Hello, I need some software to backup my computers in the factory. These computers are mounted on some assembly lines, so if some computer fails and needed to be re-setup and re-configured, the assembly line stops for several hours. So, I need to created harddisk images of all computers on an external drive. So when some PC fails(i.e. harddisk or some software or OS), I can quickly boot to some bootable cd and restore the image to the harddisk. Or even if I need to install a new harddisk, i can get that image insatlled on the new harddisk and the PC would be functional in perhaps less than an hour. What softwares are available? I wont need incremental backups, just one time backup of the entire system. The softwares not necessary to be free. Just the process to be simple so that I will have minimum downtime on assembly line.
@vymrdal I appreciate your opinion however given the OP's requirements the acronis boot CD will work perfect .. Like Paragon also
Dear All, Used backup software for ages, for home and personal use from my practice i use Symantec system recovery 2011 also there is new version 2013 RC4, which supports UEFI Bios and GPT partitions. Universal restore feature. Acronis i used personally only for imaging and testing. For enterprise use i would recommend only Symantec Backup Exec 2012 But it is not cheap.
I use Macrium Reflect. It i available both in free and paid version. The free version does not take BackUp of individual files/folders and there are no support. You are able to browse their forum but not ask questions. The support in the paid version is excellent.
you have two options available with acronis to enter "acronis secure zone" should trouble arise .. 1) through F11 at start up, if you have activated it when you installed acronis 2) or if you have not activated acronis secure zone F11 option then you have the option to boot with Acronis boot CD to the environment.. This is my preferred choice BTW
Still to this day Acronis all the way back since windows xp came out never had a failure, fair enough it has got somewhat bloated from It's original concept. Used Ghost years back with 98 and ME when I used to work in my M8's computer shop ok with Ghost you could make up Floppy drive with a script to point to what HDD or Partition to recover an it would load the image. But the we moved on to Acronis you could install OEM versions and image system with hidden partition (i,e, secure zone )
Another vote for Acronis 2013. I recommend the family pack if you have more than one computer. I have also used Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 suite. But I prefer Acronis's GUI.
In all of backup Imaging software you have to create a boot media yourself , a Boot CD , USB pen drive . The software creates and burns it for you . which you can use to boot your computer to restore the backup image to your hard drive. But you have to initiate the process to create boot media, By clicking on the option to create it. One specific to Acronis: The Boot CD won't read a image created with a newer version of acronis , however it reads older version images fine , just a push to you to upgrade or rather burn a new Boot media.
Acronis et al are fine but please don't forget the free Windows Backup. Been an Acronis user for a while but then dropped it about a year ago for Windows Backup.