IvyBackup review: Promising, open format, but not quite ready for prime time

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I used to be anticipating good issues from the $69 IvyBackup after I first fired it up. I’ve expressed the thought quite a few occasions that backup packages ought to use codecs that may be opened with out the necessity for proprietary software program. IvyBackup makes use of the widespread Zip and .VHD codecs slightly than proprietary containers. Nice.

IvyBackup additionally helps two locations per job (native and on-line), a partial implementation of one other characteristic I foyer for: one knowledge set, many locations. Kudos to Kudu Computing Ltd. (Sorry, I needed to…)

As you may think, I used to be predisposed to a positive opinion. Alas, whereas I like that this system implements my favourite characteristic requests, and I’ve excessive hopes for this program’s future, cases of poor error-checking and logging render me lower than smitten by this present incarnation.

This assessment is a part of our ongoing roundup of the best backup software. Go there for data on competing merchandise and the way we examined them.

Features

IvyBackup provides each picture and file/folder backup. Image information are saved in widespread .vhd format that Windows creates and understands. Again, because of this must you lose this system, or are recovering knowledge at a while in a distant future the place IvyBackup doesn’t exist, you’ll nonetheless have the option mount the picture on any Windows PC (and most different working methods) and get better the information inside. Nice.

Files and folder backups could also be full (all the pieces you choose), incremental (all adjustments to your picks for the reason that final backup), differential (all adjustments in your picks for the reason that final full backup), or mirrored. The three former are zipped, one other good nod to simple, unbiased restoration. The latter is a plain file copy with none container or compression so you possibly can browse it utilizing nothing greater than Windows Explorer.

You don’t want to make use of these services, as IvyBackup has a guided restore operate, however they’re good future-proofing.

IvyBackup helps Dropbox, Google Drive, and pDrive as secondary areas for backup (one other characteristic I like). Sadly, it doesn’t help One Drive, the service I take advantage of. It does, nevertheless, help FTP/FTPS/SFTP, which could be helpful, and you can too use any community location.

The main regular backup choices are all current: scheduling, filters, pre- and post-backup actions, command-line capabilities, plus logs and reviews you’ll hear extra about in a bit.

Interface and ease of use

I just like the clear look of IvyBackup, although I don’t love the mismatched font sizes or general strategy utilized in the principle window. There are too many icons and labels, plus you’re needlessly compelled to leap backwards and forwards between house, job, backups, reviews, and many others. I discover the object-oriented strategy—the place there’s a activity, and all of the fast actions can be found a single location—faster and extra intuitive.

The dialogs then again, step you thru the backup-creation and restore processes properly. Once you’re used to this system, it’s no massive deal, however IvyBackup’s foremost interface may very well be extra environment friendly.

There had been additionally some minor visible flaws. On my 5K show with Windows scaled up, dialogs had been the fallacious measurement to start with, and didn’t bear in mind my changes. You can scroll their contents, however the fixed tweaking grew to become irritating shortly. Also, after cancelling a backup, the icon on the taskbar didn’t replace for fairly some time, displaying it nonetheless operating.

Most customers operating extra widespread resolutions and scaling received’t encounter these points, however they’re one thing builders ought to verify for.

Performance

The file and mirror backups I arrange all succeeded shortly and with none fuss. However, two makes an attempt to picture my C drive failed for no obvious cause. The program simply stop the method with no error message and the report appeared to suppose all the pieces had gone off and not using a hitch.

Neither did the extra detailed PDF log information provide any clue in regards to the failures. The specified backup file merely didn’t exist.

A little bit of experimentation revealed the problem. The 500GB partition I used to be trying to picture had roughly 250GB value of information. I assumed that IvyBackup would default to imaging solely the data-laden sectors and that the 400GB of free area on the drive I used to be backing as much as can be enough. Such was not the case.

A 3rd try and subsequent runs utilizing a vacation spot with 2TB of free area had been profitable. Successful, sure—the VHDX file was a whopping 670GB in measurement, considerably greater than twice the quantity of information I wished to again up. It does, nevertheless, seem that this system’s imaging routine works simply effective—when you’ve got sufficient area for the ensuing VHD/VHDX file.

It’s possible that the copy is uncooked, sector-by-sector, whether or not sectors comprise identified knowledge or not. If that’s the case, this may very well be helpful for knowledge restoration of deleted information, and many others. But it does eat up giant quantities of storage capability. I noticed no possibility to vary this habits.

Bottom line: Allowing the person to pick out a vacation spot that doesn’t have sufficient area for a backup is a no-no. Not informing the person put up failure, and even recognizing the failure, makes for a unfavorable double-whammy.

Conclusion

While IvyBackup was finally profitable in all check operations (given correct guide calculation of area necessities), backup packages, for apparent causes, ought to exhibit bulletproof programming. IvyBackup at present doesn’t. Add that to the slightly steep price ticket, and this model of IvyBackup is hard for me to advocate.

I hope the builders straighten out these points, as non-proprietary containers and twin native/on-line locations are nice fundamental options. They may additionally contemplate reducing the value. We’ll take one other look if there are vital enhancements.