Backup Software Review

[matt3k]

I went on a journey trying to find the best backup software for my needs and it has been quite a journey indeed.

Thought I would share my findings in case some other soul wanted to backup across a network...

Here are the ones I tested:
Abackup 5.22
AMI-Back 2.0h
Diavolo 3.7 Pro
Quarterback 7.3.1a

Here is the test system:
Amiga 3000D
Drives formated in PFS3
Cyberstorm 060 MKIII
Acard 2000 SUP SATA to 68pin SCSI
Mediator 3000Di
Radeon with DVI out
X Surf 100
QNAP NAS for backing up to
Rapidroad TCP/IP stack
SMBFS

My goal was to backup my Amiga partitions to a file on the NAS.

First, let me say that my system running the latest BB4s has been a bear, not sure if exactly if it is the culprit of my Amiga issues,  but I believe it is. For some reason when I run SMBFS the system gets slow with noticeable screen painting, and thus slowing down the compression to file across the network. I will go back to BB2 during Christmas vacation, I was have decent luck with BB4 but the last 4 or so releases has hurt my Amiga's performance/stability for sure...

Abackup 5.22- This is probably my favorite Amiga backup software but, with my later versions of BB4 it doesn't work anymore and gives strange errors and locks up hard occasionally. I attribute this to somewhat to sloppy programming of Abackup, because it has given me issues in the past and all the other backup software run flawlessly. Abackup (when it works) has all the modern features I was looking for and a decent interface. It does not come with a automatic backup scheduler, but it has it where it counts and will restore reliable on my other A4000 (that isn't hacked to death like the 3k and on an older BB4.)

AMI-Back 2.0h - This is a decent package I used to use in the early 90's for many years. It is very reliable the fastest to perform a backup. This speed is due to the fact that you cannot choose different compression routines and the default is clearly for speed and not compression. The software will allow you to backup many different methods (Full, Selective, Image, 911 recovery) and I used Full and Selective for my tests. I tested a full backup without filtering the archive bit and then a selective backup only backing up files without the archive bit. This is the only program, other than Abackup, that wrote over the network. The program also came with a scheduler to automate the backup, I haven't tested it extensively yet but will and update this review. Overall I give this a strong 2nd place. The only issues I ran into were the interface is old and you have to manually type drives and file name, and it uses index files that write to s:. The index files are annoying in that you need to keep them to restore data. The index file names were one day in the future for the name. You also have to be careful when you restore the file so the file actually restores to where it is suppose to. If you don't have the drive selected, it will write to what ever drive is selected.

Diavolo 3.7 Pro - This was a decent package and was similar in capabilities to AMIBack, but it had a newer interface and could select different compression methods. It had decent error trapping to protect backups, which was nice to guarantee a valid backup. The only feature that dropped it way down in the list is that is would not write across the network to the NAS, at least is gave a controlled error and didn't run to guru land.

Quarterback 7.3.1a - This was really a disappointment. The interface was not clean and often showed prior screens. It would guru once you tried selecting the NAS to back up to. It is between Ami-Back and Diavolo for the interface and usability. I did backup locally with it to test it out, and it worked rather well. It has a lot of add on programs I didn't test.

At the end of the day I am using AMI-Back until I go back to BB2 and hopefully ABackup will be reliable.

[Minuous]

I will go back to BB2 during Christmas vacation, I was have decent luck with BB4 but the last 4 or so releases has hurt my Amiga's performance/stability for sure...

Can you be more specific? You are running V1.29? The last few releases have been mostly bug fixes, so I am not sure why any recent release would be worse for performance/stability than an older release. Unless icon.library has slowed down recently, but I don't see any difference in performance here.

[matt3k]

Can you be more specific? You are running V1.29? The last few releases have been mostly bug fixes, so I am not sure why any recent release would be worse for performance/stability than an older release. Unless icon.library has slowed down recently, but I don't see any difference in performance here.

Sure, I'm not absolutely certain it is BB4, but it seems very likely at this point.

1.  When I run ABackup it crashes whenever I select preferences.  Sometimes it simply locks up.  Other times it will throw amigaguide.library errors, sometimes ramlib errors.  Sometimes it takes a few times selecting preference and quiting.  If I go to my 4000D running a real old BB4, it works perfect.  I have tried disabling all my hacks and going with a basic install and it still fails.  I did have one issue years ago where if I selected the archive bit for the filter for backup it would lock up, then years later I tried it and it was fine.  I attributed this to a new BB release.  Could be terrible programming in Abackup I guess, but it does seem fine in my other system.

2.  Any version of SMBFS that I have tried, slows the system way down. The screen refreshes for everything (both public and custom screens) are really slow.  Again years ago, this didn't happen but now it does.

The only thing I can think of is my mediator and perhaps a driver is flakey for that, but I had issues with abackup before I installed the mediator.

Hope that helps.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I attributed this to a new BB release

The amount of things changed in each BB update is so small... really just a few libraries here & there if you look at the changelogs, it should be a fairly simple process to replace them with different versions and see if it affects stability.

Alternatively try running something like Snoopdos to see what libraries/classes/whatnot ABackup touches on specifically, and replace those files with older versions to see if has any effect.

TL;DR.  Both my main Amiga's run fully patched versions of BB4 and then some (I've spent hours hunting & pecking for every update I could find even beyond what's included in tthe BB's) and don't have any stability issues that I can attribute to them.  Other folks' mileage may vary.  


Edit: nice reviews, anyway.  Thanks for posting!  I'll try to give ABackup a shot sometime in the next few days and see how stable and/or not stable it is for me.  

[pVC]

Diavolo 3.7 Pro

I wonder if Diavolo 2000 or 3.8 Pro would work better (whichever is the latest, 2000?).

[Minuous]

When I run ABackup it crashes whenever I select preferences.  Sometimes it simply locks up.  Other times it will throw amigaguide.library errors, sometimes ramlib errors.  Sometimes it takes a few times selecting preference and quiting.  If I go to my 4000D running a real old BB4, it works perfect.

I installed ABackup 5.22 from Aminet in an attempt to isolate the cause. The program and its Preferences are running fine here on my BB4 1.29 system, I cannot reproduce the problem. Therefore there may be some other cause for the issue you are having. ie. some other difference between your two machines other than the fact that they are running different BB4 versions.

Using old versions of BB4 is not something I would recommend as frankly there were quite a few bugs in those which have since been fixed.

[vince_6]

Thanks for your effort writing this review!