Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

Recommend disk imaging software?

<< < (4/10) > >>

Jibz:
But, on another part of the site, an article on Reliable Drive Imaging Software comes down in favour of the TeraByte one.-rjbull (June 15, 2010, 04:48 PM)
--- End quote ---

That review strikes me as perhaps not the most in-depth ever. For starters, he admits he hasn't actually tried restoring an image using it. Also he is using the Linux version to backup instead of doing it inside Windows.

Apparently you need to run some add-on tool to be able to backup reliably while windows is running, something that is built into pretty much all other tools. Also, as far as I can tell from the feature list it does not support differential images, which would mean you are going to be doing full backups every time. Edit: I was wrong :-[

Now I am not in any way saying it's a bad tool, I have no experience with it -- I am just noting that the review you linked could perhaps have been more thorough and have highlighted some of the features present and absent compared to other tools :Thmbsup:.

That being said, I'll take a 100% reliable clunky solution without the bells and whistles over a fancy GUI that ends up failing miserably the one time you need it.

mrainey:
I've used BootitNG (Terabyte) for 5+ years for imaging, partition work, and boot management.  It's been absolutely reliable.  The only possible downside is that it doesn't hold your hand as much as some programs - the interface is "geekier" and there are more options available than most of us will be able to take advantage of.

There are nice video turorials on the website and great support via email and newsgroup.

steeladept:
The only 100% reliable solution I have come across - at least as much as there is one - is Symantec Ghost v. 8 (haven't tried newer ones).  It is, unfortunately for many, an offline solution - meaning you must run it from a different computer on the one you want to image - but I haven't seen any others as reliable. I have used True Image, which works reasonably well, but doesn't always restore gracefully, Drive Image - way back during the heyday of Ghost, and a few others that just didn't work.

That said, I never tried Macrium or Paragon's solutions, as I didn't have a need for them.  Now that I am trialing Windows 7, however, I can either try to find an offline imager or start working with these as my version of True Image doesn't work with 7.  Drive Snapshot looks good too, though.  I think I will start with that one - thanks brahman...

rjbull:
I am just noting that the review you linked could perhaps have been more thorough
[...]
I'll take a 100% reliable clunky solution without the bells and whistles over a fancy GUI that ends up failing miserably the one time you need it.
-Jibz (June 16, 2010, 03:53 AM)
--- End quote ---
That's two good points  :)

I hadn't expected on-the-fly imaging, though, and was surprised to see it.  I'd expected "offline" only, which I take to mean, the PC basically isn't doing anything else while the image is made.  I'd be happy to settle for that for home use.

brahman:
I alternate images between Acronis (make sure you don't upgrade Acronis right away when a new version comes out -- wait a good bit until the bugs are worked out) and Drive Snapshot and I always image with verify backup enabled.

I must say both have never let me down! But especially with Acronis I stay away from the "fancy" features like recovery zone or time capsule (whatever they name it) and just do the basic imaging. I wish they would have an Acronis light product with emphasis on the essentials because those 100MB installation packages take a lot of disk space.

Terabyte has always made excellent software. I trialed their imaging product but wished it would be faster and make smaller files. That may have changed by now, though.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page