by Dale Farris, President, Golden Triangle PC Club
August 2001

Program Overview

Ever had the nightmarish experience of having to rebuild a computer system? Or, maybe worse, ever have to rebuild critical data files, as in rewrite or reproduce these?

All it takes is just one time to have to go through this maddening experience for most computer users to quickly learn how to use, and then regularly activate some sort of data backup process. While in today's sophisticated computer network environments, the trend is more to supporting individual user data backup needs on the server, stand alone, individual computer users must take the responsibility to regularly backup and protect their data.

Once users become aware of the need to backup, either their entire system or more likely their data files, then they have to decide which backup drive and medium to use in the backup process. Just a few short years ago, before we began to see the proliferation of CD-R and CD-RW drives, users were pretty much limited to sequential tape or limited optical/electromagnetic drives as the mechanism of choice. 

With sequential tape, users had access to far greater data capacity than limited random access media such as Zip 100/250 drives, or the 1-2GB portable hard drive choices. As the volume of files needing to be protected began to grow, this created a need in the marketplace for increased data capacity in more accessible and faster optical drives. In addition, as the MP3 file format literally exploded across the Internet, many users began to accumulate vast quantities of data files they wished to protect, and which frequently exceeded the limited capacities of then current drive mechanisms.

Today, the CD-R and CD-RW optical drives are so common that one day in the near future, we may see the end of the CD ROM drive that for so long was the optical drive of choice. These ubiquitous CD-RW drives have become so fast, increasingly more reliable, and offer such huge data storage capacity (650MB), that these have now become the CD drive of choice for most newly assembled machines.

With the huge amount of data storage capacity on CD-R and CD-RW drives, this meant computer users could begin to use these optical CD drives and the appropriate drive disks to store backups of their data files. This also presented still more opportunities for software vendors to create software applications that would control the backup process.

In response to this growing interest in user-friendly software to back up data, the NewTech Infosystems, Inc. company presents one of the most powerful, and easy to use, applications now on the market.

Backup NOW! 2.2.26 for Windows NT/2000 is specially built to be run on a Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 machine to backup computer files to a CD-R or CD-RW drive. After you complete a first backup, then you can choose to backup only the files that are new or that have changed since the last backup.

There is a high degree of sophistication in this program, along with the user-friendly interface. The program has strong support for a wide variety of CD drives, partially because the company, NewTech Infosystems, Inc., is also in the business of building drivers and CD tools.

Part of what has to happen with this process, supporting CD-R and CD-RW drives, involves interacting with these drives and the CD media, and includes such tasks as analyzing and formatting the disks. The program's Disk Info tool provides very thorough information about the status of backup media.

You can access the Erase function, which will let you either wipe a CD-RW quickly, or use the slower method of completely deleting existing data for more reliable backups.

The step-by-step approach lets you define backup jobs and specify the output device and media, as well as which drives, folders, and files to include or exclude. These jobs are also reusable, and the program can run any number of these at scheduled times. There are also numerous options, such as file compression, differential backup, and incremental backup. Differential backups will take longer to complete, but may make restoring a full system go faster.

The same process used to back up files is used to restore these files. The program catalogs the files on the hard drive as the backups are made, and this makes finding files and the right backup CD to restore from much quicker. The program can also create a complete drive image, which, coupled with a recovery diskette, means you have the makings for a much more reliable disaster recovery system. However, individual files cannot be extracted from an image.

Super Included Features

Simplicity - 1-2-3 user interface
Choose What you want to backup, Where to backup, and How to do it
Step-by-step guidance for novices
Familiar Windows-like Explorer interface
Universal Restore -Restore backed data from ANY multi-read CD-ROM, CD-R, or CD-RW drive
On-The-Fly Compression - store up to 1GB on one 650MB CD
Flexible Restore Support - restore a file, folder, or entire image
Automatic Speed Control
Built-in, Automatic Scheduler
Password-Protect Specific Backup Jobs
Variable Packet Writing
Incremental and Differential Backups
Backup In-Use System Files, Hidden Files, Windows Registry
Multi-Disc Backup
Data Comparison - 3 levels
Error Recovery
System Files Handling
Bootable CD Feature - create a bootable CD to assure recovery
Floppy Creator
Image or File Level of Backup
Command Line Restore - restore data on ANY system directly from DOS prompt
Network Support - backup network drives mapped as a device on a PC
CD-RW Erase Utility
Exclude Function
Auto-Verify After Backup
Backup and Restore Job Reports
Time-Sensitive File Replacements on Restore Operations
Restore Data to Alternate Locations

Targeted Customers

Any user of Windows NT or Windows 2000 will want to give serious attention to this super utility that will make the data or system backup process much more efficient, as well as easier to initially learn. With the company's ever expanding support for the continuous stream of new CD-R and CD-RW drives, this also means owners of newer systems will likely be able to support this software on their machine that may come with one of these more newer CD drives. 

Install and Setup

With the NT 4/2000 version, users need to remember that NT and 2000 have implemented file access restrictions and other security features that may prevent user access to certain system resources, such as the registry. For this reason, you will want to log on as Administrator (or a member of the Administrator's group), before using Backup NOW!.

During install, approximately 7MB of free hard disk space will be needed. To uninstall, run the standard Windows Add/Remove procedures.

Price

$99.99 for Win NT/2000 edition (includes Win 95/98/ME)
$64.95 upgrade
$79.99 for stand alone Win 95/98/ME version
Volume licensing is available for the server and the workstation products.

Minimum System Configuration Requirements

Windows NT 4.0 or higher and Windows 2000
P 144MHz or higher processor
64MB RAM or higher
5MB free hard disk space
Recordable or Rewritable CDs
Supported CD-R/CD-RW drive

This link will take you to the NewTech Infosystems, Inc. Web site where you can search the NTI database of information on the large number of drives this software supports.

About NewTech Infosystems, Inc.

NewTech Infosystems, Inc. (NTI) is a worldwide leader in developing and delivering innovative software solutions for the digital media market. The company is a major software developer for CD-R/CD-RW, and future DVD-RW devices, and has been delivering complete software solutions for CD-RW recording and backup since its inception in 1993.

The company strives to build their products based on the concept of power with simplicity, and user friendly interfaces, all to enable users to explore the power of CD-R and CD-RW functionalities.

The products are available in multi-language versions and are distributed through OEM, retail and volume end-user licensing channels. On June 4, 2001, NTI announced that their CD Maker 2000 program, a high-performance CD-R/CD-RW mastering and recording application, designed specifically for Windows environments, would be shipping with Intel Desktop Boards.

In addition to Backup NOW! and CD Maker 2000, NTI also produces FileCD and DriveBackup. All these products sport the user-friendly "EasySteps" interface.

Contact Information

Christopher Want
Marketing and Sales Assistant
NewTech Infosystems, Inc.
1395 Warner Ave.
Tustin, California 92780
714-259-9700, ext. 216
FAX 714-259-9727
chrisw@ntius.com
www.ntius.com

You can also order from other retailers or online vendors.