Cover HolidayM.indd

100 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC| HOLIDAY 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com

IN THE LAB^

REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

A

ll it takes is an errant foot strike or a

power spike and poof —you’ve lost

gigabytes of photos and memories in a

single hard-drive crash. Let’s face it, few of

us ever actually take the time to copy those

photos to a backup drive. And if you don’t

do it, do you really think your mother-in-law

will? Verbatim’s PhotoSave DVD aims to

solve this problem with a solution that even

your newbiest relatives can handle.

Each disc contains an executable that

auto-launches once the disc is in a drive. The

app is Forest Gump simple. You can order

it to scan one drive or all drives for JPEGs.

Once it’s found all the files, a button push

will burn the files to the disc. If your files

exceed 4.5GB, the app will span multiple

discs. Once the backup is done, you’ll find

the files neatly arranged in the same folders

they were in on your hard drive, accessible

from any DVD drive. A second option lets

you import files directly from a digital cam-

era that’s mounted as a drive in the PC. The

software is based on SoftR’s Self Recordable

Media technology. SoftR has other versions

tweaked to back up Outlook files or your My

Documents folder, or back up and encrypt

these files as well.

The cheapskates in our offi ce wondered

why they couldn’t simply use their own

blank DVDs to back up to aft er fi lling the fi rst

PhotoSave DVD. While we’re all for saving

a few bucks, we don’t begrudge Verbatim

the right to actually turn a profi t on these

discs. The company simply couldn’t make

any money if you bought a single disc for $2.

People who think otherwise would probably

also like a new, crisply folded 10-dollar bill

with each disc. It’s capitalism, get used to it.

By default, the disc backs up only JPEG

files, but the app can be customized to also

pick up videos and RAW files. If a backup

fills only part of a single disc, you can con-

tinue to add files until the disc is full, but the

same rule doesn’t apply when a job spans

multiple discs. For example, in a three-disc

backup that we performed, the third disc

was only partially filled. When we tried to

add additional files to the disc, the app no

longer appeared on the third disc and there

was no way to add files to it.

That’s a minor kvetch though. Overall, the

soft ware is dummy-proof. Is it for a power

user? Probably not. Is it for a power user’s

gramps? Hell yeah. At $10 for three discs or

$15 for fi ve, it’s one heck of a great gift —some-

thing the receiver will truly treasure aft er his

or her hard drive implodes. – G O R D O N M A H U N G

Verbatim PhotoSave DVD

Backing up your photos has never been so easy

The DVD’s app executes from the disc and no software is installed, making it near foolproof.

500 W

+ -

VERDICT

$10, http://www.verbatim.com

8

The backup process

is so easy, even an

idiot could do it.

Can’t add files to

spanned discs that

aren’t full. Why no

dual-layer?

JHP

VERBATIM PHOTOSAVE DVD

FMJ