I had wanted to check out a recent version of Todo Backup, but when it was offered on another site EaseUS never did get around to sending me a serial key, despite trying several e-mail addresses -- at any rate today I finally got a look at it. Overall it seems a decent program, but I didn't see anything that would entice me personally to use it... in a nutshell the overall impact on Windows is too high to suit me, and while the Snapshot feature might be both a bit unique & useful, I honestly don't think I'd use it that much, if at all.
I think a good part of the code used by or in EaseUS software comes from the *nix world -- that's not in itself good or bad, but I think it's a tradeoff for their developers, in that while they don't have to reinvent the wheel so-to-speak, using code that's already written, they then have to adapt that code to work in Windows. I won't claim that that's the only reason Todo Backup has a bit higher impact on Windows, since Acronis has a pretty high impact too, but it likely does have something to do with the 500,000 changes I recorded in win7 64's registry.
Asside from that Todo Backup has a few services that run constantly, installation adds 4 drivers, & it takes up a fair amount of disk space -- almost 500 MB that doubles when you create the WinPE disc or disc image... when/if you create that WinPE disc, Todo Backup downloads at least portions of Microsoft's AIK [Automated Installation Kit], which is huge BTW, & stores parts of it in the program's folder for future use.
As far as it's main job goes, backing up your disk(s)/partition(s), Todo Backup seems to work as well as other disk/partition image apps I've tried, e.g. Paragon, Acronis, & Aomei. It has a driver to mount those backups [so they appear as another drive in Windows Explorer], like Paragon & Acronis, has a function to test those backup archives' integrity, let's you schedule backup jobs & so on -- all the basics you'd expect. You can exclude files/folders from a backup job, & that part may be faster than their competition. I mentioned that TodoBackup hung onto some of the AIK components -- if you choose you can have Todo Backup add itself to the boot menu, using portions of that kit to let you boot to a rescue environment when/if Windows won't start. I don't like that sort of thing as a rule because it's usually inserted in the boot process before Windows boot menu, & that can make removal &/or repairs pretty difficult, but EaseUS uses the easily editable Vista/7/8 boot menu itself -- cool.
Todo Backup Home version includes a Cloning feature, though you can do the same thing restoring a backup to whatever drive/partition in most any disk/partition image backup app. Seagate & Western Digital used to provide an Acronis app on a bootable CD for transferring data from one drive directly to another, & it used to be faster at it than anything else out there. I don't know if what they provide today is as fast, nor do I know how that Acronis app compares to Todo Backup's Cloning tool on their WinPE disk or USB stick, but I'd expect either to be faster than doing the same sort of thing in Windows.
Todo Backup Home will not transfer the contents of a disk/partition to a virtual disk/partition to be used by a VM. Likewise it will not remove driver entries in the registry so Windows might boot on different hardware. That probably doesn't matter as much as some people think. 1) apps like those from Paragon that can perform this trick don't remove every trace of the old drivers -- nothing can -- so chances are really excellent that you'll have problems with old drivers hanging around, & new drivers not being installed because the old drivers are still there. You might be as well off [if not better off] running a Windows repair install after transferring [cloning] your system disk to new hardware, but your best choice remains a fresh install.
Now, on the WinPE disc [or image] Todo Backup can create... WinPE is a Microsoft supplied mini version of Windows that takes the place of the DOS boot floppies & CDs folks used to use a few years back. WinPE provides the basic platform that software can run on top of, & it has a collection of minimal drivers to work on most hardware, but it doesn't necessarily give you anything like a Windows desktop. In this case you have 2 choices, one minimal Todo Backup app that runs on top of a minimal *nix platform, & one that runs on top of a minimal Windows platform. When you use the WinPE version you just see the running Todo Backup app -- no Windows desktop or anything else. With this sort of thing either the *nix version or the WinPE version may work better for you depending on your hardware & how much work the developer put into either version.
I didn't see a lot of info available on Todo Backup's Snapshot feature, though I did read it's not recommended for multi-boot systems. You preallocate the space that will be used for the file that stores snapshots, & enabling the feature adds another driver, so some sort of virtualization is probably used. Creating a snapshot happens too fast I think to actually be copying or backing up files, plus the minimum size for that more-or-less permanent storage file is too small to store Windows if you wanted to. That pretty much leaves Volume Shadow Copy data, or something based on it anyway. If I'm correct that would mean the snapshots would be better for win7/8 -- XP not so much -- & would be mainly useful whenever you might use System Restore now, i.e. for a quick backup where you expect most all of the files on the protected partition to remain there, as-is. And that seems to agree with what EaseUS has put into their help file.
In a summary of sorts, personally, If Paragon didn't exist, making my main alternatives Acronis & Aomei, my choice would be between Acronis & EaseUS. Since I can't count on always having the cash available when a new version comes out, if EaseUS continues offering Todo Backup on GOTD [like Paragon does now] that would give EaseUS the edge -- if this is or was a one time only, I'd go with Acronis because there are often aggressive sales, e.g. free after MIR. But Paragon does exist, it performs well, has a low impact on Windows, & I can use their apps for the most part portably -- I use Universal Extractor on the .msi file, in the results move the files in the system folder into the program folder [next to launcher.exe], & that's 'bout it.
