Labs

SquirrelSave is from Memset, a Surrey-based hosting company. The software was due to be launched as we went to press, but the version we tested was still in beta and had a few bugs and unfinished features. Offering 20GB for less than £6 a month, SquirrelSave provides the most space per pound of any of the pay-monthly products.

SquirrelSave feels different to most of the

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packages on test. It has no conventional scheduling, but runs continuously, copying the files and folders you define to the remote storage. Having backed up your files, the software monitors them for changes, backing up modified files to the server straight away but also retaining previous versions.

Uniquely, SquirrelSave keeps unlimited historical backups, so you should be able to restore any version of any backed up file at any point. It's a powerful feature, particularly as the space it uses doesn't count towards your quota.

Data transfers were quick. It was the fastest to complete our second backup, transferring the least data in the process, and was the only application to process a modified TIFF file correctly. The backup browser we tested was basic, and the restore process was awkward, resulting in a larger than necessary download. We can't recommend SquirrelSave based on the beta version, but we'll test it again when it's officially launched.