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[ Go to August 1997 Table of Contents ]
WinLab Reviews
-- by James E. Powell
You can't have too much hard disk space or perform too many backups. Colorado Backup by Cheyenne (CBBC) offers a good cross section of new features, but it can't compete with the flexibility and friendlier interface of Seagate Backup Exec 2.0. New in CBBC, which we beta tested, is the ability to create rescue diskettes. You can use these to boot your system in the event of a crash, then restore files from your tape backup. However, in the case of the SCSI devices we used for testing, you can accomplish this feat only if you have the diskettes containing your SCSI drivers. We fear most users won't remember where they stored those diskettes. Microsoft says the backup program in Memphis will include an emergency boot-and-restore feature; presumably, Memphis can locate your drivers. There are a few outstanding features in CBBC. It's easy to select files, using filters if desired, to be backed up and restored. You can schedule a backup for unattended operation. In our tests, it took 25 minutes, 28 seconds to back up and verify 500MB in 5,100 files (19.63MB per minute). Compression averaged 1.8:1. Both scores are about average for products in this class. CBBC is mainly for Colorado backup users (we tested it with an HP T4000es drive). It also recognized our Conner 8GB SCSI drive and is compatible with QIC, Travan, DAT, Jaz and Zip drives. Unfortunately, it won't work with the popular Iomega 2GB drive or on a system with a corrupted Registry. If you purchased HP Colorado T3000 and T4000 tape backup drives, the free bundled copy of CBBC may be all you'll need. Our preliminary tests of Seagate Backup Exec 2.0 revealed similar bugs and deficiencies, which Seagate is addressing. HP buyers needing more power and owners of other drives should stick with Seagate Backup 1.15 or wait for a bug-free Seagate Backup Exec upgrade.
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