Today's subject is BackItUp, another backup solution from SOFTOTEC. We've already reviewed their ASIS Backup. "ASIS" operates on a very low system level that allows you to make exact backup copies of your disk volumes with all the operating systems and software installed. While this method lets you restore everything after a disk or system crash without re-installing Windows and other software, it is time-consuming and requires a re-boot to complete. You will probably not use it more often than once per month.

But, what about the documents, e-mail messages and other files that you create or receive between two complete backup sessions? They can be lost on a disk crash, virus attack, etc. You need a fast and simple backup program that you can put on a schedule to make daily backups of your folders containing important documents, pictures and e-mail messages. BackItUp is exactly the solution.

Question: What makes it so fast? Answer: Incremental mode of operation. Instead of backing up the same files files every day, it adds only files that were created or updated since the last backup session. Normally, this method speeds-up the backup process by hundreds of times. Unlike standard Windows backup utilities and some other old backup programs that offer incremental backups, BackItUp does not create separate archives containing new and updated files. It updates the same archive. So, this does not require additional space on your disk.

The program supports ZIP compression and is compatible with the 64-bit ZIP format. There is always a tradeoff between the resulting archive size and the compression speed. You can choose from several compression modes. I'd suggest that you create separate "tasks" (the program allows you to create multiple profiles called "backup tasks") for your documents and your binary files (images, archived software, etc.) Choose the Maximum compression for your documents and the Fastest compression for the binaries.