AOMEI Backupper

Even on a new computer, hardware failure is still a possibility, which you should definitely take into account, if you don't want to lose any important data. Creating spare copies of your files is a good idea, but using a specialized backup utility is much better. AOMEI Backupper is capable of much more than simply copying files from one place to another. The software is designed to serve multiple purposes, in terms of data backup. Besides backing up files, it can also back up partitions or the entire hard drive and it can perform a full system backup.

AOMEI Backupper is available in multiple editions, including a standard one, which is absolutely free, but it doesn't offer as many features as its counterparts. Installing the software is a simple operation, which should not take more than a minute to complete. It works on Windows XP and all later versions, up to Windows 8.1 and it provides support for both 32 and 64-bit operating systems.

The software's compact user interface presents a large selection of tools, which are organized on several tabs. You can find backup and restore tools, cloning features, as well as a few miscellaneous utilities. Created backup profiles are displayed on a home screen, along with options for executing them, restoring the backed up data, setting up a schedule and more. Also, if you wish to run a backup job manually, you can choose to run it in full, incremental or differential mode.

Defining a new backup profile is quite easy, due to the efficient design of the interface. For standard data backups, it is sufficient to select one or more source files or folders and a destination, but you can also set up filters, to include or exclude files with certain extensions. Additionally, the software allows you to choose a compression level, split the backup archive into multiple pieces or encrypt it. Backup profiles can be scheduled to run automatically, on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, at or between specific hours.

Backed up data can be restored in its original location or in a user-defined folder, along with the original NTFS permissions. It is also possible to explore the contents of a backup image and to extract individual files. What's more, the software is capable of creating bootable rescue discs or USB drives, for Windows and Linux.