 | Dec 7 2008 |
FONTANITUM Plenty of flashy, useless graphics, poor UI .... basic work done Make sure you have plenty of room on your HD, Personal Backup X5 is VERY hungry. If you have changes in (say) 30% of your disk, you need al least 40% to 50% extra space available on the HD where the backup copy is. Apparently this "software" copies the WHOLE batch, then notices there are duplicates and deletes them, instead of doing this task, if not necessarily file-by-file, but at least (say) Gb by Gb. I shared this suggestion with the developer (he was staffing the Intego "castle" in a Mac show). His Highness thought it wasn't a bad idea and he would "think" about it for "one of" the upcoming releases.
(Version 10.5.4) | |
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 | Jul 29 2008 |
MKTRASHY How is this product still on the market? It's been years since the switch from the old MacOS (when this was a really good piece of software) to OS X, and this buggy kluge crashes repeatedly. This company and these programmers have had a lot of time to get it right, but it is still floundering. How hard can it be to get it working properly? Do they not know what they're doing, or do they not care? This is what happens when a company buys a software product and doesn't support it with the necessary resources. Either fix it or get off the pot. Feature set is OK, but low marks for stability and obviously a poor value. Stay away from this till they put some heart back into it.
(Version 10.5.2) | |
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| Aug 25 2008 |
JFM I am quite surprised. It is true that there was a time when it used not to be reliable, and I switched for some time to other systems. No longer now, at least in my experience: I use it weekly for cloning my iMac Intel, and it has never failed over the past few months. It is not cheap, but it is easy to use.
(Version 10.5.2) | |
| May 25 2008 |
TEASPHAM I originally bought Intego Personal Backup x4 which I found to be a solid program and then later updated to x5 about 3 months after x5 came out because I wanted the synchronisation functions. I CANNOT recommend Personal Backup x5's synchronisation function. It is a horridly bug ridden program for synchronisation (which is a new feature of x5). For that, you should turn to ChronoSync. Intego's technical support is also very horrible in responding to customer technical problems. They do not respond on time, if ever. I was having a lot of errors when Personal Backup x5 was performing a synchronisation between two folders that exist on two different computers. The folders are 5GB in size and usually took over 45 minutes for the synchronisation to complete (and with errors) each time, not just the first sycn. I finally gave up x5 hoping Intego would come out with a fix. They have not been responding to my requests for help nor have they been acknowledging that their program has bugs in it, if that is the case. I've turned to the demo version of ChronoSync and the makes of ChronoSync have give me a time limited, unlimited data transfer serial number for the mean time to fully test out their program before I buy it. Using ChronoSync to perform the same function of syncrhonising the 5GB folders, the sync happens very quickly (in a matter of less than 4 minutes) and with no errors. ChronoSync has not given me any errors. Intego's Backup constantly gives me errors and Intego's tech support seems to be indicating that it might be something I'm doing wrong. That is likely not the case since I have no problems with ChronoSync. If you're considering a sycn or backup program, I recommend going to ChronoSync. It doesn't only do syncs, but backups too. ChronoSync will soon have the ability to create bootable backups too. Besides, ChronoSync is a cheaper software at $30.
(Version 10.5.1) | |
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| May 25 2008 |
TEASPHAM I used to highly respect Intego's Personal Backup. Their x4 version gave me no problems. But x5 have given me lots of problem and I wouldn't be as frustrated if their tech support actually worked with me or even finally acknowledge that there is a problem with their program and they're fixing it. To date, I have not received a firm reply from them about my problems. I say ditch Intego and swtich to Econ Technologies, the makers of ChronoSync.
(Version 10.5.1) | |
| Jun 27 2008 |
JAN_RYBAR I went back to X4 version - it's fast and reliable.
(Version 10.5.1) | |
| Jul 2 2006 |
KOBEGUY I bought Backup X3 thinking it would be a solid and easy to use program - after all, how else could they justify the high price? In short, it never really worked well, with occassional crashes and a clumsy interface. In particular, the clone feature never worked. When X4 was released, I could see they cleaned up some of the mess and did a redesign. Great! and then I saw the "upgrade" price. Those of us who financed the work on the new version were rewarded with the prospect of paying big bucks for what we should have gotten the first time. I really feel ripped off. Save your cash for developers who give good value and treat their customers fairly. Deja Vu and Carbon Copy Cloner are great alternatives, work better, and cost a fraction of this program.
(Version 10.4.5) | |
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| May 25 2008 |
TEASPHAM Hey, Kobeguy, from reading your experiences it seems that what I'm experiencing is something that has been ongoing since Personal Backup x3, namely poor tech support. Personal Backup x4 seemed to be a solid program for me, but Personal Backup x5 is HORRID. To users who have not yet bought Intego Personal Backup x5, my advice: STAY AWAY FROM BACKUP X5. TRY CHRONOSYNC. The regular demo version of ChronoSync only allows you to sync or back up 500MB of data. If you email them and ask for an time limited and data unlimited version, they will give you a serial number that will allow you to test the program fully with the program expiring in about 2 weeks. This way, you can test how well ChronoSync handles syncing or backing up folders larger than 500MB, if you need that. STAY AWAY FROM INTEGO BACKUP X5 FOR NOW. HORRID PROGRAM AND TECH SUPPORT THEY HAVE!
