Pros & Cons
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- The most reliable and mature image backup software for Windows
- Fast, reliable, and restores to the same or different hardware
- Boots backed-up systems as virtual machines
- Supports versioning
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- Obscure interface for first-time users
- Lacks disk-cloning tools
- No mobile apps
ShadowProtect Desktop 5 Specs
| Free Storage | N/A |
| Number of Computers (Base Plan) | 1 |
| Private Key Encryption | |
| Storage (Base Plan) | N/A |
| Versions Kept | Unlimited |
| Versions Period | Unlimited |
If you’re serious about backing up your data and protecting your system, chances are you already use Arcserve ShadowProtect SPX as your go-to backup service. If you aren’t, you probably should be. The app creates and restores only one kind of backup—the kind that creates an image of a complete disk partition, not individual files. Although other backup apps create both image backups and file backups, and online backup services create file backups in the cloud or on your disk, ShadowProtect SPX restores a complete system after a hardware failure or a malware attack. In my many years of testing, I've found that nothing matches the sense of security I get from a ShadowProtect SPX backup stored on a removable USB drive or network-attached storage. ShadowProtect SPX supports only one backup type, but it's so reliable that it's our Editors' Choice for backup software.
Plans and Prices: The One Tier to Rule Them All
ShadowProtect SPX is available for an annual subscription of $59.95 (no free version). The purchase site still uses StorageCraft's original vendor name, ShadowProtect, as do some of the app's windows, which is a bit confusing. That's not too unusual in the backup space. After all, ShadowProtect's major rival is Acronis True Image, which was renamed Acronis CyberProtect and then reverted to its original TrueImage name. Acronis offers subscription services starting at $44.99 per year for current students, with other options starting at $59.99 per year.
(Credit: Arcserve/PCMag)As mentioned earlier, ShadowProtect offers only image-based backups, and it runs on Linux and Windows. Acronis True Image is on more platforms, including Android, iOS, and macOS, and it offers image-based, file-based, and cloud-based backup. Acronis' backup software offers dozens of features that ShadowProtect doesn't even try to match.
From the list above, it might sound like Acronis is the better software. As my reviews over the years have documented, however, I've had mixed experiences with Acronis' products, including backups that didn’t restore and, once, a system that wouldn't boot after I uninstalled an Acronis app. A backup app needs to work all the time, with no ifs, ands, or buts. ShadowProtect SPX does exactly that.
A Long History of Reliability
I've used different versions of ShadowProtect for almost 20 years without a serious hiccup. That's something I can’t say about its rivals. It rescued me from dozens of software and hardware mishaps. When you test software as often as I do, you inevitably come across apps that damage your files or your system. I've long since learned that ShadowProtect SPX can undo the damage quickly, reliably, and easily. Additionally, if you ever have bad enough luck to get zapped by ransomware, ShadowProtect SPX is the best way to recover your system without paying the bad guys. Simply boot up to the app’s emergency USB disk and tell it to wipe out your infected system and restore a healthy one.
ShadowProtect SPX works so reliably partly because it’s the consumer- and small-office/home-office (SOHO)-level version of a suite of backup tools designed for corporate and enterprise use. The same rock-solid technology that powers Arcserve’s high-end backup systems also powers the lower-priced consumer version—reviewed here. The downside of the app’s corporate-level heritage is its user interface, which isn't beginner-friendly.
ShadowProtect SPX: Image vs. File Backups
As an image-based backup app, ShadowProtect SPX backs up an entire system or one or more disks, rather than individual files. If you really care about your data, you'll use both an image-based backup and a file-based backup method, as I'll explain.
As with other image-backup apps, you can either use ShadowProtect SPX backups to restore a whole system, or you can mount a backed-up image file with a drive letter so that it acts like an ordinary drive. Doing so lets you retrieve one or more files from the image and restore them to your current system. You can also create incremental backups at regular intervals—intervals of minutes, hours, or days—so you can choose to restore a file from versions backed up at different times on the same day. Even better, ShadowProtect SPX lets you keep unlimited file versions.
Other backup apps can create both image backups and file backups, and some online backup services create file backups in the cloud or on your disk. Sometimes, having a file-based backup system makes it easier to recover an earlier version of a document or to recover a file you wish you hadn't deleted. I use and recommend both iDrive, an Editors' Choice-winning service with unmatched value, and Dropbox for different kinds of file-based cloud storage and syncing.
(Credit: Arcserve/PCMag)However, ShadowProtect SPX is the only app I trust for restoring an entire system or an entire disk when something goes wrong. Its VirtualBoot feature lets me boot a backed-up image in a window on my desktop. This means if my hardware fails, I can launch my backed-up system on another machine and get my work done, even without restoring it. See The Beginner's Guide to PC Backup for getting started.
One feature that you won't find in ShadowProtect SPX is disk cloning. Other apps, including Acronis True Image, can clone a complete disk to another disk, which you can use as a drop-in replacement if your current disk fails. ShadowProtect SPX doesn’t provide this feature, though its bootable recovery environment can format a new disk and restore backed-up partition images to the disk. If you need to clone a disk, there are plenty of free apps that do the job. Over the years, I've used AOMEI Backupper and EaseUS ToDo Backup, and both got the job done, but you can find many alternatives.
Installation, Destinations, and Schedules
One minor warning: If you're seriously tech-challenged and lack the confidence to click a few menus to find the item you need, get someone's help when you first install ShadowProtect SPX. This is a long-established app designed for both corporate and individual use that uses a wizard interface for all operations. That said, you'll need at least the minimal skills required to navigate to the drives or network shares you want to back up to and restore from. I'll assume you have those skills for the rest of this review. If you don't have the skills or access to someone who can assist with installation, you'll be better off with IDrive or some other cloud-based backup service.
