Mac OS X Leopard’s Time Machine vs Windows Vista Back Up

When disaster strikes with your computer it normally takes that kind of event to make you understand how important backups are and when you lose important files you feel a need to take action so it does not happen again.

This is just what happened to us a few weeks back with our Mac running OS X v10.5 Leopard, shortly after we invested in a Time Capsule and started using Time Machine. Sadly the computers running Windows Vista cannot benefit from Apple’s Time Machine software and only have Vista Backup.

So just how does Time Machine compare to Vista’s backup? This is what we decided to test and while both get the Job done, some seem to go that extra mile in both features and usability.

Time Machine on the Mac is amazing once you have done the first backup, which can take many hours and even failed on its first attempt for us. The back ups are coming in every hour or so now and you would not even know that your files are being backed up.

Restoring files with Time Machine is second to none in style and ease of use, you just go to any directory on the Mac and click the Time Machine icon and the screen scrolls down to show a 3D view of different restore points in the time line. Simple and stylish.

Sadly there is nothing like this for a Windows PC, we used Vista’s built-in backup software that is easy to setup. You can back up files easy enough to an SD card, another device attached to your Windows computer or via the network.

Setting this to daily backups gets the job done and again you do not even know your backup files are being kept up-to-date, although there is nothing like the hour backups and Time Line options in Time Machine but Vista’s basic setup still keeps your important files safe.

Like many of Apple’s products, Time Machine is very stylish and is a breakthrough in automatic backup that’s built right into Mac OS X. It shines better than any other backup software we have used thanks to the painless backing up and really easy way you can restore files directly from folders back hourly for a long time in the past (well since you started backing up).

For Windows users to get anything close they will need Time Machine to be made for Windows computers or someone to design some software as good. At the time of posting this has not been done and we feel Microsoft need to give better built-in options in the next Windows.

What backup software do you use and on what OS?