Cobian Backup is free, donation-supported backup software

Backup software

Backup software are computer programs used to perform backup; they create supplementary exact copies of files, databases or entire computers. These programs may later use the supplementary copies to restore the original contents in the event of data loss....

 for Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

. It is written in Delphi by Luis Cobian of Umea University

Umeå University

Umeå University is a university in Umeå in the mid-northern region of Sweden. The university was founded in 1965 and is the fifth oldest within Sweden's present borders....

.

History

Cobian Backup was originally released in 2000. The program was later rewritten and released under version 7.
The next version (version 8) was released in 2006. Its source code was later released under the Mozilla Public License

Mozilla Public License

The Mozilla Public License is a free and open source software license. Version 1.0 was developed by Mitchell Baker when she worked as a lawyer at Netscape Communications Corporation and version 1.1 at the Mozilla Foundation...

 in late January 2007. However, with version 9 the author of Cobian Backup decided to switch back to a completely closed source model.. Older versions will remain Open Source forever, as the release of the program under the Mozilla Public License cannot be revoked.

Features

Cobian Backup supports Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

, FTP, compression (Zip

ZIP (file format)

Zip is a file format used for data compression and archiving. A zip file contains one or more files that have been compressed, to reduce file size, or stored as is...

, SQX

SQX

The SQX-Archiver is an open and free data compression and archival format. It can be used in one's own applications free of charge...

, 7z

7z

7z is a compressed archive file format that supports several different data compression, encryption and pre-processing algorithms. The 7z format initially appeared as implemented by the 7-Zip archiver. The 7-Zip program is publicly available under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public...

), encryption

Encryption

In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...

 (including Blowfish

Blowfish (cipher)

Blowfish is a keyed, symmetric block cipher, designed in 1993 by Bruce Schneier and included in a large number of cipher suites and encryption products. Blowfish provides a good encryption rate in software and no effective cryptanalysis of it has been found to date...

, Rijndael, DES

DES

-Computing:* Data Encryption Standard* DirectShow Editing Services, an Application Programming Interface-Medical:* Diethylstilbestrol, a synthetic estrogen and the origin of the phrase "DES daughter"* DES gene, which encodes the Desmin protein...

, RSA-Rijndael), incremental

Incremental backup

An incremental backup preserves data by not creating multiple copies that are based on the differences in those data: a successive copy of the data contains only that portion which has changed since the preceding copy has been created.-Incremental:...

 and differential backup. It supports long file names (32,000 characters) for all backup types except ZIP (which supports only 256 characters). The software may be installed as an application or as a service running in the background. Multilingual support is implemented via user-submitted language files.

The program allows users to configure and schedule regular backup routines, for example a 'differential backup' every night (which backs up user files that have changed since the last full backup) and a 'full backup' every 7th night (backing up a full set of user files).

Backups can be saved to CD, DVD, USB memory stick, a second hard drive (internal or external) etc. Users should aim to use removable media if possible, and ideally should physically remove the media to a separate safe storage place just in case the PC is stolen, damaged, catches fire etc. Backing up files to the same hard drive as the original files offers only minimal protection against accidentally deleting or corrupting files but no protection against more serious events.