Backup software

Re: TI 9 Impressions & Some Serious Questions

hi
i'm new too
what software do u use for backup outside acronis?

 

Re: TI 9 Impressions & Some Serious Questions

Norton Ghost 10.0 Much faster

 

Re: TI 9 Impressions & Some Serious Questions

can u create a boot cd with ghost 10?? to backup or work only under xp



nobody answes to stubenkastl's questions

 

Re: TI 9 Impressions & Some Serious Questions

They all look like rhetorical questions to me. What's to answer ?

 

Re: TI 9 Impressions & Some Serious Questions

but it's true?

 

Re: TI 9 Impressions & Some Serious Questions

1. If I don't get any answers at Wilders and this didn't happened yet upto now, I go somewhere else.
There are enough forums on the internet. Never bet on one horse.

2. If you aren't happy with Acronis True Image, try another image backup software.
There are enough image backup softwares on the internet and use the trial version as long as possible until you're happy with it.
During the trial period test the backup and above all restore as much as possible.
Searching and testing softwares requires patience and I prefer to do this myself, rather than listening to other advices. It has to work on MY computer, not on someone else's computer.
Norton Ghost is mentioned already, BootIt Next Generation is another one, worth to try.

 

Re: TI 9 Impressions & Some Serious Questions

Ghost 10 also has issues.

IMNSHO, TI 9 is potentially a better product than Ghost 10, but, and I do have a big butt, the problems reported in this forum offer evidence of a premature release.

I expect that the problems will be fixed, hopefully soon, butt, the 15 day limit on the trial can prevent some folkes from confirming that a later demo has fixed issues in earlier versions.

 

Re: TI 9 Impressions & Some Serious Questions

I heard about Norton Ghost 10 having issues and I won't use it either.
Right now, I don't have any preferences, because I'm still a newbie in backup, but I can READ and LEARN.
I will try the freewares of image backup first and if they work, I didn't lose any money.
If the freewares don't do their job, I will test the paywares.

I only need the basic functions : BACKUP and RESTORE from harddisk to harddisk, without the gadgets.
I'm looking forward to see how many softwares will SUCCEED in doing both basic jobs PROPERLY. My expectations aren't very high.
I certainly won't test the backup only and find out that the restore doesn't work months later.
Maybe I get back to TI9 after my bad experiences with all the rest, who knows.

 

Hi mantra,

Data Backup Strategy may prove of interest.


GF

 

Oop's, without the highlight.

 

I also use Retrospect.
You can create a recovery CD that allows you to boot from the CD and restore the system.

I purchased Ghost 10 a few weeks ago, $0 after rebates. I'm not impressed.
I've tried build 2302 and 2323 of the demo for Acronis TI, but I'm troubled by all the problems reported, and I had a disaster myself using 2323.

One drawback to both Ghost 10 and TI 9 is that they do not actually compare the sectors to assure that the sectors were copied correctly.

Retrospect actually compares the files in the verify phase.

Both Ghost and TI run much faster than Retrospect, but I would feel less secure using them.

If one has to do a lot of reformatting/restpre of drives, then an image based back up might be preferred.

Most folkes have no need to do frequent restores, so a good ole file based backup may be better.

Note that TI added file-based backup, BUT, you cannot restore a system using TI's file-based backup. A restore must use an image backup. I suspect that TI does not assure that the system state is backup in a file-based backup, so you gotta use an image backup to restore.

 

Well, TI 9 let me down and I landed on Dantz Retrospect Pro. The beauty of that one is that it came with two client licenses and I only had to cough up a little more ($20-$30 ?) for a third client license. Now I can back up all four of the machines in my house over the LAN, NIGHTLY, and store about two full weeks worth on about 670 GB of external USB2 drives (2 of them) -- except I let Retrospect apply it's own policy which straggles the backups with decreasing frequency back over the last month and a half or so.

It's worked WITHOUT A HITCH and I actually restored my home SYSTEM drive twice with Retrospect via a RealVNC client from my docked laptop at work.

I love it and am not looking back !

Oh, yeah, FDISR is so reliable I almost forgot to mention that one - superb for mirroring my system drive (OS & Programs both) once a day and archiving it in compressed form to an external drive every 3-days, week, and month.

Last but not least, I use GoodSync (from Siber Systems, same outfit that puts out AIRoboform), to mirror the My Docs folder of all 6 users in my household onto all 4 of our machines and likewise for purchased software (although it's burned to CD periodicially and put in the cedar closet -- about as "offsite" as I get) kept handy for reinstalls and updates.

