CoolMax 3.5" Xtreme Files (F1-B) 80GB Backup Drive

Backing Up Data (Data Backup):

To initiate a backup, simply press either the Data Backup or OS Backup button. When doing a Data Backup, there are two choices: selective files or all files.

When doing a selective backup, the user has the choice of which files to backup to the unit. To start backing up the data, simply press the Start button and another screen pops up giving statistics on the process. It is worth mentioning that when you choose certain files to backup, the next time you run the program the same files will be selected. This makes it somewhat easier when you have a regular set of files that you like to backup. However there is no way to "save" your selection, so if you ever choose different files to backup, your original selection will be lost. This could easily be fixed with an updated version of the software.

After backing up the data, a summary appears letting the user know what has been backed up. One thing I noticed was that some files were skipped during the backup. They were .csv, .exe, .ini, .inf, and .dll files, which is somewhat confusing since they are selected to be backed up, and there is no "file exclusion" menu choice within the program. However, if the user navigates to the \Program Files\Xtreme folder, there are two files QBackupExt.ini and QRestoreExt.ini which list file extensions to skip (currently there are 38 extensions listed in the files). Personally, I would remove all of the extensions from the exclude list to ensure a proper backup.

The data is stored on the backup unit in a "Backup\username" folder, which can be browsed through the regular windows explorer. By separating out the data backup by user, this allows several users on the same PC to back up their data without interfering with the other users. This unit *could* be used on multiple computers, however you must make sure there are not conflicting user names, or you could overwrite data unintentionally.

There are a couple downsides though to this software. There are no multiple versions / backups, a file in the same location with the same name will simply be overwritten. Also using the data backup method does not use any compression, however an easy workaround is to use the built-in Windows file compression (located under the Properties menu of a folder) and selecting the user's directory on the backup drive. This makes it transparent to the backup program, and can save some space and allow more data to be backed up.