EaseUS ToDo Backup Free 12.8
For a freebie it’s not bad at all, but the full feature set only comes with an expensive upgrade
SCORE
PRICE Free from easeus.com
Like Aomei Backupper Standard on p84, EaseUS ToDo Backup Free is a functional file-backup package that also serves as an advertisement for the paid-for Home edition. The upgrade is expensive, however, at $59 (around £46) with no built-in cloud support, meaning that this free version is arguably the more persuasive proposition.
Indeed, it covers the important bases. Full disks can be backed up, as well as specific files and folders, and there’s a friendly system backup option that captures a complete image of your Windows installation. The backup process is straightforward to configure and not too sluggish: EaseUS backed up our test 2GB folder to a USB 3 disk in 29 seconds, stretching to 57 with standard compression applied.
ToDo Backup also boasts an unusually flexible scheduler, which allows you to configure backups to run as frequently as every minute, or as rarely as once a month. You can also create chains of incremental backups, with a full image generated on the first backup of each day, week or month. And to prevent your archive from ballooning, you can define a preservation strategy to purge your oldest backups after a number of days or job runs.
When it comes to recovery, archives can be restored from inside the program, but you can alternatively double-click on one of EaseUS’ PBD archives to open it in an Explorer window. It’s a very agreeable way to find, preview and restore files, and clicking on a backed-up item brings up a complete list of backup dates for instant access to historical versions of the file.
Our only complaint here is that the software doesn’t actually keep track of file changes. If your backup job has run ten times, you’ll see ten different versions – even if the file in question has only been updated once during that time.
An approximate file size is shown next to each date, giving a clue as to when changes occurred, but it’s still clunkier than we’d like.
And that’s largely it for features. Upgrade to the $59 version and you’ll unlock various extras, such as the ability to include and exclude files by type, email notifications, FTP access and on-event backups. If you’re tempted down that route, though, there are both cheaper and smarter commercial packages to consider. As for this zero-cost option, EaseUS ToDo Backup Free wins points for its scheduling and version management, but other contenders have more to offer.