Most teams treat backup setup as a checkbox and never run a restore test until something breaks. When testing a new cloud backup tool requires handing over a card upfront or signing a monthly contract first, engineers tend to put off the restore check even longer.

Today we updated Tornova Backup (disclosure: I work on marketing and QA at Tornova Software Technologies) with two changes aimed at lowering that barrier:

  1. A 12-hour Free Trial (100 MB, No Payment Required): Activate it directly at tornovabackup.com/trials, install the agent, push test files, and run a real restore to verify integrity before paying anything.
  2. Reduced Personal & Team Monthly Pricing: Personal plans now start at $1.35/month (5 GB backup + 5 GB restore allowance included), $1.75/month (10 GB), $2.99/month (50 GB), and $4.99/month (100 GB), with no auto-renewal lock-in.

A quick 4-step restore verification workflow

If you are evaluating any scheduled backup tool on a workstation or Ubuntu server, here is the minimal sanity check worth running during a short trial window:

  1. Pick a small mixed test directory (10–50 MB): Include a binary file, text configs, and nested subdirectories with timestamps you care about.
  2. Confirm the background service runs cleanly: On Ubuntu 24.04 x64, Tornova's .deb CLI client runs via systemd, and on Windows 10 (1809+) / Windows 11 64-bit, the signed client runs as a Windows service (Tornova Backup Service).
  3. Record a local checksum before modifying or deleting your test copy: 
sha256sum ~/backup-test/important.tar.gz
  1. Restore to an alternate path and compare hashes: Checking the restored copy against the original SHA-256 digest confirms the round-trip worked end-to-end before you rely on it for real data.

Current platform support and caveats

  • Windows 10 (1809+) & Windows 11 (64-bit): Stable client (EXE/MSI/ZIP, digitally signed).
  • Linux: Stable .deb CLI client for Ubuntu 24.04 x64 (systemd required).
  • macOS 15+ (Apple Silicon & Intel): Currently in Beta.
  • Hosting & Security: Hosted in the US on Microsoft Azure with encryption in transit and at rest, SHA-256 file integrity checks, optional MFA, and optional client-side double-layer encryption on Windows and macOS.
  • Important notes: Restores stay within the same OS (Windows restores to Windows, Ubuntu to Ubuntu). Alongside the free 12-hour trial, one-time paid trials ($0.27 for 500 MB / 3 days, $1.10 for 1 GB / 5 days) carry over trial data when upgrading.

For multi-machine teams, organization plans scale with tiered volume discounts (3% for 11–20 users up to 18% for 101+ users) on tornovabackup.com/pricing?for=organization.

How do you quickly verify a new backup tool before trusting production or dev machines to it?