(Version 10.5.1) | |
| Apr 3 2006 |
GPROVAN I too had version X3 on my system set up for Auto Update, and I too had it replaced by version X4. Not a good way to go about things! Generally this application has been ok. One problem I found was that some files were not synchronizing and I had to create the scripts all over again, or pick the source disk and destination disk again. Another problem was that if I tried synchronizing a large amount of files, say 7Gb, the system baulked and took days to complete. If I set it to synchronize 3Gb it worked in minutes. I think I'll be looking elsewhere as this has given me several areas of concern.
(Version 10.4.4) | |
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 | Nov 20 2005 |
ANONYMOUS My computer was set for automatic updates so it updated to X4. The previous version was removed (including my custom scripts) - now I can't use the software as it is asking for me to enter a serial number, but my X3 serial number doesn't work. Surely they shouldn't be allowed to do this - forcing users to buy an upgrade, even if they don't want one? We f**K it up more like!
(Version 10.4.2) | |
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| Oct 28 2005 |
REIDOFLOCH The high price for this upgrade is further increased by the application of the very high French VAT rate of 19.6% on all European purchases. Perhaps Intego should consider using another European Country for downloading software - even the UK is only 17.5% VAT. This would reduce the cost in the EC. After two days of use I have found it to be very buggy and doing horrible things with the memory. A lot of Disc full messages. I have had to restart on several occasions but then discovered that if I relaunched the Finder this helped the memory to settle down.
(Version 10.4.1) | |
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| Oct 27 2005 |
ANONYMOUS Wow! Personal Backup v4 upgrade license cost more than half of the price! Not a good way to reward people who paid their license for version 3. Bad point for you Intego!
(Version 10.4.1) | |
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| Sep 18 2005 |
ANONYMOUS Oh... what happened? This use to be absolutely THE best backup program for MacOS9. Simple beyond belief, incredibly efficient. Intego should take a long look at that last OS9 version, actually watch it run on a machine, and then try to duplicate that efficiency and smoothness.
(Version 10.9) | |
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| May 8 2005 |
JFM I am pleased to update my comments (answer to Jonathan Dale's review, below): the problems which I had listed seem to have been solved by the most recent release. After my previous frustrating experiences, the latest attempt has been surprisingly pleasant: I could easily clone my HD (40 GO) in about 90 minutes, no problem at all. In order to prevent problems, I would however strongly recommend to desactivate temporarily - during backup - the screensaver and other energy-saving settings, which seemed to be (partly) the cause for the breaks during backup/cloning.
(Version 10.3.8.1) | |
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| May 2 2005 |
ANONYMOUS When an iSight is connected to my G4 the backup does stop after 2 MB and stalls. Then unplugging the iSight the FW HD disappears and I get a device removal error. Starting the backup without the iSight, everything just works fine.
(Version 10.3.8.1) | |
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| Feb 15 2005 |
JONATHAN DALE I used to think that this product was decent. However, since about 10.3.5, it has started to exhibit some drastic behaviour. I regularly backup to an external Firewire drive, but when the backup software has finished comparing the drives and started copying, very frequently, it will get stuck in copying a single file and will just sit there. It cannot be cancelled and it cannot be killed, except using 'kill -9' on the PIDs of the software and it's daemon. I have tried it with other firewire drives with similar results. In the end, I gave up and just used SilverKeeper. Not worth the time, effort or money.
(Version 10.3.8) | |
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| Feb 15 2005 |
JFM You are entirely right: I have been experiencing exactly the same problems - and Intego has not even cared to answer my request for a solution. A pity: the product is pleasant, easy to use, but obviously does no longer work in a reliable way. A shame that they are charging such an amount, while there are products such as Carbon Copy Cloner which do the cloning (that is the purpose for which I bought Personal Backup) for free. However, I am still willing to test 10.3.8 in order to see if it has by chance brought some improvement.
(Version 10.3.8) | |
| Feb 15 2005 |
NEAL I have ben using this program for a year. Scheduling is a bit tedious. It does not recognize mounted PC volumes which they claim it should. I have been complaining about this issue for 6 months without resolution. Otherwise it has backed up my Mac folders to another hard drive.
(Version 10.3.8) | |
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| Jul 9 2004 |
A NONY MOUSE I know that Intego is a company that has major flaws. Anyway, I never had an issue with Personal Backup X. It doesn't have all those fancy features that make Retrospect so complicated. It simply does its job. And it's very reliable in doing so. Remember, this is a personal backup solution, no industrial strength client/server system.
