Data Source and Storage Plug-ins

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Data Source plug-ins are components of the program that contain instructions on how to retrieve information from different sources of data, and how to store it back. For example, a database plug-in may use the SELECT statement to back up tables, and CREATE-INSERT statements to restore them.

Storage plug-ins are components of the software that provide one-to-one mapping to different file systems. They can be used as a source of data, as a target destination for backups, or provide folders for synchronization.

Note: In our software, the term "plug-in" is used to refer to a certain type of features that can be updated independently from the program’s core. These features are not "minor" or "supplementary" in any way. Plug-ins are used for all operations: for example, copying of local HDD files relies on the Computer plug-in.

To learn more about the concept of plug-ins, see Plug-ins.

File Systems

Each plug-in creates a virtual file system with hierarchical structure. Files and folders of the file system correspond to objects of the respective data source: for example, files of the Disk Image plug-in are used to access HDD partitions. When the program runs backup, restore or synchronization, it works with objects provided by plug-ins as if they were common files and folders.

You can learn more about virtual file systems in Plug-in File Systems.

List of Plug-ins

Generally, there are two types of plug-ins:

  • Data source plug-ins provide access to local PC objects. You can see all plug-ins on the second step of the New Task Wizard, in the Data Sources pane to the left.
Specifying data set for backup
  • Storage destination plug-ins provide one-to-one mapping to storage file systems (e.g. local HDD, or remote FTP location). You can see all storage plug-ins on the third step of the New Task Wizard, in the Storage Destinations pane to the left.
Selecting destination for backups

Both types of plug-ins can be used as a source of data. You can see a full list of plug-ins in the table below.

Plug-in Type Edition 32-bit/64-bit? User-specific?
Computer Storage All both Yes*
Windows Libraries Source All both Yes
User Folders Source All both Yes
Online Backup Storage All both No, configurable
Database Source Small Business+ both No, configurable with ODBC Connector
MSSQL Source Small Business+ both Yes**
MySQL Source Small Business+ both No, configurable
MariaDB Source Small Business+ both No, configurable
PostgreSQL Source Small Business+ both No, configurable
Oracle Source Small Business+ both Yes
Lotus Notes Source Small Business+ 32-bit only Yes
DB2 Source Small Business+ both Yes
E-mail Source All both No, configurable
MS Exchange Source Small Business+ both Yes**
Outlook Source All both Yes
Disk Image Source Professional+ both No*
System Recovery Source Professional+ both No, configurable
Registry Source All both Yes
VMware Source Small Business+ both No, configurable
Hyper-V Source Small Business+ both No, configurable
Network Storage All both Yes
FTP Storage All both No, configurable
SFTP Storage Professional+ both No, configurable
FTPS Storage Professional+ both No, configurable
WebDAV (Multi-cloud) Storage All both No, configurable
Amazon S3 Storage Professional+ both No, configurable
Google Drive Storage All both No, configurable
Microsoft OneDrive Storage All both No, configurable
Dropbox Storage All both No, configurable
BackBlaze Storage All both No, configurable
Box Storage All both No, configurable
4Shared Storage All both No, configurable
Yandex.Disk Storage All both No, configurable
1C Source Small Business+ both Yes

Value in the User-specific column indicates if access to data depends on the user account that the Workstation component runs from. To learn more, please see Workstation...

*To use the Disk Image plug-in and to back up open files with the Computer plug-in, Workstation must be launched from a user account with administrator privileges, and you need to have a running Volume Shadow Copy Service. Without the service, the Computer plug-in will not be able to copy files that are opened by other applications.

**Workstation must be launched from a user account with administrator privileges, and you need to have running Volume Shadow Copy Service and SQL Writer Service (for the MSSQL plug-in) or Exchange Writer Service (for the MS Exchange plug-in).

Note: The above information may change from the time of publication (version 2, November 2020).

You can learn more about data source plug-ins in the next chapters.

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