For example, you should be able to reasonably expect that something called the "Backup Wizard" would get you backed up in as automated a fashion as possible. But no, you need to head to the Manager section of the software. There, life will be revealed in a Windows Task Manager type view, compete with a plethora of options and frames within Windows. Thankfully, the first time you do this you'll be greeted by "My First Backup," a series of pre-set options that will walk you through the process. Remember those steps.

Ironing out the lumps

Don't feel smug yet. Even though you may theoretically have everything correct, things may still not work. Technically, a REV cartridge is pre-formatted and, therefore, should work in the Loader. We discovered that two of the eight cartridges supplied weren't formatted (or at least not well enough for the Loader to appreciate them) and one cartridge simply wouldn't work at all.

Throughout, the best procedure was to load each installed cartridge (you can do that either from the three-button front-panel array or by right-clicking the REV Loader icon in My Computer). Once loaded, a relatively short format takes about 11 seconds per cartridge, so it's a painless method of assuring that all is well. And it only needs to be done once for any cartridge.

With everything working in sync, backups are a snap. The drive works in almost total silence with the only noise apparent when one cartridge is disgorged back into its slot, the transport moves on to the next, and then sucks that cartridge in. Backups speed along at a tad above 1GB per minute using our test backup suite consisting of 142GB of MPEG 2 video files.