Review: Orlogix Novabackup Server Edition backup software

Backup software tends to be expensive and difficult to get to grips with, especially when it comes to servers where most of the products are aimed at large companies with terabytes of data and complex applications to protect.

For those with more modest needs, however, Novabackup Server Edition is well worth considering, offering solid backup protection in a format that’s affordable and easy to use.

It’s important not to be fooled by the low price; Novabackup is a very complete solution, designed to protect servers running Windows NT or later. Moreover, backups can be taken using a variety of devices, from traditional tape drives to removable hard disks and writable CD-Roms and DVD-Rams, with target devices automatically detected and configured ready for use during installation.

With the latest v7.5 release too, it’s possible to copy and mirror files to another location rather than store them in compressed backup format. This enables users to recover lost data themselves while the file copies can be performed on demand or scheduled like regular backup jobs.

Anti-virus scanning is another useful feature, using software from Norman for which updates are provided free of charge. It’s also possible to back up and copy open files, to save having to shut down applications or log users off before backups are run. No extra software is needed as this option is implemented using the Volume Shadow Service (VSS) in Windows XP, 2003 and Vista. Unfortunately, earlier versions don’t offer it, but it’s a very useful facility for those that do.

What we liked most, however, was the simplicity of Novabackup. Advanced users can drill down to fine tune the various options if they want, but the default interface is a simple menu of wizards that makes it easy to create backup, restore, copy and disaster recovery jobs.

Each step is itemised with clear instructions when it comes to choosing what to back up or restore, the device to use and so on. You can then run a job immediately or save and run it later with all the usual options to schedule executions also available.

Job progress can be monitored on the screen with several levels of logging plus the ability to email logs to a named recipient when a job finishes.

Performance, naturally, depends on the source and target devices involved, but we found the program very quick, with facilities to compress data to further enhance both throughput and capacity. As such we were able to take full backups of a Windows 2003 Small Business Server in just a couple of hours. We were also able to include network shares on other servers and desktop PCs, although you can’t capture remote registry and other information required to recover such systems.

You do, though, get integrated disaster recovery for the host system, requiring access to a writable CD-Rom/DVD drive to create a special boot disc. This can then be used to start and recover a crashed server from a backup with no need to first reinstall the operating system or the backup software.

On the downside there’s no support for anything other than Windows and no central management console if you need to deploy the package on a number of servers. Still, if it’s a standalone server backup program you want, they don’t get much cheaper or easier than this.

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