Areca Backup
| Company type | Open source software |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software |
| Products | Backup software |
| Website | www |
Areca Backup was an Open Source backup solution for personal files, developed using Java and distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.
Features
The software integrated a backup engine accessible through both a graphical user interface and a command-line interface.
Notable capabilities comprised:
- Compression via ZIP and ZIP64 formats
- Encryption standards AES 128 and 256
- Filtering options based on file extension, subdirectory, regular expressions, size, date, status, and usage
- Support for Incremental backup, differential, as well as full backup methodologies
- Utilization of Delta backups that save only altered portions of files
- Functionality for merging archives and recovering data as of a specific date
- A transactional system assuring backup consistency with commit and rollback features
- Preservation and restoration of Unix file permissions
- Capabilities for e-mail notifications and simulation of backup processes
- Compatibility with FTP, FTPS (both implicit and explicit SSL/TLS), and SFTP protocols using either password or certificate authentication
Tools for handling archives included:
- Recovery of backups or individual files from archives
- Consolidation of sequential incremental archives to optimize storage usage
- Archive removal options
- A history explorer to navigate through different file versions
- An archive explorer for locating files within stored backups
Storage modes Areca Backup offered several storage configurations:
- Standard mode: generates a new archive per backup session containing new or updated files; this mode is advised for typical users.
- Delta mode: records only the changed segments of files during each backup; ideal for large files and users with advanced needs.
- Image mode: keeps a single archive that is updated with every backup operation.
Backup types The program supported various backup approaches:
- Full Backup: captures all files regardless of whether they have changed.
- Incremental Backup: saves files altered since the previous backup.
- Differential Backup: stores files modified since the last full backup.
Detection of changes was based on file size along with the last modification timestamp, allowing rapid identification of updated files.
Areca was distributed as ready-to-use packages for Linux and Windows platforms (2000, XP, Vista), compatible with any operating system running Java Runtime Environment version 1.4.2 or newer. Its interface was localized into multiple languages including Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.
Limitations
- Areca Backup does not provide native automation for Windows environments; users must employ a Wizard to create batch scripts which then require manual scheduling via Windows Task Scheduler.
- The software lacks support for VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service) and is unable to back up locked files natively; however, this capability can be added through plugins such as ArecaVSS.