Spb Backup 2.0 Review

August 17, 2008

As more and more personal data and information is placed on Windows Mobile devices, the more important backing up these devices has become.  Sure if you synchronize your device with ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center, your files in My Documents are backed up but none of your settings or PIM data is as well as anything else that's not in your My Documents directory.  Given the fact that most devices these days have built-in digital cameras which may or may not store the photos taken in My Documents, you could stand to loose some important pictures!  Besides, restoring after a hard reset or a ROM upgrade is no fun on any day.

Thankfully there are several Windows Mobile backup solutions out there and the newest version of Spb Software House's has to be considered one of the best already.  Version 2.0 of Backup builds on an already solid foundation that was set in version 1.5 but layers on key functionality that allows you to backup and restore literally any aspect of your device.  Some of the new features include synchronization of your backup files to your PC, the ability to intelligently determine if you are restoring data to a new device or to a device in which you have upgraded the ROM, a new user interface and ability to unpack a backup file on your PC makes this application solid choice for your backup needs.

Spb Backup requires approximately 1.5MB of storage space on your Windows Mobile Professional device.  Your device needs to be running Windows Mobile 5.0 or higher and can either be a QVGA and VGA device.  While you can installed Spb Backup on a storage card, both of us recommend as well as Spb themselves that you install it in your device's main memory.  Once the installation is complete and you start the application, the shiny new user interface is displayed, a significant step up from the previous version without question.

Figure 1:  Spb Backup 2.0 User Interface

The new interface gives you the four main options of Spb Backup:  Full Backup, Custom Backup, Scheduled Backup or Restore Backup.  I will look at each one of these backup options as well as the restore option before turning my attention to the Windows PC portion of the application.  Ultimately you could use Spb Backup without ever using the desktop portion of the application but given the new synchronization features that are there it deserves attention on its own.

As the name suggests, Full Backup in Spb Backup does a complete backup of all of the files and settings of your device.  The amount of time to backup using the Full Backup feature will vary depending on how much data you are backing up and if you are backing up storage card content.  To provide you with an idea of time, I completed a Full Backup of my HTC Advantage X7510 with the following applications installed:

• Spb Backup 2.0

• Spb Traveler 1.5

• DinarSoft MemMaid 2.7

• Tweaks2K2

• Astraware Solitaire

• Ilium NewsBreak

• Ilium eWallet

The list above represents the applications that I consider to be part of my baseline - those application which are automatically installed when I have a new device or have updated a ROM image.

To perform a Full Backup on my X7510 with these applications installed took approximately 4 minutes.  If I add my corporate Exchange data which includes my contacts, calendar, additionally synchronized folders with Exchange, Tasks as well as a handful of other applications - Spb Brain Evolution, Spb Sudoku, Sprite Archie - my backup time increased to approximately 9 minutes.  Obviously your own backup times will vary but I have found that Spb Backup is one of the faster backup applications available.  Even if I have the application encrypt the backup file it only adds an additional 2 minutes to the backup time.  Ultimately, when you compare version 2.0 to version 1.5, the backup engine is about two times faster.  Below is a chart which Spb provided to show a visual comparison of v2.0 of Spb Backup versus 1.5 and Sprite Backup.

Chart 1:  Comparison of Spb Backup v2.0 versus 1.6.3 and Sprite Backup 6.2.2* 
*Chart provided by Spb Software House

By default Spb Backup will attempt to put the self-executable backup file onto a storage card.  Logically this makes sense - if you reset your device or loose all of your data you will loose the backup file as well if it is stored in your device's memory.  How you manage the backup files themselves is really a matter of personal preference.  After I did my review of Spb Backup 1.5 and Sprite Backup, several readers wrote that they have a storage card they put into their device, perform the backup, then store that card in a safe location.  There are positives to do thing but negatives as well.  If you want to backup your storage card itself - especially if you store data or applications on it - you are not able to do so using this method.  Some devices today have multiple storage slots or, as in the case of the Advantage, has a built-in flash drive as well as a MicroSD storage slot.  If you have two cards or storage locations available, you can have your data and applications stored on one while using the removable storage for backups.  I have found this mode of operation to be the most successful for me given I use Spb Backup's Scheduled Backup feature which I will explain shortly.

When Spb Backup begins a Full Backup - or any of it's backup or restore functions - it will shut down all running applications to assure that it captures all data files and information that could potentially be in use by running applications.  This is particularly critical of DLL files.  Likewise, when Spb Backup has completed a backup it will automatically do a soft reset of your device.  This is done for two reasons.  First, it will clear any used RAM by Spb Backup itself.  Secondly it will assure that your start-up applications will be started again. 

Figure 2:  Application Shutdown Warning from Spb Backup

The second backup option offered by Spb Backup is a Custom Backup.  The name is somewhat intuitive as to what this mode allows you to do.  Selecting this mode allows you to select down to the file level what is and what is not backed up.  This is a great mode if you want to only backup the data that is on a storage card or My Documents as an example.

During the configuration of the backup you can have Spb Backup encrypt and/or compress your backup file.  The encryption is a 128-bit key which should make it solidly secure for your sensitive data.  Likewise you can compress the file to save space on your storage card.  You can also add comments to a backup file which can make it a bit easier for you to identify information about that backup file beyond the data and time.