It takes about two minutes to set up a backup plan with ShadowProtect SPX, and then you don't have to think about it again until you need to restore. The app's three-pane interface is informative for experienced users, but beginners will appreciate the overlay image that appears when you first run the app, explaining the essential features.
The first thing you'll need to do is create one or more Destinations for your backups, meaning local and USB-connected disks or network shares where you want to store your backups. Then you create backup plans for each destination, setting the level of encryption you want for protecting your backup images, and creating a scheduling plan that lets you create or update your backups at intervals ranging from every 15 minutes to once a month, with options to back up only on certain days of the week. You can also create one-time backups, which run only when you choose. And of course, you can create multiple backup plans that back up your system to different destinations on different schedules.
(Credit: Arcserve/PCMag)You can create full backups, which create an image of an entire disk partition, or full backups followed by incremental backups, which back up only files changed since the last full backup. With the second option, when you need to restore from a backup, you can zero in on the date and time of the incremental backup you want to use–a feature that makes it possible to recover exactly the version you want of something you've damaged. Other options let you fine-tune the backup strategy, telling the app to delete older backup generations before creating new ones so you don't run out of disk space when saving to a local or USB drive. Also, I recommend selecting the option that sends you an email notification when a backup operation encounters problems. That way, you'll be on top of matters.
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I’ve never regretted going whole-hog with backups. I make weekly full backups to a network-attached storage drive and daily incremental backups to a second disk in my desktop PC. And when I plan to be away from home, I make a full backup to a portable USB drive I can take with me.
After the initial setup, you'll only need to interact with ShadowProtect SPX to create a new backup plan, view a backup timeline, or restore a drive. You don't need the ShadowProtect SPX interface to perform these functions, however. You can also right-click on a ShadowProtect image file to open or boot it. If you want to check on the progress of a backup job, the app displays an accurate estimate of the time remaining and lets you view a detailed log.
How to Recover Anything With ShadowProtect SPX
ShadowProtect offers three methods for recovering data from a backup image.
First, you can mount a backup image so it appears as a drive letter on your Windows system, and then simply drag files or folders from the mounted image into any folder on your PC. One useful option mounts the backup image as a writeable volume, allowing you to drag files into it for future use. The actual image file isn't changed, but the app creates a supplementary file that contains the files that will be added to the image the next time you mount it.
Second, you can restore any partition on your system other than the current boot partition. You won’t need to restart your machine before or after the restore. This method is useful for restoring non-booting drives used for data storage. If you have a multi-boot system, you can use this method to restore one of your boot drives after booting into another.
Third, you can boot from a USB drive or a CD-R disk containing the ShadowProtect Recovery Environment. This is a Linux-based bootable system you create from a download on the company's website. This is what you use when you need to restore your Windows system drive and other drives because your original machine won’t boot or when you want to transfer your system to a new machine—or to a virtual machine created by Windows or Vmware. You can choose a bare-metal restore option that does everything needed to restore your system to an empty disk.
If you're restoring to a different hardware configuration than the backed-up system, you'll need to choose the hardware-independent restore option. This means ShadowProtect SPX will remove any hardware-specific drivers from the backup image when restoring it to a new machine, so that when the restored system starts up, Windows will load the drivers needed by your new hardware. It's a useful feature in the event of a disaster.
Arcserve offers two versions of its recovery environment: one based on Linux and the other on Windows. The Linux environment is easily downloaded and burned to a USB disk; if you also want the Windows environment, for extra safety, you must build it yourself using a builder app downloadable from Arcserve's site. I found that one of my systems wouldn't boot from the Linux-based environment, but worked perfectly with the Windows-based one. Arcserve didn't have an explanation. But that's a valuable lesson: Always test your recovery environment before you need it.
Booting Up a Backup Image
ShadowProtect’s VirtualBoot feature—the feature that lets you boot up a backed-up system drive in a virtual machine—is a triumph of power and convenience. Before you use it, you must install one of the following: 1) the freeware VirtualBox, 2) Windows' Hyper-V feature, or 3) VMware's Vsphere hypervisor, typically used only in corporate settings.
If you want to use Windows' Hyper-V, you must also download and install ShadowProtect's Hyper-V plug-in. If you try to use VirtualBoot with Hyper-V and haven't installed the ShadowProtect plug-in, you get an obscure message about an "unknown error." I used Hyper-V to boot a backup of my system disk in less than a minute. In a nice touch, the app includes an option to convert a backed-up image into a fully functional virtual machine that you can launch in Hyper-V or VMware.
(Credit: Arcserve/PCMag)To protect yourself from ransomware and other malware, you need to back up data to removable drives and detach them from your system after each backup. Doing so prevents ransomware from encrypting them. If you've been smart enough to take these precautions, you have a good chance of recovering from even the worst ransomware attack. Here's how to do it through ShadowProtect's VirtualBoot feature.
If your system has been disabled by ransomware, the malware was probably already lurking on your system before it activated and encrypted your data. You don't want to restore your system from a backup that contains the ransomware, which could pounce again. To prevent this, find a clean system, run ShadowProtect SPX, and use the VirtualBoot feature to boot from a backed-up image.
Inside that image, run a malware-detection program to see if the ransomware payload is present. If it isn't, you can safely restore your system from that image. If so, you can try removing it from the virtual-booted system, then make a backup image of the cleaned system and restore your actual hardware from that image.
If you can't remove the payload, boot older backup images until you find a clean one and restore your system from that. Again, you need to keep some drives available with backup images on them, but if you value your data, you're already doing exactly that with whatever backup software you use now.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Arcserve)
Arcserve ShadowProtect SPX
Of the many backup solutions, Arcserve ShadowProtect SPX is the most mature and reliable way to get a system up and running after a hardware failure, malware attack, or system malfunction.