As a rule, backup software is either easy to use or good, but seldom both. This latest revision from Prosoft goes some way to changing that.

Ultimately, this is, at its heart, a very competent application, with a rich array of backup types and scheduling options, but after a few weeks of using it as a main backup engine, we do have some reservations.

One concern is with the interface. We're not too bothered about the aesthetics of the thing - though the swathes of brushed metal and slightly amateurish icons do nothing for the perceived authority of the app - but even experienced Mac users may have to take a few minutes to get their heads round how Data Backup 3 works.

At a very simple level, though, the interface does help you along. On first launch, it scans for attached drives and makes an educated guess about which you want to use for backup.

Once you've picked this drive, the list of backup scripts in the drop-down menu at the top of the window is populated with six basic options: all non-system files, all User's files, all files for your user, all document files for your user copied to your designated backup volume and, new to version three, all document files for your user, and iPhoto and other pictures for your user to CD or DVD.

With the optical media options, Data Backup can span the files across multiple discs and even, if your Mac has more than one burner, just keep using blank discs it finds in drives until all the data is copied across.

Flexible defining

These backup plans, though, are simply presets that you could have created yourself, and the software allows you a high degree of flexibility when it comes to defining how you want to back up your data.

There are four main backup types supported: simple copy; clone, in which the entire drive is duplicated to enable you to boot from the backup; versioned, in which a specified number of older versions of your files are stored to enable you to retrieve not just the most recent; and synchronise.