Data Backup Software and Service

Genie is available as a $49.95 Home version, a $69.95 Pro version and a $400 Server version as well. The Pro includes differential backup, tape backup and more advanced controls while the Server adds MS Exchange and SQL Server support plus CPU management features.

Features

Genie has one of the most complete feature sets of any backup product on the market.

First and foremost it can back up to just about any type of media currently available including USB drives, Genie's online backup service or your own remote FTP server. It fully supports automatic media spanning so you can backup across multiple CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray DVDs. Now in V8 you can also backup to Iomega REV drives as well as the older ZIP and JAZ formats. The Pro version can backup to tape in addition to the other media supported by the Home version.

Backups can be on-demand or scheduled. They can be full, incremental or mirror and in the Pro version, differential as well. They may be compressed and/or encrypted or not. They can be verified on completion if you so wish.

Genie has a full scripting language for complex backups. This is unlikely to be used by home users but business users will definitely benefit, particularly if there is a need for command line operation from within batch files..

An important new feature is Genie's ability to copy locked files using the Windows Shadow Service. This allows successful backup of files that otherwise could not be accessed. For example Outlook files can be backed up even if Outlook is running and the data files are open. This is a very useful feature as leaving programs open is a common cause of backup failure. The last version of Genie handled this problems via a separate $39.95 product called File Access Manager. Now this functionality is included within Genie itself.

Another nice feature is the Catalog module. It lets you open any backup job and extract files on a one-by-one basis. This is a real time-saver, since you don’t need to restore an entire job’s files just for one or two that need to be restored.

All backup programs allow you to backup this data but with most, you have to tell the backup program exactly where the files are located on your computer. Many users wouldn't have a clue where this data is located. Consequently, they rarely back it up.

With Genie, it's simply a case of ticking an option box. And frankly, that's exactly the way it ought to be.

Summary
The bottom line is that this is a full featured and reliable backup program which has the capacity to back up the Windows Registry, Favorites, email files, media files and more in addition to normal user files and folders. It's only downside is a somewhat complex array of options for creating new backup jobs that may initially throw some raw beginners.