Thanks everybody for a very helpful thread. In the end, and after a lot of comparing, I chose Backup4All rather than either SBSE or SFFS, although both of the latter are rather more powerful and flexible. My reasons were as follows:

1. The DonationCoder discount! (SFFS has one as well, of course...)
2. Very clear and simple method of selecting folders and files to back up across my four partitions.
3. Clear documentation.
4. My simple requirements: don't need ftp for the moment, or synchronization.
5. Only using Backup4All for once-a-day or less versioning (using Caddais or FileHamster for minute-by-minute versioning on crucial files when drafting).

What the thread helped me to do was sort out what I didn't need, what software I was likely to keep using, and what I needed to aim for in terms of proper strategy - in my case, Ghost for imaging; Backup4All for important folder and file backups with versioning to reflect daily changes; and near-continuous versioning using FH or Caddais for drafting.

Thanks again everybody.

DBC

Marek -

Have you looked at Caddais BackupOnDemand? http://www.caddais.com/BackupOnDemand.shtml

It's a bit OT, but does concern the versioning issue. I've been using it for some years to back up important files as I write (particularly MS-Word ones). I bought it originally for this real-time backup feature, in which a driver monitors selected files for any changes while you are working on them and backs them up as a series of versions. This process is pretty unobtrusive and does not need, apparently, triggering by an explicit "save".

It also does periodic backups, scheduled ones and ftp. Of these latter features, I have only used the periodic backup, which is not very sophisticated. 

Unfortunately, there seems to be little further program development going on AFAIK, but I have found the real-time mode very useful. I may be wrong about this, but I think Caddais BOD may operate somewhat differently from programs like FileHamster that seem to require a file to be actually saved before a version is made. OTOH, neither program makes it completely clear what they mean by "real time" backing up...

Derek

SBSE does everything I need and much much more.

DBC -- you should really try both and see which one you prefer. Try to set profiles in SBSE to do exactly what you want. Try the same in SFFS.

-Armando (November 02, 2007, 11:27 AM)

Yes, this is my intention if I can get an extension to my trial. I think in principle that both will do what I need. At present I don't use ftp so that's not an issue.

LATER - Good news - just got the word from 2brightsparks that I can d\l SBSE for a further 30 days. Should be long enough  :)

DBC

DBC