About Me

I begin by performing a complete download and installation of all software featured on this website by myself. By taking this approach, I am able to assess:

Ease of Setup: Is the installation process straightforward and are there any hidden hurdles or unnecessary complications which could make the product less effective?

User Interface (UI) & Navigation: Is the user interface intuitive, clean and easy to navigate for users of all technical levels? Additionally, can key features be accessed quickly and without the need to be regularly consulting product documentation?

Initial Configuration: How easy is it to set up the first backup job, initiate a disk cloning operation, save a new password or synchronise a device with a cloud storage provider (among many other similar tasks assessed over the years)?

This is the real testing stage and involves actually using the various PC software solutions as intended. This involves going much further than simply checking which features exist and actually putting them to the tests to ensure products deliver what they promise.

Types of Backup Methodology: This includes testing full, incremental, differential and real-time backups with diverse (real-world) data sets (including documents, photos, videos and system files) of varying sizes. This approach helps to ensure backup software can handle the backing up of data on a typical Windows PC as should be expected of it.

Versioning & Retention: How well does backup software manage historic file versioning and how easy is it to retrieve older versions of any backed-up files when required?

Scheduling & Automation: An important aspect of any backup software, I always aim to fully verify how easily scheduled backups can be configured and how reliably they are run once set-up.

Local vs Cloud Storage: For hybrid backup solutions, I always test performance and reliability for both locally attached drives and cloud-based storage targets.

Network & NAS Support: For solutions supporting network-based storage (NAS devices, shared folders etc.) I always aim to test how easy this storage is to configure and how effectively it can be made use of.

A solid backup software solution shouldn’t impact the everyday running of a PC. In-fact, it is important that backup software be able to run silently in the background meaning it should be resource efficient and not prone to slowing down other applications.

System Resource Usage: How much CPU, RAM, and disk I/O does the backup software consume during backup, disk cloning or cloud syncing operations etc?

Backup/Restore Speed: A very important aspect of testing backup software, I am always keen to assess how quickly data can be transferred to or from the chosen storage device during both the backup and restore procedures.

Storage Efficiency: I typically look out for features like deduplication and data compression which can help in saving disk space and often also result in faster backup operation times as well as helping to reduce disk space usage.

The safety and security of backed-up data is paramount. To ensure backup software handles these critical areas correctly I always look for:

Data Encryption: What encryption standards are used by any given piece of backup software (e.g., AES 256-bit) for data both in transit and whilst stored at rest. I also like to see advanced data encryption technologies available including support for choosing the level of encryption available and the use of zero-knowledge encryption for maximum levels of data protection.

Data Integrity Checks: Does the backup software ensure that any backed-up data is not corrupted? This often comes in the form of offering post backup verification checks which can often be run either manually or on an automatic schedule as required.

Suitable Privacy Policies: Especially relevant for cloud-based backup services, I always like to examine data privacy policies and ensure providers recommended on this site are working to correct data handling practices whenever applicable.

Even the best backup software can present challenges. For this reason, I always assess the support on offer by the provider – this includes:

Documentation & FAQs: I always evaluate the clarity and comprehensiveness of any user manuals, online product guides and frequently asked questions (FAQ) sections as made available.

Customer Support: This involves assessing what customer support options are available, what channels is this support delivered by (e.g. email, live chat, phone) and how effective support requests are handled when applicable to contact support for myself.

Finally, with all of the above testing factors in mind, I always like to weight what is being offered and how effectively it works against the cost for the software. I consider the different pricing models on offer (including both one-time purchase and subscription variants), storage limits (for cloud backup services), and included features to determine if the software offers good value in my own opinion.