Product Reviews

Notebook users typically back up their machines only when they're safely at home, and not while they're carrying them around. LapBack 2.0 aims to change that by providing a simple way of backing up your data to USB flash drives wherever you are.

This is one of the simplest backup products we've ever used. The first time you start the program it asks you to provide a password before opening the main application. By default the program selects My Documents, Outlook and Outlook Express folders for backup. It's a little strange that it selects both Outlook and Outlook Express, though, as most people use one or the other.

You can elect to back up additional folders by selecting Add new item or right-clicking any folder in Windows Explorer and choosing the correct option.

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You can also drag and drop folders directly into the application.

Next, you plug in a USB flash drive and, once your notebook has detected it and installed the drivers, click on the Backup button. LapBack then encrypts the selected files and stores them on the USB flash drive.

If no drive is inserted, LapBack presents a rather convoluted error message that says "Path does not exist or is invalid". A message telling you that there's no USB key would be more useful. If you prefer, you can back up to a CD or DVD drive, a network location or another folder, although this last option rather defeats the object of backing up your files so that you have a copy if your notebook breaks or is stolen.

LapBack provides the usual options for scheduling backups, and icons in Windows Explorer indicate whether your marked folders have files that need backing up. The software keeps only one copy of each file, so it writes new versions of your files over your existing backup. If you want to keep different versions of your files, you can use multiple USB flash drives.

This software is incredibly easy to use and allows notebook users to back up their data, even if they're in the middle of nowhere. However, you'll need a USB drive that's at least as big as the data you want to save, and a spare drive or two if you want to save multiple versions of files.