NovaBackup review: File, image, and online backup in one package

Price When Reviewed

49.95 per 12 months

Best Prices Today: NovaBackup

NovaBackup effectively combines file backup, drive imaging, and on-line storage into one handy bundle. It even affords continuous information safety as granular as each minute. However, when you transcend the “free” 5GB restrict, on-line storage will get costly in a rush.

See our roundups of the best Windows backup and best cloud backup services to study competing merchandise.

NovaBackup options and interface

The NovaBackup interface is environment friendly and effectively laid out, if a bit old-school in look. I do want that imaging didn’t require launching a separate module, however that’s being choosy. On the opposite hand, I really like that NovaBackup helps creating Microsoft VHD and VHDX photographs. These codecs could be opened and browsed utilizing solely Windows itself must you ever not have NovaBackup useful.

On the opposite hand, they lack some options accessible in case you use NovaBackup’s personal proprietary picture format, similar to incremental (all modifications because the final backup) and differential (all modifications because the authentic backup), and compressed photographs to avoid wasting area. In normal, I have a tendency to make use of imaging for full (full) backups and file/folder backup for incremental modifications—however individuals’s tastes will fluctuate.

As talked about, NovaBackup helps each file/folder-level backup to container recordsdata in addition to imaging of drives and partitions. It additionally has a useful plain-file (no container file is created) Copy perform if all you wish to do is shortly duplicate some information to a different location.

If you make the most of NovaBackup’s on-line storage, you’ll be able to choose that as a vacation spot, although you’ll be able to’t choose each native and on-line targets for a similar job. In that case, as with many applications, you merely duplicate the job and select a unique vacation spot.

NovaBackup has way more choices than the common consumer wants, displaying its present IT bent. The quick record consists of: extraordinarily exact filtering of recordsdata (wild playing cards, attributes, date, and many others.), log printing and e-mail notifications, blowfish and varied ranges of AES encryption, community credentials, in addition to earlier than and after run instructions.

There’s additionally scheduling with the flexibility to run the backup as any consumer. You may additionally set a most run time for a job so it gained’t compete with different duties, although that’s not going an possibility the common consumer will want.

NovaBackup can even create a boot disc for catastrophe restoration, ought to that dire circumstance chew you. This is a way more easy course of than it was final 12 months once I first examined NovaBackup PC and also you have been required to go to Microsoft to obtain extra recordsdata. Now no such go to is required.

Note that NovaBackup doesn’t provide the possibility of the place to avoid wasting the boot disc in case you select to create an ISO, as a substitute burying it in its part of the ProgramData folder. Tip: Copy the situation proven within the textual content area after creation, paste it into Windows Explorer, and replica the ISO picture to a extra widespread location.

How a lot does NovaBackup price?

The pricing you see within the first picture beneath appears pretty cheap. However, 5GB is what you get totally free from providers similar to Dropbox, Google, and Sync.com. Above 5GB, issues get expensive in a rush.

That is certainly our foremost problem with NovaBackup from a home-user/shopper perspective: 50GB of area is $99.95, 100GB is $169.95, 250GB is $349.95, 500GB is $649.95, and 1TB is a whopping $1,249.95 yearly. By method of comparability, Microsoft’s OneDrive prices me $70 for 1TB per 12 months and I get a full model of Microsoft Office as well.

NovaBackup efficiency

I’ve had some points with NovaBackup prior to now. When I first checked out it a couple of months in the past, picture backups frequently failed about 95 % into the method. NovaStor despatched me a beta that apparently corrected that problem.

Note additionally that I used to be knowledgeable there are a number of different backup applications that NovaBackup doesn’t coexist with politely—Paragon Backup & Recovery being one, and as I later discovered, Arcsoft’s ShadowProtect SPX. Not many customers may have a number of backup applications with background threads or schedulers operating, however in case you’re on this minority, skip NovaBackup.

Fortunately, this newest iteration of NovaBackup PC was quick and largely dependable. I did get one file-system learn error throughout a backup, however hitting Continue allowed the operation to finish. Both native and on-line file backups have been quick and easy, as was the plain-file copy perform.

If you’ve learn my different backup software program opinions, you understand I’m a giant believer in glitch-free interfaces and efficiency. Such impenatribility provides you that peace of thoughts, that sure, the programmers are on the ball and your backup will really restore correctly if and when that’s required. I can’t say that NovaBackup PC at present provides me that 100 % bulletproof feeling. It could be, however…

On the opposite hand, NovaBackup PC’s enchancment from final 12 months give me the sensation that programmers are diligently working to quickly present that super-secure feeling.

Should you utilize NovaBackup?

NovaBackup 2023 looks like resolution for IT or small companies that need built-in/bundled on-line storage. But house customers who wish to mix native and cloud backup have far cheaper and extra capacious choices similar to OneDrive, Google Drive, iDrive, Sync.com, and others. Explore these.