Rebit 5 Backup Software

In today’s digital age having backups of your data can often prevent an epic catastrophe. Can you afford to lose your contacts, emails, financial information or more? Backing your information should become part of your computer use habits. You do backup your PC, don’t you?

If you are deficient in the back up department then Rebit’s latest version of their backup software – Rebit 5 can help. I reviewed earlier versions of Rebit’s backup technology and found the software incredibly easy to use. With this latest release Rebit makes backing up your system so simple it almost seems like an afterthought.

Info:

Product Name: Rebit 5 Backup Software

Author: Tom Ratas

Provider:  Rebit

Price: $34.95 Download/$39.95 CD – single PC $79.95 Download/$84.95 CD – 3 PCs

Price: $24.99 Single PC from Amazon at time of review

Fully Automatic: Goes to work whenever your computer is connected to the backup drive, wireless network or LAN.

Drive Rotation: Backup to multiple drives and rotate them offsite for additional disaster protection

Continuous Data Protection: Rebit 5 monitors changes to your files and backs them up within moments. File versions are maintained so you can go back in time to any previous version.

Concurrent Direct and Network Backup: Backup to hard drives connected directly (USB, eSATA, etc.) or networked. Wireless backup or LAN connections to Network Attached Storage (NAS).

Full System Restore: Easily recover the entire system hard drive from any catastrophic event – hard drive crash, virus or corrupted software installation.

Data Health Dashboard: Backup status in the at-a-glance display shows progress of backups real-time.

System Requirements:

-A customer-supplied USB hard drive or network attached storage (NAS) of equal or greater capacity than the internal system hard disk drives

-32-bit Windows XP and XP Pro (Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3), 32-bit or 64-bit Windows Vista® (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate), and 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 7 (All Editions)

-CD-ROM disk drive

-NTFS-formatted, non-RAID system disk drive

-Pentium 4+ or AMD Athlon+ processor and 2 GB of RAM Memory

 

Network Attached Storage (NAS) Requirements:

A NAS device or share with 2-3 times the capacity of the PC’s to be backed up.

Support for Windows workgroups. (Windows domain authentication not supported)

Network configured for DHCP

 

The Review::

The Rebit 5 software can be purchased through the Rebit website as a download, physical media or installed on a hard drive. The software and preinstalled hard drives can also be found in retail stores. Those folks who like to test out the software before having to buy it, there is also a 30 day trial available.

For today’s review we received a boxed version which allows the backup of up to three machines. Inside the packaging is an install CD and License Key card with a Quick Start Guide on the back.

  

Installation takes less than a minute via the Setup Wizard. Rebit 5 installs as the trial version as it does not ask for the license key during the setup process; this key can be entered later via the settings screen. You’ll immediately notice from the first couple of screens that Rebit created a simple elegant interface designed to make backing up an easy and painless experience.

 

Once started Rebit 5 asks the user to choose a backup location from either a local drive or a network share.

  

You will then be placed on the home screen which has five large buttons on the bottom part of the interface. These include Information, Browse Backup, Pause, Make Recovery Point and Settings.

The Information screen will show the software version, registration info, license key and machine ID. For those who wish to see the designers credits or go to the Rebit website that can be done from this screen as well.

Browse the Backup brings allows the user to search the backed up image and restore files and folders. Older versions of files can be explored from this option as well.

 

Pause will freeze the back up; from here you can set the time frame you wish to resume backing up. This option is helpful if you need to dedicate all your CPU cycles for another process.

Make Recovery Point runs an immediate backup from the moment that button is clicked.

The Settings option is the control center for Rebit 5.

 

Here the user can Activate the software with the license code, choose which drives to back up, add or remove backup locations, view recovery points, create a recovery disk, set a password or check for software updates.

      

From the above screen captures you’ll notice Rebit designed the newest version of their backup software with a simple to use interface. There aren’t a lot of options to overwhelm the average PC user. By making the backup process simple Rebit allows the user to simply set the software and forget about it.

For testing I used a 2 TB Western Digital MyBook USB 3.0 external drive as my backup target. My main PC has multiple partitions and drives including an 80GB Intel SSD. Since my critical data sits only on my C: and D: drives, I set Rebit to backup those drives.

  

Rebit performed the backup silently in the background as I continued to use my desktop for regular use. By clicking the Rebit icon in the system tray brings up a dashboard bar that informs the user of the status of the current backup. With Rebit running in the background it was using 15K for the backup service and 28K for the dashboard UI.

Rebit 5 allows the switching of backup locations without having to rerun the setup. This is handy for those who like to cycle their backup drives or for when running out of storage space. Since it is a continuous backup Rebit keeps multiple file versions so you can go back in time to a previous version of a file.

 

One strange thing I found with Rebit 5 is the inability to exclude certain folders or files. The backup is an “all or nothing” system. Partitions or individual hard drives can only be backed in their entirety.

Restoration of lost data can be done from the Browse Backup menu where individual files or folders can be restored by copying them or dragging them out of the backup folder. Right clicking on a file brings up an explore option which reveals the various saved versions of a file. If a catastrophe occurs and you need to recover your entire system booting from the install disk or from a recovery disk created by a user will allow a full system restore.

Conclusion:

Rebit 5 is a well designed intuitive backup solution. Its simplicity and ease of use may draw comparisons to Apple’s Time Machine backup solution. Rebit created it this way to make it easy for even the neophyte PC user.

Overall I was impressed by its sleek interface and ease of use. The best thing one can say of a backup program is that the user is not aware it is even running and Rebit 5 works in that fashion. Simply set it up and forget about it until you need it.

The one drawback to this backup software is the inability to exclude folders or files from partition/hard drive backups. If you wish to do this then you may need a more sophisticated backup option. But if you are looking for a simple to use backup solution then Rebit 5 is an excellent choice.

 

PROS	CONS
+Elegant, intuitive interface +Plug and play backup +Restore files, folders or entire drives	-Unable to select or exclude folders for backup

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Scores::	9 out of 10
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Disclosure:This product was given to Review the Tech for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products. This product may have also been bought by us for review purposes and does not influence the review.