Have you ever had a disk or system failure, crashing your PC? If you do, then you may be familiar with the gut-wrenching feeling of having your data all disappear. Photos, videos, drafts of that novel you were secretly writing, all gone in a flash. In rare cases, there are recovery software that can partially get your data back. But whether they’ll be corrupted or not is another story. Prevailing wisdom says that prevention is better than cure. For your personal data, this is doubly true.
EaseUS Todo Backup Home is the first paid tier of the company’s image-based backup software for Windows. Even though the company is based on China, you don’t need to worry about your data privacy. Why? First of all, randomly gathering disk data of people on the internet is not that valuable, cost-wise. Secondly, EaseUS has been in business since 2003 and is quite reputable. Though, they do tend to be a little aggressive while marketing.
Let’s get it out of the way. If you don’t really mind about getting your data lost, this software is not for you. If all you have saved is films, music, and memes, then their loss is not devastating. In that case, you could get away with making manual backups or use something free. If you are an expert user, a system administrator, or a business user, then too, this may not be for you. Look at power-user tools and other enterprise solutions. This application is for the home PC user who still cares about their data and needs a simple solution.
User Experience
Download and installation are quite straightforward. An installer of around 2 MB is downloaded, which again downloads about 100 MB. After an average installation time, you are good to go. Just pick your preferences and backup location. Note that this software adds itself to startup. If you are not going to be doing automated backups, you may want to disable this feature.
One issue I encountered at first was that the icons were really tiny. This was a resolution issue that has a simple fix.
If you have this same problem, perform the following steps.
Right-click on the program shortcut → Properties → Compatibility → Change high DPI settings → Tick Override high DPI scaling behavior → Choose ‘System’
This should fix the icons, but this behavior points to a lack of optimization on EaseUS’s end.
Right after I installed the software, the v12.5 update came through. It required reinstallation, although the program assured me that no changes to backup files would be made. The reinstallation is precisely that and not an upgrade.
Another minor quibble is that the window is not very resizeable. And the settings button is hidden in a dropdown in the top right corner. But, these are not real deal-breakers. The app process has an average footprint – on my machine, it ate about 14.2 MB RAM on idle and up to 100 MB RAM when performing backups.
The overall user experience is smooth and intuitive. This is the main sell of this software, a comfortable and trustworthy way of doing backups.
Features and Limitations
Todo Backup Home covers the basics well. It has all the typical features users would want. From the main menu, you can reach the basic options of backing up your disk/partition, system, files, emails, or ‘smart backup.’ You can also clone your disk or system from this menu.
Lower down, the Tools icon expands into a set of other features. Notable among these is the PreOS one. Basically, it uses WinPE to give a recovery option from a full-system crash. We recommend enabling this if you tend to fiddle with multiple OSes or system software.
The backups are easy enough to perform. You can specify compression, encryption, performance, etc. These will determine how fast your backups will be executed. A custom command option is good to see, although the advanced tab looks empty with only a single line for the sector by sector backup. You can also set up regular or event-based backup schedules. Options for full/incremental/differential backup methods are present here as well.
A full backup is self-explanatory. In a nutshell, a differential backup only saves new files since the last full backup. However, an incremental backup only saves new data since the previous backup – any type of backup. Of these three, incremental give the best modularity and can be done frequently. They do take longer to restore, though.
The logs of your events are very easy to access and understand. This is a thumbs-up for EaseUS Todo Backup.
The software is not without its limitations, though. One of the foremost is its use of file extension. It stores your backup images in a .pbd file. If you transfer your backups to another system, the easiest way to access such data would be to install the software or its free version. Lack of third-party compatibility is a slight bummer. It does support RAID devices, USB drives, shared network locations, and even serial tape. It lacks more premium features, such as SQL Server, MS Exchange Server backups, PXE network boot, etc. However, most users will not notice their absence.
- Simple and effective
- Intuitive pricing and free trial
- Excellent support
- Could be optimized further
- Lacks advanced features
Pricing and Verdict
Finally, we come to the bottom line. We love the simplicity of EaseUS Todo Backup, and it gets the job done on time. It could be further optimized, though, and lacks functions power users would demand. We highly recommend this for personal users looking for peace-of-mind for their data security.
Let’s briefly recap some alternatives. For an open-source alternative, there is Clonezilla. It lacks differential/ incremental backups, however. There are other free alternatives such as Macrium Reflect 7 Free and Veeam Agent Free, but both suffer some feature limitations. A pricier option is the Acronis True Image Premium. It features blockchain certification and e-signatures. But at a price more than 100 USD for a single year, this may break your wallet.
There are three pricing options when going for the Home edition. You can get a year’s subscription for $30, two years for $40, and a lifetime license for just $60. This is quite a hard choice. The best thing would be to try out their 30-day trial. Then, if you find it to your liking, we say go for the lifetime purchase. Windows is here to stay, and so is EaseUS Todo Backup.
