Cheap Intego Personal Backup x4 10.4 for Mac (Software) (Mac OS X) Price

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Customer Reviews of Intego Personal Backup x4 10.4 for Mac

Personal Backup X4: Easy to use backup software
Intego Personal Backup X4 version 10.4.5 is complete backup program for the Macintosh computers running Mac OS X. I started out evaluating version 10.4.4 and ended with version 10.4.5. This backup program is a Universal Application which will run on Apple's new Intel based Macintoshes and the older PowerPC based Macintoshes. The new version supports OS 10.4, but the program is compatible with Mac OS 10.2.8 or higher. I tested the program using Mac Mini PowerPC processor. <
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>This software has an extremely clean graphical interface. A user with little computer experience should have little trouble understanding how to operate the software. The program uses numerous icons so the users just have to click their way through the menus. I have used Dantz Retrospect which is another backup program and is not an easy program to learn. The interface is not very friendly compared to Personal Backup X4. Retrospect is hard to figure out without reading the manual. I am a intermediate level user of the Mac, and I feel I could figure out most of the Personal Backup without reading the manual. <
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>Personal Backup comes with a 127 page manual. The manual is full of screen shots making it easy to understand the software's features. The first half of the manual covers the software operations Backup, Synchronize, Clone, Archive, Move, and Restore; and the other half of the user manual covers the use of backup scripts. I found some of the screen shots in the manual do not match the software screens. For example, on the Personal Backup main screen, the Backup icon is first on the left and in the manual Archive icon is first on the left side. This error did not cause me problems in not being able not to understand the features of the software but might confuse new computer users. <
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>Personal backup has 7 main features that I will give a little detail on. This appears on the menu bar of the main program. <
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>Backup: Personal Backup allows you to backup to CDs, DVDs, external drives, iPods, network drives, or a partition on your hard drive. The program does not do file compression when backing up which can burn a lot of your backup drive space. This is one of the big weaknesses of the program. The software lets you backup to online drive such as Apple Computer's iDisk. Personal Backup has some predefined backup sources for folders for Documents, Home, Music, and Pictures. You just need to select predefined folder, the destination drive and click backup and you are done. <
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>Synchronize: The software has a feature to allow you to synchronize volumes, folders, between to two computers or over a network. It is a great way to synchronize folders between a desktop and a laptop computer. I did not test this feature, but I am planing on purchasing a laptop in the future and would likely use it. <
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>Clone: The software allows you to clone a volume, partition or hard disk. Clone feature copies the files plus the invisible files that users cannot access and OS X Finder does not copy. This feature is great for creating a clone of your Mac OX startup volume to make sure you have bootable backup at all times. <
>Archive: Personal backup will create a compressed disk image file of a volume or folder so the data is storied in a single file. Using this feature, you cannot do incremental backups. If you use archive for backing up you need to backup the entire folder or volume every time you do an archive. This is another weakness of the program. <
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>Move: This feature lets you move between files on you desk top computer to laptop computer or over a network. <
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>Restore: Restore allows you to restore a volume or folder easily with a few mouse clicks. You just need to select the source and destination folder or volume and click restore. Since the backup does not compress the files, you can use OS X Finder to look for specific files and and just copy them over from your backup. You cannot view the files using OS X Finder if you backed up to a DVD or CD because it uses a non-standard format but you can use restore function to restore your files. <
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>Backup Scripts: Personal backup has many features that are detailed in the last half of the manual. The software lets you backup folders, volumes, network drives, and files. There are a lot more features that would work for a small network of computers which I did not test. You can use OS 10.4 spotlight to search for specific files you want to backup. You can exclude applications and invisible files, for example, to save on backup time and space. I tested the backup using scripts using backing up my Documents folder to my iDisk. I usually backup at night so I selected 11 p.m. and then selected to let Personal Backup shut down my computer after it was done. The program could not mount the iDisk. I tried the same script again using an external hard drive and software could not mount the external. I emailed technical support regarding the problem which I will cover in more detail below. The backup scripts are a strong point of the software because you have so many options. <
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>Intego offers no support phone number with this software. I find this troubling especially if you computer crashes and you need technical help restoring you files. This is another big weakness of the program. However, they do offer support by e-mail. When I was testing the backup scripts, I was not able to get iDisk and an external hard drive to mount and the backup script to work with the version 10.4.4. I work with technical support, and It took them a little under 24 hours to responded to initial problem. I then corresponded about twice a day for the next 3 days. They asked a few questions and asked me to reinstall the software. I did and the problems did not go away so then then told me a newer version would be coming out in a couple of days and that should solve my problem. After the first contacting the company about my problem, they came out with version 10.4.5 within a week and a half that did fix my problems. The program now does mount iDisk and external hard drives using backup scripts. <
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>Personal Backup X4 is a easy to use program for a beginning and more experience computer users. The beginning user will like the graphical interface and the more experience user will no doubt like the backup scripts. If you can live with out incremental backups with file compression and no technical support by phone you should check out this full service backup program out.