Genie Timeline 10 Residence overview: Time Machine-like backup for Home windows

Value When Reviewed

$12

Greatest Costs As we speak: Genie Timeline 10 Residence

Genie’s Timeline 10 Residence is a steady knowledge safety (CDP) program for Home windows that seeks to imitate the benefit of Apple’s Time Machine when looking and restoring information. Although not fairly as visually slick as its position mannequin, the present model 10 of Timeline is significantly improved from the older program I reviewed over a decade in the past. There are extra choices, catastrophe restoration, and—at the moment—a fantastically low worth of $12. (The usual annual worth for one machine is $39.95.)

Alas, we had some points with the restoration disc not booting on our Home windows 11 methods, so what may’ve rated as backup gold, is as a substitute, bronze.

This overview is a part of our ongoing roundup of the greatest backup software program. Go there for data on competing merchandise and the way we examined them.

Genie Timeline 10 Residence: Design and options

Genie Timeline 10 Residence sports activities a contemporary, clear interface and is especially adept at serving to much less knowledgable customers select what information to again up. You may after all manually specify which information and folders to again up utilizing a standard tree selector, however this system additionally lets you merely select numerous classes of information: e mail, music, movies, workplace, monetary, and many others.

We’d usually advocate selecting the Catastrophe Restoration possibility; that is additionally the choice that mimics Apple Time Machine’s means to revive your total set up. To that finish, Genie now gives Linux-based catastrophe restoration boot media. You need to obtain a separate program to create it, however it’s out there. Sadly, it proved problematic over a number of machines.

Timeline 10 Residence will use its personal logic (IntelliCDP) to again up information at affordable intervals (although not actual time) with out interfering significantly together with your workday and laptop efficiency, or you may specify a time interval of half-hour, a number of hours, or as soon as a day. You may’t specify a time for the every day possibility, this system will simply again up when it determines 24 hours have handed.

You can too run a backup manually at any time. As computer systems are quite a bit sooner than they had been again in 2009, real-time is not the efficiency suck it as soon as was. Genie ought to contemplating including this performance in it’s subsequent Timeline replace.

Be aware that the scheduling proven within the picture above is the beforehand mentioned interval between backups, not your regular “run it on Monday at 9 a.m.” scheduling. It’s steady backup in spite of everything.

Different options embrace compression, e mail notifications, file retention insurance policies, and many others. There’s additionally a No Backup Zone folder situated on the Desktop the place you may place information you don’t need Timeline to again up. This may be useful when you repeatedly take care of massive transitory information that you just don’t wish to waste backup area with.

The place Timeline actually units itself aside from the common Home windows backup program, moreover its tight concentrate on backing up one PC, is in looking and restoring information. Like Apple’s Time Machine, there’s a date/time browser you may step by way of to view the varied backups. That is extremely useful when you simply wish to get better a file or folder you will have mistakenly deleted or overwrote.

The Timeline browser has a lot the facet of a Home windows Explorer window, and all information are proven within the places from which they had been backed up. It’s a boon, although I did discover one slight “glitch” that I’ll talk about within the efficiency part under.

Timeline 10 Residence, as with Time Machine, gives solely a single job masking a single knowledge set: backing up your native laptop. For many customers that’s sufficient. However prosumers who wish to again as much as a number of places with completely different knowledge units may discover this limitation stifling.

Be aware that Timeline 10 Residence makes use of zip compression, so you may nonetheless entry compressed backups utilizing nothing however Home windows Explorer.

Genie Timeline 10 Residence: Efficiency

With at present’s PCs, no backup program ought to overly tax your system. Even one which sits within the background monitoring information as Timeline does.

That mentioned, in case your laptop and storage are notably sluggish or outdated, you may wish to keep away from steady knowledge safety (CDP) altogether and use one thing you may schedule for off hours.

I examined Timeline 10 Residence with each a 2.5Gbps (about 275MBps) community location (partial file backup) and a direct-attached Thunderbolt SSD (full backup, catastrophe restoration) as locations, so storage was not a bottleneck.

Whereas I left Timeline set to make the most of its IntelliCDP algorithm, it nonetheless appeared to again up each half hour—no nearer to actual time. Additionally, when utilizing the Timeline Explorer window, clicking on the primary or final backup dot would sometimes, although not at all times, open a brand new window. That is apparently a bug that tech assist wasn’t conscious of and I wasn’t capable of replicate it in different classes. I’m reporting to you on it, however contemplate it insignificant.

What was vital was Timeline 10’s Linux-based boot disc failing as well on a few our take a look at methods. Whereas I did handle to get the restoration disc as well in a devoted digital machine set for Linux, it wouldn’t boot in an identical VM operating Home windows. It additionally wouldn’t boot correctly on our AMD storage take a look at mattress, merely bypassing to Home windows boot.

I talked to tech assist they usually despatched me a hyperlink for a extra sturdy restoration picture, however that failed about 75 p.c of the way in which by way of the boot course of as nicely, hanging the system. In truth, I used to be by no means capable of take a look at the catastrophe restoration routine as I might by no means get the disc as well on a backed-up system.

Even it the disc will boot on some methods, these failures forestall me from recommending Timeline as a restore-from-system-failure, aka, catastrophe restoration, utility. Most customers won’t ever uncover if the boot disc works for them till they really attempt to restore.

After all the info remains to be available, simply not till you reinstall Home windows. You’ll additionally must reinstall your packages manually. Lest you contemplate my evaluation unfair or harsh, keep in mind, on the subject of backup, failure isn’t an possibility. Glitches should not allowed. Bulletproof is the purpose.

Backside line

I’ve requested many distributors why they haven’t carried out Apple’s almost idiot-proof Time Machine method. The consensus? It’s merely not straightforward to do. Judging from Timeline, they’re appropriate. Timeline is a close-but-no-cigar try that labored nice proper up till the boot disc failures. It’s nonetheless nice for file backup and restoration, however not the Time Machine safety of your total OS.

If you’d like dependable catastrophe restoration, get our Editor’s Selection: R-Drive Picture. It’s what I exploit to get better the take a look at system after Timeline and different backup packages’ failures. When you’re largely fascinated with file backup and restore, and prepared to reinstall Home windows after a catastrophe (typically the sensible selection) then Timeline is a handy possibility.