I am an unabashed fan of Seagate's Replica, the automatic backup device so simple a chimp could operate it. What I didn't know when I wrote the original glowing review was that the software that drives the Replica, that makes it easy to use and incredibly powerful, was licensed from a company called Rebit and that the software is available from them so that you can use it with any drive.
Using Rebit software ($49.95) is nearly as simple as using the Seagate Replica. The only difference is that you must bring a drive to the installation. As with Replica, the drive you use with Rebit is dedicated to the purpose - they suggest formatting it first. With that done, all that remains is to insert the program disk and start the installation. I chose a backup disk larger than my system drive (drive C:), but not big enough to handle all of my other drives. Rebit warned me that only drive C: would be backed up.
This is where Rebit gives you more flexibility than Replica: You can use larger drives to "grow" your storage as your data increases beyond the size of the initial backup drive.
Unlike other backup programs, there is no scheduling needed. The program immediately starts backing up everything, a complete image of the system drive and other selected disks. As long as the backup drive is plugged into the system it backs up changes you make in near real time. Unlike a mirrored drive, however, the Rebit gives you the opportunity on restore to roll back to one of several backup states. How far back you can go depends in large part on the size of your backup drive.
In the event of an emergency you boot off of the supplied CD and can restore your computer from scratch without any other software. Alternatively, you can easily restore individual files from your backup drive at any time.
So, what can't Rebit do? For one thing, I would like an option to be able to permanently save a snapshot of a system. That way I could restore a drive to its original or most current state. Also, Rebit is limited to using one backup drive; you can't split backups over multiple drives. For most, I suspect that this won't be a problem. But, if your photo, video, and music collections are truly massive, other forms of backup might be required. The expandibility of the Rebit system, the fact that it doesn't tie you to a single size of drive, is one of its biggest strengths. You can make it grow just by upgrading your hard disk.
Another limitation of the Rebit system that I'd like to see removed in future versions is that the software only works in tandem with a paired hard disk. In other words, you can't swap out hard drives, one for each day of the week. I like to have multiple backups; I've seen too many cases where a single backup fails for some reason. As of now, Rebit doesn't have an easy way to accomodate multiple drives; though it is possible to backup one drive, detach it for safe keeping, uninstall and then reinstall the software, and finally attach a second drive. Clearly, this is not a practical daily solution.
One other caveat. As of the time of this writing, the shipping version of Rebit was not Windows 7 compatible, but they have a version that is. You must contact tech support and they will provide you with a link to the latest version.
Regardless of its limitations, Rebit is software that no PC user should be without. It is breathtakingly simple to use. There are no more excuses not to backup!
