UpdateStar has some good features built into it. It may or may not be what you’re looking for, depending upon your needs and the amount of backing up you need to do.

UpdateStar is a backup service that provides the usually compliment of products and add-ons to help you get started. For instance, there’s an application that you install on your computer that allows you to backup your files quite easily. There’s also a series of support options that you can call upon if you happen to get lost. The company uses compression and encryption to make backing up files faster and more secure.

There are some nice features to the UpdateStar service. The licensing is very flexible, so you can move to a new computer if you get one without having to worry about any hassles. Beyond that, however, you’ll find that the service is very similar to what most of the other companies out there in this field offer their clients.

Pros

UpdateStar has some good features built into it that business and personal users will like. For instance, there is a feature that allows you to backup external drives. This is handy if you have most of your files stored on removable media such as a fire wire hard drive. There are also technological advantages to this system, such as block-level backups, but these don’t really differentiate it from the other offerings out there. This is a “set it and forget it” type system that automatically takes care of your backups for you once you set them to run.

Cons

The UpdateStar service doesn’t do much to make itself stand out from the competition. The versioning support, ease of use and other features are all offered by its competitors, as well, so there isn’t much here if you’re looking for a feature that really puts it over the top in terms of what it has to offer. There aren’t any drawbacks to this service, but it’s going to be competing on price and usability with its rivals and, in both regards, it fails to ascend to the top.

Analysis

While UpdateStar is a good company that offers a good service, it hasn’t really done the work to make itself the best out there. It supports 128-bit encryption in a world where much of the competition is supporting 256-bit encryption. Its interface is easy enough to use, but it’s not intuitive as are some of the competition’s offerings.

Conclusion

UpdateStar manages to be another offering for online backup in a world full of offerings for online backup. If you’re looking for something that’s going to knock your socks off, this probably isn’t it. It does everything you’d expect, but nothing that’s going to wow you. There are better products out there that have standout features that make them particularly well suited to specific demographics. UpdateStar is a sort of jack-of-all-trades being suitable for anyone but, at the same time, not really being spectacular for any particular type of user.