Summary: NovaBACKUP is a commercial backup solution designed to allow users to safely and securely backup their data. NovaBACKUP does exactly what it promises to. I would recommend this as a viable commercial solution for making backups, but it’s not for everyone.
Pros: NovaBACKUP performed quite well in performance and offering as advertised.
Cons: Because this program has many backup options it is harder to use than simpler data backup programs that only provide basic data backup options.
Program: NovaBACKUP Professional
Company: Novastor
Supported OS: Windows XP SP3, Vista SP2, 7 SP1
Price: $49.95 (1 license), $99.95 (3 licenses), $149.95 (5 licenses)
You can Purchase NovaBACKUP Here
Nova Backup Video Review
What It Does:
NovaBACKUP Professional is a data backup solution designed to ensure that all of your critical data is stored safely (online and offline), and in the event of data loss, that your files can be restored with ease, security and peace of mind.
Installation:
The installation took approximately 20 minutes to complete, as NovaBACKUP required the installation of Microsoft’s .Net Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1. While the technical information page for NovaBACKUP said that a full installation was approximately 300MB in size, the actual space required for NovaBACKUP and the required dependencies was closer to 500MB. After the .NET Framework was installed, the only real interaction that was required from the user was agreeing to NovaStor’s EULA for NovaBACKUP. No reboot was required after the installation was complete.
Details:
Immediately after running the installation package for NovaBACKUP Professional, the user is prompted to install all of the required components.
Screenshot of NovaBACKUP Professional installer downloading Microsoft’s .NET framework package.
After the required dependencies were installed, the user is then prompted to choose what language they would prefer NovaBACKUP to use.
Below is a screenshot of NovaBACKUP installation in progress. This part of the installation process only took about 2 minutes to complete.
After the installation is complete, the user is asked if they would like to run NovaBACKUP immediately, and if so, if they would like to use the advanced mode when using NovaBACKUP.
After starting NovaBACKUP, a splashscreen is displayed.
This is the “simple view” option when using NovaBACKUP Professional. This is designed for less advanced users, or for those who aren’t entirely familiar with NovaBACKUP.
The “advanced view” shows several more options, and is much more feature rich than the simple view.
To test NovaBACKUP, I’ve decided to make a backup of “My Documents” and “My Pictures”. I’ve opted out of the My Music since I already have that archived elsewhere, and it would take way too long to actually put into an archive. I opted out of backing up email as well since I don’t really use outlook express that often.
Here is a screenshot of NovaBACKUP in progress after proceeding with the backup.
The entire backup process took approximately 9 minutes to complete, and the backup archive was 1.37GB in size.
Restoring the backup took around the same amount of time as it did to create it.
Most of the options that are displayed at the top of the main interface can be used and accessed at most times, and are often more detailed outlines of what should/can be backed up. These are features that advanced users will probably find more helpful than the simplistic one-to-three click options that are provided from the simplistic and advanced views. I was unable to test the online backup features, but given the list of options given by Novastor, it seems that the available features are nearly identical to that of their competitors. The virus scanning capabilities of NovaBACKUP professional were also a nice feature.
Ease Of Use:
NovaBACKUP was fairly easy to use, and can be used by any user, regardless of the level of experience.
Summary:
NovaBACKUP Professional is a very nice, effective program for users looking to make secure backups of their data. My only real complaint about the application is its size and price. While the specifications claimed that the user only needed about 300MB of drive space, given the fact that NovaBACKUP makes use of Microsoft’s .NET Framework and not including the virus database, the total install came to just over 500MB. With the virus database, the total installation size came to nearly 700MB. If space is not an issue, then you won’t have to worry about this. However, those who are concerned with installation sizes should probably keep this in mind before purchasing NovaBACKUP Professional.
What to Do Now?
You can Purchase NovaBACKUP Here
Read More: Data Backup Software Reviews