(Version 10.3.3) | |
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| Jun 30 2004 |
ANONYMOUS Same thing as with DiskGuardâ¦after been aquired by another PC/Wintel (and in this climate French) company the Customer Service is fsck -y! I have totally discouraged clients from even trying the softwareâ¦reminds me of Norton Utilities attempt to help/distroy everyone hard drive on OS X and now it is RIP. Take note Intego that "false" virus alarms, questionable product development and poor customer service will kill a productâ¦
(Version 10.3.3) | |
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| Mar 31 2005 |
ANONYMOUS As French citizen I find your comments offending. Bad customer support can also be found among US companies. Your complains might be valid, but this comment is NOT
(Version 10.3.8.1) | |
| Jun 11 2004 |
CRAIG WALKER Very easy, very useful. Have used for many years and it does exactly what I need.
(Version 10.3.2) | |
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| Jan 6 2004 |
ANONYMOUS I used the program's backup feature successfully for a couple weeks and then delved into Sync. This is a very dangerous feature because it doesn't give any warning if it decides to delete files and they are gone, not just in the trash. Much worse than that, the program has malfunctioned twice during Sync -- wiping data from both the source and destination disks. FWIW, I was running it unde OS 10.28. Never again.
(Version 10.3.2) | |
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| Nov 3 2003 |
ANONYMOUS Another upgrade disaster waiting to happen. If you've already upgraded to Panther, don't try to upgrade PB unless you have a week to spare!
(Version 10.3.1) | |
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| Jul 15 2003 |
ANONYMOUS Their SERVICE SUCKS! Respond to e-mails, dang it! DiskGuard support/service has also went down since v1.85...bought by a company then claim the Mac community is crazy...
(Version 10.3) | |
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| Apr 17 2003 |
SLIM Evaluation of Personal Backup X (PBX) by Intego The guts of this program are functionally excellent. I would buy it again (clear choice) over the other half dozen backup programs I evaluated. The organization of its functions and presentation to the user depart, in my opinion, from KISS and WYSIWYG practices. Technical support is poor. You can wait half an hour on the phone (no 800 number) or wait forever for no reply to an email. Re ?Functionally Excellent? This program will do a fresh clone of a complete 1GB system (made small for test purposes) to an external FW drive (fresh erased) in about 20 minutes on a G3 PowerBook (both drives being IBM 40GNX). Thereafter it will do a complete system clone in about 4 minutes per GB (for its scan) plus 3 minutes for every 100 MB of changes. Synchronization takes about 50% longer. Backups and synchros are reliably bootable whether cloned to ?erased? media or occupied media (erased via disk utility & be sure to test the competition the same ? some flunk). It works reliably in the background (the only way I found to stop it was to stop my PowerBook and OS X has made that properly difficult). What Intego calls scripting is nothing more than a step by step process of selecting the sources, destinations, exceptions (types such as invisible, aliases, apps), filters (by file name or path), scheduling, and options (such as backup to a sparse image). Nothing to learn here other than terminology and the simple procedural process. It seems to work equally well with all media including Disk Images you create. Nothing worse than a dangerous backup program and PBX never made a mistake or promoted one by me during my evaluation. Re Failure as to KISS & WYSIWYG My opinion on this begins thus ? with the above excellent ability to clone & synchro why get complicated and add backup and restore functions that exclude system files (anything an Admin can?t do), operate differently, and operate in arcane ways? I presume this was to accommodate non-admin users (a small fraction of Macintosh users) Intego failed. Even Admin users will find it difficult to follow and accommodate methods presumably used to benefit non-admin users. As you would expect, for a clone you get what you see. But for the backups (instant or script) you get a folder with the name of the source volume. Next your ?restore? of backups must always occur from ?destination? to ?source? and because of the folder created at backup there is no other (easy) way to restore from a backup to the original source. The manual has lots of good information but does not headline (IN LARGE BLOCK PRINT) this key information. Pending KISS and WYSIWYG revisions of the program I recommend that the reader and Intego put the italicized words above in a bold block at the beginning of the manual and the beginning of your thought process. (1) The provision (via script) for creating (as part of the backup) a sparseimage (minimum disk image size) is not available for cloning. It would be good if Intego added this feature for cloning and made it available by a simple check at the selection of the destination. (2) If you click too fast PBX quits. Perhaps this is the best way to safe operation but, if possible, simply ignoring impatient users would be better.
(Version 10.1) | |
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| Mar 12 2003 |
THE_SPOT it was good
(Version 10.1) | |
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| Feb 9 2003 |
JEEPEE Very good backup programm. You can even let it backup automatically every 15 minutes or every hour... Great! Too bad that Intego is not responding to emails of good paying customers! Their service has to improve! These stars are for the programm...
(Version 10.1) | |
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