Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Super straightforward to make use of
- Organizes and presents backed up recordsdata by date
- Currently ridiculously inexpensive
Cons
- Doesn’t assist on-line storage companies
- Only one information set and job
- Problematic restoration discs
Our Verdict
If you’ve needed the convenience and ease of Apple’s Time Machine backup on your Windows PC, Genie Timeline 10’s steady information safety is as shut as you’ll get. Featuring a ludicrously low worth on the time of this overview, it may need been backup nirvana–if the restoration disks had labored.
Price When Reviewed
$12
Best Prices Today: Genie Timeline 10 Home
Genie’s Timeline 10 Home is a steady information safety (CDP) program for Windows that seeks to imitate the convenience of Apple’s Time Machine when shopping and restoring recordsdata. Though not fairly as visually slick as its function mannequin, the present model 10 of Timeline is drastically improved from the older program I reviewed over a decade in the past. There are extra choices, catastrophe restoration, and—presently—a fantastically low worth of $12. (The normal annual worth for one machine is $39.95.)
Alas, we had some points with the restoration disc not booting on our Windows 11 programs, so what may’ve rated as backup gold, is as a substitute, bronze.
This overview is a part of our ongoing roundup of the best backup software. Go there for info on competing merchandise and the way we examined them.
Genie Timeline 10 Home: Design and options
Genie Timeline 10 Home sports activities a contemporary, clear interface and is especially adept at serving to much less knowledgable customers select what recordsdata to again up. You can in fact manually specify which recordsdata and folders to again up utilizing a standard tree selector, however this system additionally lets you merely select varied classes of knowledge: e mail, music, movies, workplace, monetary, and so forth.
We’d usually suggest selecting the Disaster Recovery choice; that is additionally the choice that mimics Apple Time Machine’s capacity to revive your whole set up. To that finish, Genie now gives Linux-based catastrophe restoration boot media. You should obtain a separate program to create it, but it surely’s out there. Sadly, it proved problematic over a number of machines.
Timeline 10 Home will use its personal logic (IntelliCDP) to again up recordsdata at cheap intervals (although not actual time) with out interfering drastically together with your workday and laptop efficiency, or you may specify a time interval of 30 minutes, a number of hours, or as soon as a day. You can’t specify a time for the every day choice, this system will simply again up when it determines 24 hours have handed.
You can even run a backup manually at any time. As computer systems are rather a lot sooner than they have been again in 2009, real-time is not the efficiency suck it as soon as was. Genie ought to contemplating including this performance in it’s subsequent Timeline replace.
Note that the scheduling proven within the picture above is the beforehand mentioned interval between backups, not your regular “run it on Monday at 9 a.m.” scheduling. It’s steady backup in spite of everything.
Other options embody compression, e mail notifications, file retention insurance policies, and so forth. There’s additionally a No Backup Zone folder positioned on the Desktop the place you may place recordsdata you don’t need Timeline to again up. This will be useful in case you recurrently take care of massive transitory recordsdata that you simply don’t need to waste backup area with.
Where Timeline actually units itself other than the typical Windows backup program, in addition to its tight deal with backing up one PC, is in shopping and restoring recordsdata. Like Apple’s Time Machine, there’s a date/time browser you may step via to view the assorted backups. This is extremely useful in case you simply need to get well a file or folder you will have mistakenly deleted or overwrote.
The Timeline browser has a lot the side of a Windows Explorer window, and all recordsdata are proven within the areas from which they have been backed up. It’s a boon, although I did discover one slight “glitch” that I’ll focus on within the efficiency part beneath.
Timeline 10 Home, as with Time Machine, gives solely a single job masking a single information set: backing up your native laptop. For most customers that’s sufficient. But prosumers who need to again as much as a number of areas with totally different information units may discover this limitation stifling.
Note that Timeline 10 Home makes use of zip compression, so you may nonetheless entry compressed backups utilizing nothing however Windows Explorer.
Genie Timeline 10 Home: Performance
With at the moment’s PCs, no backup program ought to overly tax your system. Even one which sits within the background monitoring recordsdata as Timeline does.
That mentioned, in case your laptop and storage are significantly sluggish or outdated, you may need to keep away from steady information safety (CDP) altogether and use one thing you may schedule for off hours.
I examined Timeline 10 Home with each a 2.5Gbps (about 275MBps) community location (partial file backup) and a direct-attached Thunderbolt SSD (full backup, catastrophe restoration) as locations, so storage was not a bottleneck.
While I left Timeline set to make the most of its IntelliCDP algorithm, it nonetheless appeared to again up each half hour—no nearer to actual time. Also, when utilizing the Timeline Explorer window, clicking on the primary or final backup dot would often, although not at all times, open a brand new window. This is outwardly a bug that tech assist wasn’t conscious of and I wasn’t in a position to replicate it in different classes. I’m reporting to you on it, however take into account it insignificant.
What was important was Timeline 10’s Linux-based boot disc failing in addition on a few our take a look at programs. While I did handle to get the restoration disc in addition in a devoted digital machine set for Linux, it wouldn’t boot in the same VM working Windows. It additionally wouldn’t boot correctly on our AMD storage take a look at mattress, merely bypassing to Windows boot.
I talked to tech assist and so they despatched me a hyperlink for a extra strong restoration picture, however that failed about 75 p.c of the way in which via the boot course of as nicely, hanging the system. In reality, I used to be by no means in a position to take a look at the catastrophe restoration routine as I might by no means get the disc in addition on a backed-up system.
Even it the disc will boot on some programs, these failures stop me from recommending Timeline as a restore-from-system-failure, aka, catastrophe restoration, utility. Most customers won’t ever uncover if the boot disc works for them till they really attempt to restore.
Of course the information remains to be available, simply not till you reinstall Windows. You’ll additionally should reinstall your applications manually. Lest you take into account my evaluation unfair or harsh, keep in mind, relating to backup, failure will not be an choice. Glitches should not allowed. Bulletproof is the objective.
Bottom line
I’ve requested many distributors why they haven’t carried out Apple’s almost idiot-proof Time Machine method. The consensus? It’s merely not straightforward to do. Judging from Timeline, they’re appropriate. Timeline is a close-but-no-cigar try that labored nice proper up till the boot disc failures. It’s nonetheless nice for file backup and restoration, however not the Time Machine safety of your whole OS.
If you need dependable catastrophe restoration, get our Editor’s Choice: R-Drive Image. It’s what I exploit to get well the take a look at system after Timeline and different backup applications’ failures. If you’re principally all in favour of file backup and restore, and prepared to reinstall Windows after a catastrophe (usually the sensible selection) then Timeline is a handy choice.