Image for Windows 2.99-00

Image for Windows allows you to create a backup of your hard disk and then restore it later. The application can split the backups into smaller pieces, it can encrypt the data, or create bootable disks. The goal of this program is to be an affordable backup solution and I think this is achieved very well.

The backup process is quite fast. On my computer, it took 18 minutes to back up the whole C: drive (22 GB used). 'Image for Windows' displays a nice progress bar and an estimate of the time remaining until the current job is done. When you create the image, the application backs up the file system and files up exactly as they are stored on the sectors of your hard drive at the time you make the backup. It recognizes FAT, FAT32, NTFS, Ext2/3, or ReiserFS partitions or volumes, but it can make backups of other filesystems too. When the application makes a backup of an unsupported filesystem, it copies all the sectors from the drive, not only the used ones.

There are in fact three things that you can do with this software. Besides backing up and restoring drives, the application can also validate existing backup images. If you want to make sure you know how to use all the features, you should really read the user manual. It's nicely structured and I found very good explanations there.

Pluses: In order to conserve disk space, Image for Windows also supports creating differential (incremental) backups.

Drawbacks / flaws:

In conclusion: Backing up drives is easy with this tool. Although it doesn't provide the "industrial strength" of similar high-end applications, Image for Windows is a very good backup tool.

version reviewed: 2.06