Seagate Replica does automatic, incremental backup for the everyman

Seagate's new Replica drive aims to be for PC users what Time Machine is for Macs (in fact, there's no Mac software included), and seems to do a pretty good job of it. You merely plug the drive into your computer, accept a license agreement, and you're off to the races with hassle-free incremental backups of your system. The drive is available in Single PC and Multi-PC models, with the former sporting 250GB of capacity, and the latter doing 500GB and adding in a vertical dock -- but to actually backup multiple PCs you'll have to move the drive around sneakernet style. ComputerShopper found the drive pretty slow, and while you can drag and drop files off of the drive, it doesn't actually allow you to toss specific files on and use the drive as way to move your projects around town. Still, it's simple, and the $200 starting price isn't criminal.

Read - ComputerShopper review
Read - Official Replica site

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 27th 2009 2:18PM]

Seagate bought Mirra a few years back that was better than WHS or Time Machine (for backup only) and did nothing with it! Why? I have a 500GB Mirra that I love! It backs up all our computers and I can access the files online at any time.Super easy to use! I just wish it had 1Gb/s Ethernet card.

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=dbb45ddba673d010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD&locale=en-US

[I liked my old name Some Troll Posted Apr 27th 2009 2:13PM]

Anyone else thought, at least it looks cool?

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 27th 2009 6:57PM]

Ok, just to put you lot straight.

Time machine will work from any external hard drive.
If you have a time capsule:- It includes a software cd that will let you use it for time machine backups with Windows XP onward and Tiger.
Not to mention it is a dual band wireless N router capable of handling a network of up to 50 computers/wireless devices.
So price wise you get a heck of a lot for your money.

[nikster Posted Apr 27th 2009 8:29PM]

Here's the best feature of TimeMachine: It creates a normal hard disk with a normal file system on it. Should you one day lose TM, you can still brows the hard disk and retrieve anything you want. No 3rd party software needed. The problem with the PC backups is that they come with a proprietary compression format and if your machine is hosed you need to get the proprietary program running somehow using some sort of Windows startup disk - that's very hard, or if you know what you are doing, very time intensive at the least.

TM is also the most seamless and fastest backup. The kind of incremental backup every hour that TM does is hard to replicate on the PC because TM makes use of Spotlight indexing to figure out which files changed. If it had to run over all files on the HD, it would be way too slow to do every hour. Instead, Spotlight already keeps track of all files, and TM uses this information.

TM also allows you to browse your history in selected programs. You've all seen what it does in the Finder - it will show you your desktop and all files and folders as they were at the time of the backup. But it can also, almost magically, do the same with email - you can watch your inbox on any date you like, from within the mail application.

[Mikerman Posted Apr 28th 2009 12:09AM]

Iomega Home Media Network Drive (1TB for around $200; good, lower prices at Dell, well under $200) performs, as far as I can tell, like Time Capsule at a much lower price (1/2 or less?), using included Retrospect backup software or backup software of your choice (I used Norton Ghost). Simply plug it into your router via an included Ethernet cable, plug it into the wall, turn it on, and install the software on your computer. Easy installation, totally trouble-free for me, and works like a charm, for wireless backups (set for any schedule you want; such as every hour or daily) and wireless data access.

Quite candidly, as far as I can tell, it blows Time Capsule outta the water for under $200 ...