Paragon System Backup 2010 Release Candidate (free)

[dantheman]

Although i'm pretty much satisfied with the Acronis copy i have, i thought i'd share this find on:
http://www.paragon-s...m/home/systembackup/

[urlwolf]

no windows server 2008. I'm still looking for a system backup tool that doesn't cost an eye and a leg...

[Carol Haynes]

Being a release candidate is this time limited use?

[MilesAhead]

I'm not sure how good the Paragon Raid support is.  I have one of those HP quad cores with an AMD Raid Ready drive that shows no SMART info.  I was able to run a restore using the Paragon 9.0 backup boot CD, but it took 9 hours instead of 90 minutes!! It kicked down to "compatibility mode" because it couldn't see my drive.  I loaded Macrium Reflect 2.4 trial and it worked, so I bought that.  If the Paragon backup sees your drive it works great.  I'd just suggest booting the restore CD and confirming that it can see your drive at full speed before counting on it.

[cmpm]

The beta which I used was time limited.
The RC is not as far as I can see.
After the beta stopped backing up, the most recent backups were still accessible, but useless as time went by, although still usable.

I've found it's best to let it create it's backup partition on your main drive. Better for me anyway with only a 20gb slave and 1.1 usb. Newer systems I haven't tried.

Using your primary drive it makes a partition called a 'backup capsule'-bc. And can only be seen by partition managers. It does not show up in 'My Computer'.

Maximum of four backups, with choices of daily, weekly or manual backups.

I have tested it for a while now, restoring and backing up, and it works with the recovery cd that can be made or by pressing f6 at the prompt before the logon screen. Although it works best and faster with the recovery cd.

It stores a file called 'arc' with numbers following in the partition.

Be sure to set the size correctly to correspond with the size of your entire c drive system, number of backups, leaving room for more installs and downloads. It will offer to move any free space on the bc to your c drive. I suggest leaving room for growth.

For instance if (like me) your c drive has 20gb of files and you want a max of two backups, set the partition to 45 or 50gbs. If you don't it will show an error if you run out of room on the bc partition and you have to re format the new partition, which deletes all the current backups and starts over.

The initial backup takes a while to first build the partition and then backup, after that they are much faster. And I hardly notice them.

Only one running process as opposed to the many of Acronis, which is a plus for low resource use. Idles at 536 k on my machine. Worthy of being a backup among other backup programs or plans imo.

[cmpm]

Not one process, two process'. My bad.
The second runs at 766 k.
dbh service and dbh agent

also all my downloads go to my slave drive
although i do install to the primary drive

[MilesAhead]

The other thing that can be touchy is the backup capsule creation(at least in Vista64.) That's what provoked my "testing" of the backup.  The system still booted, but it would not let me shrink C: by more than about 13 GB even though I had tons of free space and the drive was defragged.  What fixed the partition table was a backup and restore with Macrium Reflect.  The backup capsule deal seemed to work fine on my XP machine.  Vista seems to cause them problems.

[Carol Haynes]

Vista seems to have some issues with defrgenattaion that are unresolved. For example if I use PerfectDisk on Windows XP all the data is moved to the beginning of the drive and a boot time defrag moves all of the system stuff into coherent places. In Vista some of the system stuff still seems to be locked even at boot time and refuses to move. This can stop the shrinking of partitions. I wouldn't necessarily blame the backup/restore it seems to be more of a Windows issue because you can't even fully defrag before you dot he backup.

[MilesAhead]

As soon as Macrium Reflect was done, it worked.  I selected "restore MBR from backup" on the Macrium Restore.  Then I could shrink it by over 400 GB.  I don't think it's a defrag issue.  I've had Paragon capsule creation mess me up a couple of times. If you try it on Vista/W7 I recommend not doing it from the desktop gui if there's another method.  My recommendation in Vista is boot the restore CD and then do the image restore from external drive or whatever.

As I say, on XP Pro the backup capsule creation thing worked.  If there's some issue with Vista then they should detect it and refuse to attempt creating the capsule.  Not just go ahead and crap out!

Also test the Boot CD and see if it detects your HD ok.  If it doesn't, the video will go weird and it will crash unless you select "compatibility mode" and then you can do a restore at 1/10th x.  My fake Raid HD wasn't even usable by Macrium free version. I had to get the 4.2 release as it has a new Linux boot CD that recognized the drive.

Try before you depend on it with all these image backups.

edit: also since the MBR holds the partition table and MBR is a common target of malware attack, I wouldn't use any backup partition as my only image backup.  It's a little slower to back up to external but way more dependable.  Plus it's a good idea to back up to an external and then remove it from the machine.  Makes it harder for viruses that try to infect every drive on your machine/network.

[cmpm]

the backup capsule is in a linux based format
maybe that's why it has trouble with Vista
i don't know, i don't have vista, just xp

and yes if i could use my usb drive i would
better choice
but it's too slow, till i get usb2. , which is coming
as soon as my kid goes to college
then he will done with my better computer
and using his laptop

i do have a 640gb seagate external
and tried it with Paragon and this old computer
it only made a folder with the 'arc' backups in it
but was still too slow, although it worked

i don't think the backup capsule is needed
but i don't know how to tell it to use a partition or a folder,
yet,

cause the choice is obvious right now-
lacking time and patience to deal with an all day backup running slowly to my usb for testing

i do hope it doesn't switch to having to pay for it
it's 3 or 4 hundred US dollars,
last time i looked at the complete promo/info
it's not worth that much
especially with the limited options-as it is......

