AOMEI Backupper Standard 3.0

Praised for long for a level of versatility that few (if any) free backup and restore utilities can offer, AOMEI Backupper Standard has outdone itself by adding various – and extremely useful – backup schemes, such as the incremental and differential backups.

These new features just add to the program’s already long list of backup-related utilities and functions, such as the backup scheduler, the backup editor, or its disc, system, and partition cloning capabilities.

The program’s interface is well designed and, above all, clear and intuitive. Backup, Restore, and Clone summarize the bulk of its functionality, while Utilities offers a toolbox of extra functions that few similar tools can compete with. Under Home you will find a comprehensive Backup Manager, where all previous backups can be edited in various ways. You can select any of them and check, mount, explore, and edit any of the existing image backups. You may want to add or delete files and folders manually, or perform any of the new incremental and differential backup schemes included in this new version so that Backupper synchronizes your backups and their source data automatically.

The different backups supported include system, disk, partition, and file (and folders) backup. All of them are easily performed thanks to the program’s wizard-like interfaces, which will guide you through the few steps required to save your valuable data in the location of your choice. You can also create perfect one-to-one copies of your disks, partitions, and system files using the various options under Clone. (The System Clone function is of great help when migrating your operating system to a new hard drive.)

Apart from the obvious (and pretty straightforward) Restore function, AOMEI Backupper Standard offers you a set of utilities that nicely complement the editing capabilities reviewed above. These include the possibility of creating a bootable disc or USB drive, of exporting and importing the configuration of your backups from and to the program’s Backup Manager, or of setting up AOMEI’s Preboot Execute Environment (or PXE) tool. This will enable any computer on a LAN to use a bootable environment stored on the network to perform backup and restore routines.

AOMEI Backupper Standard can be upgraded to the Professional version to add even more functionality to it, such as command line support, a backup disk space manager, or the chance to merge various backup images into one. However, if all you need is a free and versatile tool to back up and restore your sensitive data easily and safely, this Standard edition is a very serious option to consider.