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CMS Products ABS Plus
Price: £135 inc VAT for 40GB – 160GB (£236)

Features
Performance
Ease of use
Value for money
Overall

Reviewed By: Andy Shaw

This review updated: 01/02/2007
Featured in magazine:
Issue 154
Manufacturer Contacts:
Supplier: CMS Products
Web Address: www.cmsproducts.com


If there's one thing that unites the vast majority of computer users, it's that we don't back up enough.

As more and more of our cherished personal memories and important information is stored on our computers, every day that goes past is a step closer to disaster. There's never a better time than right now to start backing up, and this disk and software combo from CMS Products aims to smooth the process.

Features
The disk itself is a USB 2.0 model, so connecting it is just a case of plugging it in. When you first install the software it will ask if you want to do a full back-up or just back-up selected items. The latter option basically turns the attached disk into an external hard disk, with backed-up data sitting on it ready to be sent back to your computer. The former option is the clever bit. Once you've done a full back-up, each subsequent back-up just records the changes you've made to your system since then. This is useful as you revert to a specific back-up when your computer was at peak performance, even if you've performed a handful of further back-ups since that time.

The other handy thing is that inside the external drive is a standard laptop hard disk. This means that if the disk installed in your laptop fails and you're reasonably confident, you can simply remove it, open the case of the ABS and pop that into your laptop, for an instant fix.

Performance
Running it on a laptop computer we found it didn't get quite enough power from the USB port to supply the disk, but as long as you've got another USB port available, you can use it just for milking extra power from your computer. Of course, if you don't have your computer hooked up to the mains, this is likely to be quite a drain on its battery.

The device comes with a range of hard disk sizes, starting at 40GB and going up to 160GB, so unless you've recently upgraded to something particularly massive, there's little problem with finding one that will fit all your precious data on it, even if you do have a healthy collection of photos and video.

Ease of use
One of the biggest barriers to backing up is the time it takes. It shouldn't actually be all that hard or time consuming to back up your data, but many of the options available can be daunting. The ABS works its way around such things with a clear and simple-to-use interface that isn't daunting. If you can leave the disk plugged in to your computer, the device will automatically save your My Documents folder every 20 minutes or so, so if disaster were to strike, you'd never be too far behind.

Value for money
If you're not too bothered about the ease of use, you could certainly get a hard disk with more space on it for the same kind of money and run your own back-ups. However, the biggest problem with backing-up is getting round to doing it and the ABS's software can streamline and automate the backing-up process for you.

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