRIEF DESCRIPTION ABackup is a backup and restore utility with unique features. AUTHOR Name: Denis Gounelle Address: Bonte 71 6, rue des Cailloux F-92110 Clichy France E-mail: gounelle@alphanet.ch (E-mail to the author is slow because it has to be sent by normal mail anyway by someone at alphanet.) LIST PRICE There are two versions: freely distributable (unregistered) and registered. They are identical except that the unregistered version has a "BuyMe" requester. The registered version costs 50 FF, or approximately 12 SFr or US$8. If you register, you receive the next version of the program, and sometimes also other utilities. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE NONE Works with 880KB floppy drive, 1.6MB HD floppy, Syquest, ... SOFTWARE NONE Works under 1.3 and 2.04. COPY PROTECTION NONE. The freely distributable version has a shareware requester. MACHINES USED FOR TESTING 1. Amiga B2000 rev 4.4 with Trumpcard FileCard, Quantum 105MB HD, 512K Chip RAM, 512k Slow-Fast RAM, 4 MB Fast RAM. OS 2.04, two 880KB disk-drives. 2. Amiga 3000, 6 MB RAM, with a Syquest removable media drive. REVIEW I do huge backups onto floppy disks (yes, floppy disks), and it takes me a lot of time. I tried other backup programs such as Commodore's supplied HDBackup, MRBackup, and a demo version of Ami-Back, but they were slow, inefficient with compression, didn't work on two disk drives, had bugs and forced you to insert disks 1 to 65 to restore the file on the last disk. And alas, they were English-speaking only. ABackup is very fast, easy to use, has a nice GUI, and is very flexible. It has many features, some of which are not found in the other backup programs I have used. - Ability to backup physically on any disk drive (DF0:, DF1:, DF2:, ...) or to a file (e.g., your Syquest, TAPE:, ...). More than one disk drive may be used during the same backup (e.g., sequential backup on DF0: and DF1:). - Ability to select internal compression (compress-like). - Ability to select which files NOT to compress, based on their filename extensions (e.g., .lha, .jpg, ...). - Compatibility with XPK compression external libraries. I think this is feature is unique to ABackup. - Ability to select files for incremental backups via date, file protections, and so on. - Ability to select which files to restore before restoring. - Automatic formatting of the backup disks before use (see BUGS). - If an error occurs on the disk being used for backup, you are requested to insert another one, and the backup continues. - Reconstruction of the backup catalog, normally created on the last disk. - Support for A3000T HD drives (I couldn't test this). - It uses a separate task for input and output (I/O), thus using fully the Amiga's multitasking capabilities and speeding up I/O. I think that's also an unique feature. - Documentation both in ASCII and (hypertext-like) ADoc. ABackup has a nice GUI; however, it may also be used from the CLI for automated backups/restoring. I have used ABackup for approximately 8 months, doing a full backup each month and incremental backups each week, and the program works well. DOCUMENTATION The program comes with English and French documentation in an ASCII file on disk. The documentation covers all menu items, gadgets and CLI commands. It is easy to read. It also comes with specially formatted documentation to use in ADoc's hypertext-like system. DISLIKES It is currently not possible to backup non AmigaDOS partitions, such as A-MAX for example. Also, there is no support for multi-disk-drive restores; you can only RESTORE from one of the drives, unlike with the BACKUP command. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS ABackup is largely superior to HDBackup for compression quality, speed, ease-of-use, reliability (you don't have to restart the backup from the beginning if something goes wrong, and you are not obliged to traverse all disks to find the file you want to restore). If the disk catalog gets destroyed, you may _reconstruct_ it. The internal compression is sufficient for all applications; however, XPK compatibility allows for special options (hyperfast compression, encryption, etc.). The XPK compatibility and the secondary task for I/O both seem to be be unique among backup utilities. BUGS The last version I tried had no serious bugs. It only had some minor glitches I already reported to the author. For example, if you use non-formatted floppy disks for backup, sometimes it can't format them. However, you normally quickly recover from this, and this does not stop the current backup. Most bugs from previous releases were corrected rather quickly. My suggestions were also taken in account very seriously, and some of them were adopted. The author of ABackup reports that there is a problem with ABackup under AmigaDOS release 3.0, which I do not have. A temporary fix is to use the NOTASK option. VENDOR SUPPORT It is not only possible to make suggestions, but also they are often taken into account very quickly, and added in the next release. For example, a friend of mine had a problem with a backup: he couldn't find the last disk which contains the catalog. The author made a new version in less than one week that supported catalog reconstruction. WARRANTY None. AVAILABILITY Either on a FTP site (litamiga.epfl.ch:/pub/amiga/gounelle), for the public redistributable version, or directly from the author for the registered version. CONCLUSIONS Reliability: 9 out of 10 (had some problems when backing up to non-formatted disks) Rapidity: 9 out of 10 (very fast, even on 68000, except with internal compression; with XPK it's sometimes faster.) Ease-of-use: 8 out of 10 (easy-to-understand clicking and selection; however, restoring from ONE drive is painful) GUI: 9 out of 10 (does not use standard file requester under 2.04) Support: 10 out of 10 (my wishes were almost all fulfilled) COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1993 Marc SCHAEFER, Ms... This review is freely distributable, as long as conditions in the comp.sys.amiga.reviews monthly posting regarding fees are respected. DISCLAIMER I'm not associated in any way whatsoever with the author. I'm only a registered user of ABackup. +------------------_+-----------------------------------------------+ | Marc SCHAEFER _ //| schaefer@alphanet.ch or schaefer@di.epfl.ch | | Battieux 6c \X/ | MUD:mud.imp.ch@2345 FTP:litamiga.epfl.ch:/pub | | 2013 COLOMBIER CH| Week fast response mail schaefer@di.epfl.ch | +-------------------+-----------------------------------------------+ --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu