At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Memorex unveiled its expanded line of specialty media. Along with mini Blu-ray Discs and color LightScribe DVD+R media, the company introduced its new all-in-one backup solution, the SimpleSave DVD.

With the SimpleSave DVD, Memorex has tried to take the hassle and confusion out of backing up your PC. Unlike traditional backup software, which requires you to install software onto your PC, SimpleSave runs directly from the DVD. Just insert it into your DVD writer and the SimpleSave software will find and organize your photos and music and then back them up onto the very same disc.

The SimpleSave DVD is available in two versions: Photo and Music. The two are different in that they search for certain file types. For our evaluation, Memorex sent us a few SimpleSave Photo backup discs. Along with photos, these discs can be used to backup videos.

For the SimpleSave DVD, Memorex is using standard 16x DVD-R media manufactured by CMC Magnetics. The software takes up about 128MB of the DVD, giving you an available capacity of 4,305MB. If you look closely, you can see that the session containing the software was burned to disc using a Pioneer DVR-111.

Looking at files on the DVD, you can see that the SimpleSave software is based on Storage Appliance Corporation's ClickFree technology. Memorex, TDK and their parent company, Imation, have all licensed ClickFree for use with their optical media.

Now let's take a closer look at the SimpleSave software and see how well it works when backing up photos and videos.


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