Figure 3:  Custom Backup allows you to select what to backup

Figure 4:  You can encrypt and/or compress backup files

Figure 5:  A Backup in progress

The third backup mode and one that I personally find the most helpful is the Scheduled Backup.  As the name suggests, this allows you to schedule a backup of your device at a regular interval, assuring that you have a recent backup available at all times.  I like this mode because it eliminates the human factor.  I know that, in my case, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 11:30 PM my device is going to be backed up.

With Scheduled Backup you can either configure Spb Backup to perform a full backup as I described above or customize it to backup only certain files or folders.  During the configuration of the Scheduled Backup function you will be prompted to select a location for the backup file.  This will be the same that is used every time unless you go back into Spb Backup and reconfigure the schedule.  You will also be asked to configure Spb Backup to only backup if your device is connected to AC and not on battery, if you want the device to be soft reset and turned off after the backup is complete.

Figure 6:  Scheduled Backup allows you to have regular backups made of your device

The final function in the Spb Backup application is the Restore Backup function.  The Restore function allows you to do a complete device restore or a custom restore of certain files or folders on your device.  When you start the Restore function a list of all of the available backups that you have stored on your device or storage card.  After selecting the backup you want to restore from, you can choose either to do a full restore or customized restore.  New to version 2.0 of Spb Backup is the intelligence built into the application around ROM updates.  If you are restoring after performing such an upgrade, it will intelligently restore your data without potentially overwriting files installed in the ROM update.  In fact the restore program is intelligent enough to know if you are restoring to a different device than the one that the backup file was created upon. 

Figure 7:  Restore your device or select the files you want to restore

Figure 8:  Restore can be told about your ROM upate

It should be noted that you do not necessarily have to have Spb Backup installed on your device in order to restore a backup.  The backup created is an executable file which you can run on its own.  This is particularly handy after a ROM update or hard reset of your device.  Generally after a hard reset while writing this review, I was able to take a clean device and restore it to working order in under 10 minutes including all reboots.

Before I turn to the desktop version of Spb Backup there are a handful of new improvements within Spb Backup 2.0 that should be discussed.  First version 2.0 now is supported on Windows Mobile Standard devices.  This is a much welcomed addition to the application and provides a solid backup option for Smartphone users.  Secondly, you know have the option to backup and restore SMS messages.  Backup verification is also now a part of Spb Backup.

The desktop application that comes with Spb Backup is new and includes a desktop backup and synchronization tool as well as an unpacking tool for backup files.  Unlike previous version of Spb Backup, you now can synchronize a copy of your backup file to your PC via ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center.  This essentially gives you two storage locations for your backup file:  Your device storage card and your host PC.  The backup files that are synchronized are stored in My Documents/My Mobile Backups directory in a subdirectory of the name of your device.  So in my case it is My Documents/My Mobile Backups/Advantage.  If you have multiple devices that is not a problem.  You can create a backup folder for each device to keep them separate.

The desktop application is simple but effective.  It allows you to perform a backup as well as synchronize manually any backup files that have been created on your Windows Mobile device.  By default Spb Backup will synchronize the files once you connect your device to your host PC so you should not have to do this often.

Figure 9:  The Spb Backup Windows PC application

By default the Spb Backup PC application will start when you start your PC and will provide you an icon in your system tray.  You can double-click that icon to bring up the application shown in Figure 9.

Figure 10:  System Tray icon for Spb Backup

If you want to see a quick listing of all of your backup files you can do so by clicking the Show Details link in the application.  This will expand the application to list all of the backup files that Spb Backup is aware of existing.  Note that some backups note Desktop as the location while others indicate Synchronized.  If the location is Desktop that means it is located on the host PC only and not on your Windows Mobile device while Synchronized is located on both. 

Figure 11:  Backup file listing in Spb Backup

The second desktop application is Spb Backup Unpack.  The Unpack tool allows you to extract specific files or folders from a backup without having to perform a restore.  Once you select the backup file you are wanting to extract a file from, use the file explorer on the left-hand side to navigate then right-click the file or folder you want to restore in the main window of the application.  You will then be prompted on where to store the extracted file.

Figure 12:  Spb Backup Unpack allows you to extract files from a backup file

You will also note that at the bottom of the main window is an information section which tells you the location of the backup file, the date it was created, its size, the name of the device on which it was created and the platform information.  This is particularly handy if you have multiple devices you are backing up using Spb Backup.

The new 2.0 version of Spb Backup is fantastic and has added some much needed features in order for it to compete against the likes of Sprite Backup.  The user interfaces both on the Windows Mobile and Windows PC side are easy to navigate, intuitive and uncluttered.  The desktop synchronization is a much welcomed edition as is the Unpack application for allowing single file or folder extraction from a backup file.  Finally, the speed of the backup process is great and best that I have tested.

Spb Backup v2.0 is $24.95 and available through a variety of online retailers and Spb directly.  Now through September 18, 2008 you can save 20% of of either the Windows Mobile Professional or Standard versions at the Clinton Fitch (Dot) Com! store by using the coupon code CFBACKUP when you check out.  As always, our store provides trial versions of the application as well.

For the Windows Mobile Professional version click here

For the Windows Mobile Standard version click here