James N Posted June 12, 2008 Report Share Posted June 12, 2008 I'm looking for a good disk imaging software that I can use to back up several (about 10) test stations. Some of these station are 6 yrs old running LV6 code, old hardware drivers, etc. It would near impossible.. scratch that, impossible to rebuild the system if the hard drive crashed. Of course, sometimes I pray for catastrophic failures that would force us to revamp the system but I don't want to be the guy doing it. There's $ tools like Norton's Ghost, Acronis True Image, Active@ Disk Image. Freeware like SelfImage, DriveImage XML.. .and dozens more no doubt. I couldn't quickly figure out if all the $ tools require a license for each computer or if the tools allows backing up many computers for the one purchase price. We probably need to start creating disk images of brand new systems too. This would be easier to absorb into the cost of the new tester.. but getting approval to spend $10k on old lab equipment is tougher so I want to make a good choice. It would be MUCH easier to justify the $10k after just 1 computer crashed... Thanks for any advice, James Quote Link to comment
crelf Posted June 12, 2008 Report Share Posted June 12, 2008 QUOTE (James N @ Jun 11 2008, 09:26 AM) It would be MUCH easier to justify the $10k after just 1 computer crashed... :ninja: It sounds like you already know the answer... Quote Link to comment
shoneill Posted June 12, 2008 Report Share Posted June 12, 2008 QUOTE (James N @ Jun 11 2008, 03:26 PM) I'm looking for a good disk imaging software that I can use to back up several (about 10) test stations.Some of these station are 6 yrs old running LV6 code, old hardware drivers, etc. It would near impossible.. scratch that, impossible to rebuild the system if the hard drive crashed. Of course, sometimes I pray for catastrophic failures that would force us to revamp the system but I don't want to be the guy doing it. There's $ tools like Norton's Ghost, Acronis True Image, Active@ Disk Image. Freeware like SelfImage, DriveImage XML.. .and dozens more no doubt. I couldn't quickly figure out if all the $ tools require a license for each computer or if the tools allows backing up many computers for the one purchase price. We probably need to start creating disk images of brand new systems too. This would be easier to absorb into the cost of the new tester.. but getting approval to spend $10k on old lab equipment is tougher so I want to make a good choice. It would be MUCH easier to justify the $10k after just 1 computer crashed... Thanks for any advice, James I've used Ghost4Unix for exactly this task. It can be booted from a CD, backs up the entire drive (Zipped so that empty space gets compressed). It can be used for ANY OS since it doesn't even need to boot into the OS or interpret the file system. My old company has just been able to restore an old NT4 machine to life with a new HD after the old HD crashed. A single file was corrupted and after re-constructing the backup on a new empty partition, they were able to access and fix the problem. There's also Ghost4Linux which the author of Ghost4Unix doesn't seem to like but schieved much faster backup speeds for me. Oh, important note : Both systems backup over FTP, saving the file on a local (or remote if you have patience) server. Shane. PS Silly me, another good point : it's free. Quote Link to comment
Ton Plomp Posted June 12, 2008 Report Share Posted June 12, 2008 We use Acronis true image. from a bootable cd, runs fast good GUI (windows like), and backups to USB drives. Ton Quote Link to comment
jgcode Posted June 12, 2008 Report Share Posted June 12, 2008 We use Norton Ghost. But interested to see if anyone recommends other products and what there experiences are... Quote Link to comment
hooovahh Posted June 12, 2008 Report Share Posted June 12, 2008 I've used Ghost 8, 9, 10, Acronis True Image 8, 9, Power Quest Drive Image, and SelfImage. I recommend Ghost 8 out of these. It is very small, runs fine from a bootable disk, it can have USB support, works fine in Windows, DOS, and BartPE. If you're looking for freeware then SelfImage is what I would have to recommend. It also claims it can create an image without needing to log off windows. It can make the image of a windows partition, while logged into that partition. There's a BartPE plugins in the download section of the SelfImage website if you're interested in using this in a system rescue. Quote Link to comment
James N Posted June 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2008 Thanks for the advice guys. I just need to download a couple applications and test them out. Probably between Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image and SelfImage I think I've convinced everyone in my department that disk imagining software is a good investment on any new system. Just snap an image before we send the tester out the door. -James Quote Link to comment
Neville D Posted June 17, 2008 Report Share Posted June 17, 2008 QUOTE (shoneill @ Jun 11 2008, 06:58 AM) There's also Ghost4Linux which the author of Ghost4Unix doesn't seem to like but schieved much faster backup speeds for me.Oh, important note : Both systems backup over FTP, saving the file on a local (or remote if you have patience) server. Shane. PS Silly me, another good point : it's free. Does Ghost4Linux work with other OS's as well? Do you have to run them from a Linux/Unix machine? Neville. Quote Link to comment
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