They Say That Backing Up Is Hard To Do

[Hooch Tan]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://lifehacker.com/5575418/redo-backup-is-a-user+friendly-disk-recovery-and-backup-live-cd' target='_blank'>http://lifehacker.com/5575418/redo-...-backup-live-cd</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"The team behind Redo Backup can't argue that their tool is the most comprehensive on the market, but they can argue that it's the easiest to use. Boot up with a Live CD or Live USB copy of Redo Backup and you're only a few clicks away from backing up your system&mdash;or restoring it if your hard drive went to the great data center in the sky."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1277833675.usr20447.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>Backing up should be a mandatory part of your computing regimen and there are a wide range of options available to do so.&nbsp; However, as easy as Redo sounds, I do have to question one major part of how it works: Using a Live CD or USB drive.&nbsp; Backups should be easy to do, and while a Live CD with a simple wizard sounds like a great idea, it means that a person has to either pop in a CD, or plug in a Flash drive and restart their computer.&nbsp; I know of very few people willing to go through that kind of a break in their routine in order to do backups.&nbsp; If they can provide a way for the backups to be done in the background while a person is still working away, and use the Live CD or USB drive for restoration purposes, they might just get a few more customers.</p>

[Jason Dunn]

Yeah, I agree with you - any backup system that requires you to reboot your computer, or even remember to ANYTHING at all - is a big fail for day to day backups. I think this tool would be good though for "OK mom, I just set up your computer for you, please don't get any viruses on it". I use Acronis TrueImage for this...once I've configured a system the way I want it, but before I load up all my data on it, I take a snapshot of the system so I can do a bare metal restore.

[Hooch Tan]

You are right that it might be good as an "initial" image in case the computer goes horribly wrong, but as a regular backup, I just don't see it. At least with Acronis, it can do backups in the background. Of course, I'm also finding that a lot of people store everything online, so it is not as important anymore, but for power users who go through a lot of photos, videos, etc. it still helps.