Areca Backup - Now there's no excuse!

[KenR]

Backing up drives is one of the topics that's often posted about. Here is an open source, very nice looking backup program that might meet your needs in this area.

Backup Engine Features :
    * Archives compression (Zip format)
    * Archives encryption (Triple DES & AES encryption algorithm)
    * Source file filters (by extension, subdirectory, regular expression, size, date, status, usage)
    * Incremental / Full backup support ...

Graphical User Interface :
    * Archives content explorer
    * Archive description : A manifest is associated to each archive, which contains various informations such as author, title, date, description, and some technical data.
    * File history explorer : Areca keeps track of your file's history (creation / modifications / deletion) over your archives.
    * Backup simulation : useful to check wether a backup is necessary ...

Command-Line Interface :
    * Areca comes with a command-line interface which can be used for backup automation..

http://areca.sourceforge.net/

from http://www.all4you.dk/FreewareWorld

[brotherS]

Thanks, that one looks good. I would be interested if anyone with more backup knowledge than me could compare it to other good backup tools.

[f0dder]

...but it's java >_<

[tomos]

...but it's java >_<

-f0dder (January 14, 2007, 04:07 PM)

does that simply mean painfully slow (I'm thinking of OOo)
or is there worse?

[f0dder]

I haven't checked it out, but my experience with java apps is that they're generally pretty much on the heavy side, and the GUIs are laggy and klumzy. I suppose for a backup tool, though, the running speed shouldn't be too bad, since you're going to be file I/O bound. Guess it's worth giving it a shot.

PS: yes, I'm biased - I dislike java programs even more than I dislike dotNET programs. Probably wouldn't be so bad if the ms<>sun case hadn't happened, and we still had the faster&lighter MS JVM.

[Lashiec]

OpenOffice is NOT programmed in Java, but uses Java in some parts (for example, for the new extensions, and I think that it's also used in Base). Thank God is not programmed in Java, it could be worse than Visual Paradigm if it was the other way...

So, how does it fare against Backup4All?

[f0dder]

OpenOffice is dog slow even though it isn't done in JAVA - it's sorta usable after I got my raptor disk, though. But it still doesn't hold a candle to office2000 in startup speed.

[Lashiec]

Yes, that's because OpenOffice is programmed as a single application, instead of following Office method of replicating different applications in separate programs. Things got better with OpenOffice 2.0 (1.1 was a nightmare, and it wasn't very stable), but it's still not enough. In the latest OpenOffice conference, one of the things planned for 3.0 is a further disassemble of the whole program (there's an exact word to define this, but I can't find it), to reduce the impact on the system.

It'll be welcome, considering that further integration with Java is also planned

[justice]

You know mozy? http://mozy.com/