Review: NTI Shadow Backup Software

spider-t

I have been struggling with coming up with the good backup solution and I thought I'd pass on what looks like a winner.

I really like NTI Shadow.

They have a fully functional trial download and they are having a half off special right now.

Here's a brief review with some screenshots.

I use the Windows version, but they have Mac too.

cheers!
Trish

Andy

Looks great!
I wonder if you'd contribute this to the dgrin.smugmug.com reviews site? DavidTO will be in touch with the details

Mongrel

Trish,
thanks for the heads up on this. I've been struggling with restructuring my entire photography workflow and procedures. This is one area where a need a straight forward and *simple* system to do systematic backups of my shots. I just got CS2 and was trying to figure out if Bridge would be capable of doing this, but I haven't found out if it can do it or not. I've been using Elements 3.0 file browser to get the shots off the card and into folders which has worked out OK. Elements file browser does ask if you would like to backup but we're talking hours to do so.

A question if I may?

Can this program locate all photo-files and perform a backup? Or does it start with 'today' and go from there?

I'm totally brain-dead as to how to go about beginning this process. I have *most* of my stuff on two seperate hard drives at the moment. I would like to pick up a fire-wire capable 500GB drive and have all of my stuff backed up to that if possible rather than burning a whole stack of DVDs 4GB at a time.

Thanks,

Mongrel

spider-t

Mongrel wrote:

thanks for the heads up on this. I've been struggling with restructuring my entire photography workflow and procedures. This is one area where a need a straight forward and *simple* system to do systematic backups of my shots. I just got CS2 and was trying to figure out if Bridge would be capable of doing this, but I haven't found out if it can do it or not. I've been using Elements 3.0 file browser to get the shots off the card and into folders which has worked out OK. Elements file browser does ask if you would like to backup but we're talking hours to do so.

A question if I may?

Can this program locate all photo-files and perform a backup? Or does it start with 'today' and go from there?

I'm totally brain-dead as to how to go about beginning this process. I have *most* of my stuff on two seperate hard drives at the moment. I would like to pick up a fire-wire capable 500GB drive and have all of my stuff backed up to that if possible rather than burning a whole stack of DVDs 4GB at a time.

Thanks,

Mongrel

It doesn't just start from 'today', and will definitely do a historic backup of all your files, but it helps if you know where they are. You have to identify the folders (or files) you want backed up.

This software works best if you have a hierarchy to your image file folders. If there is one folder that you can identify that has all your images sub-folders in it.

That way as you add new folders, you don't need to tell the backup software to pick up those too.

In my workflow, I create a new folder for every shoot. I have a folder heirarchy that is under the 'My Pictures' folder.

e.g.
My Pictures/Portraits/MikeLane/
My Pictures/Travel/Mexico/02-28-06/
My Pictures/San Francisco/01-03-05/
My Pictures/Events/2006/NCLR Gala/
My Pictures/Dogs/Doloris Park/


One tool I recommend for finding all the images in your system is Picassa. Even with a planned heirarchy, I have a ton of files and I find it so much easier to find files with Picassa. They have built a great interface, and it's free! here

I agree with you. Stay away from the DVD's as a primary backup system. It's a time consuming system to maintain, and difficult to find files to restore. But it is good to get a set of DVD's once in a while to have an offsite backup (in case of fire).

cheers!
Trish

spider-t

Andy wrote:

Looks great!
I wonder if you'd contribute this to the dgrin.smugmug.com reviews site? DavidTO will be in touch with the details

Sure Andy, I'd be happy to.
-Trish