What is Redux Deluxe 2.0.1?

Redux Deluxe tries to make the sometimes complex task of backing up your data simple and automatic. You begin by launching the application, choosing Backup, and identifying your source disk and the first backup (target) disk. Redux Deluxe automatically names your backup disk, and it will erase it, too, if you wish. If one disk is enough to contain all your files, you can store the backup in Finder format. This allows you to restore the files without using the application. Otherwise the backup is saved in the program’s proprietary format. You can make the backups to any mountable medium (including floppy disk, removable storage device, hard disk, tape, even a network server).

As the backup progresses, a status bar indicates how much of the source disk has been backed up. You can bring another application to the foreground while your backup continues, although performance will suffer.

Subsequent backups are incremental, so only the files that have been changed are backed up. Redux Deluxe’s backup scheme will add new files to the backup set, replace the ones that have been updated, and delete the files that have been trashed. If you want to leave deleted files on your backup set, you must open the application’s File List and choose the Anchor Deleted Files option (or select the files individually); otherwise they will be removed. This option ought to be available on the opening window, rather than requiring the user to wade through a long file list and select the files or folders to be anchored.

Redux Deluxe has a neat safety feature. If a backup is interrupted due to a crash or power failure, a copy of the backup script is deposited in the application’s folder. If you copy this script to the backup disk, Redux can resume the process exactly where it left off without losing any of the files.

I found that the program has an extraordinary degree of power for such an inexpensive product. The File List allows you to customize your backup. You can add or exclude individual files or entire folders from the backup set, delete files from both your source disk and your backup disks, and even back up multiple copies of the same file. The Filters option gives you a pull-down menu that allows you to restrict your backup choices still further — by name, modification date, type, and creator.

Although Redux Deluxe writes a backup script based on the choices you make, you can write your own, using its plain-English BackTalk language. It allows you to use such phrases as “Check all items that start with M” or “Check all files newer than one week.” Scripts can be exported and imported — this makes it possible for other Macintosh users in your office to use the same customized backup routine without setting up the procedure all over again.

The sole important missing feature is a compression option, something that is already available in competing programs. If you don’t have enough disks to store your backups on, you need to buy a separate compression utility. Inline’s technical-support people say that a compression feature will be offered in a future version of the program.

Although you can set up Redux Deluxe and begin performing routine backups without so much as cracking the manual, executing some of its most powerful features (and a few workarounds that you will need to know) requires reading the book thoroughly. Fortunately, the manual is clear and pleasantly readable, with a nice touch of humor in spots. In addition, technical support for the product is superb.

Redux Deluxe is easy to learn and relatively simple to use — and that’s what a good backup program should be. 

Steinberg, Gene. (January 1994). Redux Deluxe 2.0.2. Macworld. (pg. 61).

Download Redux Deluxe 2.0.1 for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II