Ask most people why they don't take backups and they'll tell you they either can't afford the software involved or don't understand it. Or both, especially where servers are concerned. In which case NovaBackup Server Edition could be a breath of fresh air, being both amazingly affordable and easy to use.

The NovaBackup package really is cheap, even compared to desktop backup products, despite which it's a very complete solution that can be used to protect any server running Windows NT or later.

Despite the low price tag, however, NovaBackup offers all the usual backup and restore options you could need, together with full bare-metal disaster recovery. It can also be used with a wide range of hardware from conventional tape drives to removable hard disk and writeable CD/DVD drives. Added to which it's possible to simply copy/mirror files to a network share, empowering users to recover lost data themselves, with the supporting file copies either performed on demand or scheduled like regular backup jobs.

The ability to backup open files is another useful feature. No extra software is needed; just the Volume Shadow copy Service (VSS) in Windows XP, 2003 and Vista. Plus it's possible to scan files for viruses as they're being backed up using software from Norman, for which updates are provided free of charge.

What we liked most about NovaBackup, however, was its simplicity. If you know what you're doing you can fiddle about and tweak the various options as much as you like, but for lesser mortals the default interface is a simple menu of backup and restore options. These kick off associated wizards to step you through the processes involved to, for example, decide what to backup or restore, the device to use, what files to include and so on. Once finished, each job can either be run immediately or saved and run later with all the usual options to schedule unattended operation if required.

Performance will depend on the source and target devices involved, but we found the program to be very quick. Using a conventional AIT tape drive, for example, we were able to take full backups of our Windows 2003 Small Business Server in just a couple of hours, with the usual differential backup facilities to further reduce the time involved. We were also able to include network shares on other servers and PCs, although not the remote registry and other information required to fully recover those systems.

Job progress can be monitored in real time with several levels of logging for unattended jobs and options to e-mail logs when a job finishes.

We also tried out the integrated disaster recovery feature, which involved creating a recovery CD/DVD for use when things go seriously wrong. Again, the procedure involved is very straightforward, and using the CD we were able to recover a crashed server very quickly with no need to manually re-install the operating system or the backup software.

Of course it's not perfect. There's no Linux support, for example, nor a central management console for use with multiple servers. But at this price it's still pretty impressive and very easy to use.

Other than requiring someone to come round and run it for you, what more could you want?

Verdict
Price and an extremely simple user interface are the biggest selling points of this affordable Windows server backup tool, which is also a very functional solution. All the usual backup and restore options are provided with support for a wide range of tape and disk media, plus self-service file recovery and integrated bare-metal disaster recovery should you need it.

Company: Novastor

Contact: 00800 3883 2000

Tags: backup servers windows nt windows xp disaster recovery windows server 2003 tape drive sql