The program is easy and quick to install, however it does become a little confusing when it comes to initially configuring profiles and getting to grips with the tools.  The tutorials, on the product website, are for version 4, which isn’t really much help if you’re using version 5 which is the latest edition.  Despite the tutorials being for version 4, they do give you a rough idea of how to perform basic tasks using the program.

The program allows you to backup, synchronize, mirror and group.  Backup means to copy your files to another area (e.g. an external hard drive, FTP server).  Synchronizing allows you to keep files in one folder the same as the files in another specified folder.  Synchronizing is ideal for transferring files from one machine to another or between a computer and a server.  Mirroring means that files from one area are copied directly to specified another area.  Finally, grouping means that you can perform various backup, synchronizing and mirroring tasks at one time.

Once you’ve got used to it, SyncBackSE is a very good program and well worth considering if you’re looking for a backup tool.  For more information visit their website.

Memeo and SecondBackup are the utilities and I will look at them separately as they are both good in their own ways and suitable in different ways for different people.

Memeo – I came across this by accident when I ordered a Buffalo Drivestation it was on the disk that came with the external hard drive. It is very simple to install and setup and it runs in the background backing up as you go. So you are nearly always 100% backed up if the computer is on and the drive is connected. The utility also allows you to register an account with Memeo to backup to their online service, an excellent way of keeping data stored off-site. You don’t have to buy a Buffalo External hard drive to get the software, you can buy it direct from Memeo.

The software also has a very useful One-Step Data Restore utility with a shortcut created on your desktop when you create the backup profile.

It is not free but at the same time it is free and you can try it for 30 days before you commit to buying.

SecondBackup – I came across this program when I needed something a bit different from Memeo. SecondBackup allows you to create a backup profile which consists of a selection of files/folders that need to be backed up, the location, the backup start time and the frequency. It also allows multiple profiles so for example you could backup your photos every Monday to 1 external hard drive, and your music to another external hard drive on a Tuesday.

SecondBackup seems to work incredibly quickly and a feature that Memeo doesn’t have is that it can backup from an external network location. So one setup we have is the software installed on a Small Business 2003 server backup data from a shared folder on an old Novell server. Which works brilliantly!

As I said both programs backup in different ways, so it is very hard to say which one is best. But if I am honest I am leaning towards SecondBackup, however if Memeo worked for me and I was buying a Buffalo drive then I wouldn’t buy Memeo as well.

No excuses not to backup when these two programs make it so easy!