I still (when I can) continue my testing of the latest TI 9 build, trying to decide if that one's worth continuing to use.

I used to be a huge Norton EVERYTHING fan, including Ghost, but I think we all know how Symantec has stuffed it's small potatoes consumers down a rat hole and forgotten about them -- I stuck it out for Ghost 9 (which I prepurchased) but the activation number they printed on the CD was no good and their overseas support never gave me satisfaction (3 cycles of EMAIL !!!) and I had to get an activation number that worked off of a warez site. Ghost 10 activated OK but it's just NOT impressive anymore and still seems buggy and feature sparse.

 

Dantz Retrospect Pro is also on my list.
The only minor point, I have read about it, was its less userfriendly interface, but that depends on your personal taste and isn't really important, because the rest seems to be very good.
Once I have my new computer, I will check its interface myself.

I hope the participating members of this thread, have also tested the RESTORE part of all their favorite image backup softwares, because that's the one you need to save your computer.

 

Another recommendation here for Raxco's FirstDefense-ISR since you can now archive Snapshots to another hard drive, and as someone else has stated, is very reliable.

Acadia

 

The interface could be more user friendly.
The documentation needs improvement, but then "documentation" is a word fast vanishing these daze from the vocabulary of software vendors,

A big plus is the Retrospect forum, which is very active.

 

Today, I found this recent review on Dantz Retrospect.
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,119709,00.asp
which confirms the less userfriendly interface.
The price is of course another problem and the support price too

 

The writer of that review loses credibility for stating that Retrospect uses "arcane terminology such as "sets" and "volumes,".

 

Well I'm not familiar with the vocabulary of backup YET, but I will try several image backup softwares. I will soon find out how many different words they use for the same thing. I hope that all these softwares use the same words.
I hate double words with the same meaning in computer science.

 

A number of different terminologies are used.
Common terminology is not at all based on computer science, rather on accidents of marketing/history/poor documentation.

 

Hehe.. yes, I read the same article as I subscribe to PCWorld. But, you know what ?, don't take the reviewer's word for the difficulty of the interface -- that's relative to YOUR skills and flexibility and the reviewer is pretentious to make a value judgment like that on your behalf.

The interface is NOT rocket science. Just RTFM. If you can do that and follow the tutorials, you MAY do quite well. It didn't cause me a problem and I'm no expert, although I might have a small "streak of geek" in me.

 

Renaissance 2006 Starter Edition. (Free)
http://www.compuapps.com/products/Renaissance/Renaissance.htm

 

Re: TI 9 Impressions & Some Serious Questions

It depends at what level you are talking about, if it's data, then I use a 2nd internal drive as well as a external USB drive, data is backed up to both using a very simple program from www.karenware.com call Replicator.

For the OS and Programs I use Acronis True Image, data is kept separate on a 2nd partition of the main drive.

Hope this helps...

Cheers

 

I'm trying to understand the difference between something like Acronis True Image 9 which is an imaging program and WinBackup 2.0 which I think is a file backup program. If I ran into a problem with my computer and had Acronis I could just restore the image correct? But what steps would be necessary with Retrospect? Would I have to reinstall the computer programs and then transfer the previously saved data back into the programs? I'm afraid the differences between the two types of backup programs and the steps needed to restore a system depending on the type of backup program you have are not well explained. It appears to be assumed that everyone knows this stuff already when I attempt to decipher the tecnospeak in reviews.

 

For simplicity, I'll decsribe what is done to restore a system in a disaster.

First, for whichever backup program you use, you will need to have made a backup of the full system.

In the case of an image backup program, such as TI, the program creates images of the drives in compressed form. Such an image is independent of the OS or file systems used.

In the case of a file-based backup program, such as Retrospect, the program copies the files in compressed form. Such an a backup is dependent on the OS and file systems used.

Once you have a full backup, you have to boot the system from, say, a CD-ROM that then allows you to run the backup program from the CD and restore the drives.

In the case of Retrospect, the disaster recovery CD creates a temporary OS from which a special version of Retrospect is run to restore the drives.

In the case of TI, you boot from a CD that installs a Linux system, that enables you to run TI and restore the drives.

In effect, the steps to restore a system are the same for both types of backup programs, both require booting from a CD to install a temporary OS from which a backup program can be run to restore the drives from the backup media.