[MilesAhead]

They used to give away Express versions.  Don't know if they stopped it.  The Express versions were the same as Personal but without the folder exclusion and file backup features(just does a complete system image backup.)  But for disaster recovery that ain't bad.  Maybe too many people were doing the Express?  They even had a 64 bit Vista version of Express.

With XP you are probably ok doing the backup capsule esp. if you can find some way to back up your MBR.  There should be some utilities on the web if you search.  They just back up your MBR to a USB key with a program to write it back to your drive.

Before you depend on any backup imaging software make sure the disaster recovery boot CD recognizes your drive.  It's a really unpleasant surprise when you assume it will work only to find out not.  My HP quad core PC is essentially the same as my Vista dual core that I've restored with Paragon a bunch of times.  So I assumed the 64 bit express would work on the new machine(makes the same Linux disaster recovery CD.)  But because HP/AMD decided for some weird reason to stick a fake raid drive in this thing, no joy!!  If you can afford to risk it, the best thing is to actually hose your system and restore it. Then you know it works for sure!!! (say if for example you know the factory system restore discs work or you have Vista install DVD or whatever.)

[cmpm]

Yeah, there is a few mbr backup tools that do just the mbr.
Googling 'backup mbr' reveals some simple ones that will work.

Here's the free drive backup.

http://www.paragon-s...xpress/features.html

It doesn't say about the mbr, but it does on the paid for upgraded version.

Acronis does the mbr, I would think, because with a full restore it erases everything on the primary to restore it's backup.

Now this Paragon System Restore deal, deletes everything as well and restores from it's file. so I would say the mbr is in there. Just guessing, and the fact that a restore deleted all my current c drive and restored to the date of the backup.

Anyway, no, it's not and shouldn't be an only solution for backup. I don't think any program can be that reliable.
Any of them could fail I suppose.....

[MilesAhead]

The thing is, I restored from backup with Paragon and it still didn't fix the MBR.  Of course nobody wants to hose their system just to test the fix.  But, when I bought the first image backup, which was Paragon, I had just been hit by malware that deleted my C: partition.  So at that point I didnt have much to lose.  I put XP Pro and about 1/2 dozen programs on so I could tell if they worked the same after a restore.  I deleted my C: partition, booted the restore CD and laid the saved image on.  Everything was great.  Trouble is you don't know if it will recognize your drive until the moment of truth.  If you have a busted system, that's your chance to try out the various image backup programs.  One thing I definitely didn't like about Paragon is the Personal and Pro versions you can download, don't give a real trial version.  They just give a demo.  Macrium had a time-limited but otherwise fully enabled trial version.  I backed up my system and restored it, verifying it actually worked, before shelling out the $$$ 

[cmpm]

So far I haven't paid for any back up programs.
I have a couple of gigs of ms system restore on for c drive.
Using Paragon System backup, and was using seagates backup thing, that came with the usb. But that got annoying.

Basically though, I keep my downloads, my docs and emails backed up in case of a melt down.

Had trouble with my mbr before paragon and tried the 'fix mbr' deal, but it didn't work, so that was a reformat.

So I don't know if it would fix an mbr problem......yet.
Don't really want to try at this point.
At least till I get my other computer back.
Then I might test it on this one.

I gave my test computer to my sister-in-law,
who's emachine died....as they do. 

[Carol Haynes]

If you just want to test this stuff why not do it in a virtual machine - the worse that can happen then is that the drive file gets killed and you can delete that!

[MilesAhead]

The only real test that matters is booting off the recovery CD and seeing if it can access your HD.  On the MBR thing if the partition table is what's messed up, a lot of the "repair" programs won't fix it because they deliberately leave that section of the MBR alone.  Best thing is a utility that simply copies a healthy MBR someplace, then copies it back to the HD.  Of course if you alter your partition setup you should store another copy.

As example, the Macrium Reflect 4.2 I used creates a Linux based recovery CD that can see my HD.  But to use the WinPE based recovery I had to learn how to store my HD driver with the .inf file so WinPE could load it.  With these HD schemes changing so fast now it seems like image restore utilities are often one step behind. All I'm saying is make sure the recovery CD works before you have to depend on it.  I got lucky that I could do my restore at the super slow speed.  At least it let me put my Vista image back on(I tried W7 64 bit and it didn't work out well.)

[Carol Haynes]

In VMWare you can boot from a recovery CD - you can also mess up the VM MBR to your hearts content and see if it restores correctly.

[mrainey]

BootIt NG is an imager, partition manager, and boot manager.  One nice thing about BootIt is that if you have problems (which I haven't yet), you can get quick help from the developer.

BootIt NG costs $34.95.  I've been using it for at least four years and have never been charged for an update (there have been many). 


http://www.terabyteu...-next-generation.htm

[MilesAhead]

In VMWare you can boot from a recovery CD - you can also mess up the VM MBR to your hearts content and see if it restores correctly.

-Carol Haynes (July 26, 2009, 05:29 AM)

That may be but I'm assuming once Windows is loaded, there's a Windows driver loaded for the physical HD.  When you boot for real off the BIOS there isn't any Windows driver unless it's on the CD.  If you are talking disaster recovery, I don't trust it unless I test it like it would be if I couldn't boot the machine.  It does me no good if the simulation works if I can't boot up in reality.  Most of these imaging programs work pretty well, if they can see your hardware.  That's why one person says brand x is great and the other says no it sucks.  They have different drives.  It's no fun to have to restore in "compatibility mode."  For one thing, if you have battery backup that can cover you for 5 minutes then the odds of getting through a 45 minute or hour restore are great.  Not so great if it has to run for 9 hours.