Uranium Backup is freeware, but it also had a paid version. The free version is “feature limited” meaning some features won’t work – for those you have to pay for the full version. I prefer my free backup software to not have any restrictions, so I can’t really recommend this.
This review covers the free version, although I mention the paid version where appropriate.
Pros
- Free version backs up files and folders
- Paid version can do tape backups, MySQL backups, and others
Cons
- Free version has most features removed
- No built-in restore feature for file/folder backups
The Bottom Line
Although the full version is quite powerful, the free version of Uranium Backup is severely limited.
Backing Up
The first thing I noticed when using Uranium Backup is that most of the features have been removed in the free version. You can’t add a drive image backup, backup to tape, and other advanced tasks.
Clicking “Create new Backup” will create a new backup set, which you can then add items to.
The items you can add are:
- Add files/folders to the backup set
- Add a destination folder
That’s about it. All the other features are only available to the full version.
The Uranium Backup main screen. Unfortunately most of this stuff doesn’t work in the free version.
Scheduling a backup.
After defining a backup set, Uranium Backup quickly backed up my files to an external hard drive.
Restoring
There is no built-in restore feature for backups on an external hard drive – you have to manually copy files.
Oddly, Uranium Backup can restore from tape, optical media, and a zip file.
What I Liked
Although I don’t need them, Uranium Backup has a lot of features for business users: SQL backups, drive images, virtual machine backups, etc.
What I Didn’t Like
The free version of Uranium Backup can’t backup open/locked files, so you’ll want to keep these excluded from your backup set (or set the option to ignore them).
I also didn’t like how complex the software was. It was hard to sort out the difference between the functional freeware options and the non-functional “paid” options. I found myself diving into menus that don’t even work.
Why Uranium Backup chooses to name folders based off the MD5 hash is beyond me; a much easier solution is to use the date and time (like all other backup software). How am I supposed to know what backup I’m looking at? Luckily this can be changed.
Summary
With an emphasis on tape backups, Uranium Backup is clearly not for the average home user. The free version is too complex for home users yet lacking features needed for business use, which makes it practically useless.
Upgrading to the full version is the only choice then, assuming you need tape backups.
| Specifications | |
| Product Name | Uranium Backup |
| Version | 8.7.3 |
| License | Freeware |
| Price | Free |
| Operating Systems | Window |
| Backup Types | |
| Files and Folders | |
| Full Disk Image | |
| Incremental | |
| Differential | |
| Backup Destinations | |
| Hard Drive | |
| Removable Media | |
| Network Shares | |
| Blu-ray | |
| CD/DVD | |
| FTP | |
| SFTP | |
| Online Storage | |
| Features | |
| Compression | |
| Encryption | |
| Email Notifications | |
| Error Handling | |
| File Versioning | |
| Priority Setting | |
| Scheduling | |
| Speed Limiting | |
| Synchronization | |
Geoff Akerlund
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