Hello everyone,

I have done substantial research and evaluation but thus far have not
yet found a product that meets my needs.

I need a backup product to meet these requirements:

REQUIREMENTS:
*  Backup to external hard drive
*  Perform FULL, INCREMENTAL, and DIFFERENTIAL backups
*  Scheduled backups
*  Error logging
*  Compression
*  Backup open files (requirement of Shadow Copy (XP/2K3) acceptable
**  BACKUP to FTP destination
**  FTP secure login
*  Encrypt or password protect compressed backup data
*  Cost not to exceed $200
*  8x5 EST USA technical support by email AND TELEPHONE PREFERRED

PREFERRED CHARACTERISTICS:
*  Create actual bootable external copy of entire system (ie: external
USB hard drive)
*  Backup differentials and incrementals locally, then upload to FTP
destination, not actually do "on the fly" backup to FTP destination.
*  Issue command prior to and after backup procedure
*  Notify via email any errors or failures
*  Keep catalog of file modification to compare to, not actually
compare modify date to actual backup file.


I realize it becomes complicated when doing FTP backup in differential
or incremental mode, because of the need to compare to destination and
also the inability to "append" existing file structures; inability to
do so reliably anyhow. One product I've recently evaluated actually
creates individual backup files, each one compressed into its own
file, instead of a single compressed file containing multiple files.
This is an interesting approach to being able to FTP only changed
data... there are only 2 problems I have with that specific product:
1 - I don't think I can rely on good support, as the company is on
the other side of the world from me, does not seem to have 8x5 support
for my region and
2 - it actually logged in, uploaded files, logged out and repeated...
I'm not sure what the exact frequency was but it did so many multiple
logins, I'd prefer to keep it to one login, remain connected and do
all necessary transfers, not logoff until complete. The reason for
this is FTP servers can be sensitive when it comes to rapid logins,
possibly considering it hammering. I want to avoid that.


I hope I have not rambled too much. I have gone through easily 10
'small' products (shareware, freeware, etc), and a few commercial
products. NONE have met all my requirements. One product, Backup
Assist, is really close but they don't support FTP (yet). They said
the next version will, but I don't know when that will be, and I'm not
sure I want to use it if the feature is only newly implemented. Also,
that product actually utilizes the Windows Backup system, and only
facilitates easier manipulation and usage of it - but I have found
through experience the Windows Backup software to be extraordinarily
unreliable (not surprising, considering the actual developer).

Anyway, any and all advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

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