Does anyone heard about Norton Ghost 11? Someone told me it was small and extremely great for backing up.
Paragon HDM Pro is definitely slow in loading (full scale launcher), backing up (10-12 mins for a 30 GB used C). Restore also takes 8-10 mins which is good enough. However, these are minor quibbles in comparison to the fact that so far it has been completely reliable (which is what backup and restore softwares should be above all). Image sizes are somewhat larger (+4-5%) than acronis, but comparable to ghost or shadow protect. That is to say, a 30 GB used C with default compression settings makes a 11.5-12 GB image in ATIH, but 12-12.5 GB in others.
i PURCHASED acronis true image home 11 and guess what. I got the infamous 'cannot detect hard drive' error ... I'm pretty sure that 2010 works though... But for now i'm using the win7 built-in because i don't have to install anything else.And it kinda sucks. i think i just overwritten my previous system image when i clicked 'set up backup'. Call me dumb but... how do i create a new system image without overwriting? and is there such thing as incremental image for win7 built-in? Another problem is that backup seems to be huge.
Quite easy as to the first part. When you create a system image thru win 7, it makes a folder called WindowsImageBackup. In that folder, there is a subfolder called A-PC. where A is the user name. So if I have a user name of XYZ, the subfolder will be XYZ-PC. You can rename the subfolder as XYZ-PC to anything say XYZ-PC 24OCT2010 as an identifying mark. Quit on trying to make incrementals with win 7. In fact, quit on windows 7 imaging. When you create a new system image to the same destination, the image will go to the same destination and will also be named XYZ-PC. But, now it will not overwrite that image simply because there is no image by that name (XYZ-PC was renamed as XYZ-PC 24OCT2010). So you will have 2 images in that WindowsImageBackup, namely, XYX-PC 24OCT2010 and XYZ-PC. Rename the new image XYZ-PC to say 25OCT2010. This process can be repeated. Warnings: do not move (cut/copy/paste) the folder or subfolder anywhere. If you wish to change the destination, make a new image and then rename it. Moving it or cut/copy/paste may make that image not recognisable. That brings to another point: image recognition by system repair disk or windows recovery is a hit or miss. Image may or may not be recognised. Very unreliable but reliable if it recognises the image. I used win 7 imaging in the earlier stages but have totally quit on it. Bigger sizes, and futile effort (images may not be recognised during recovery). I now use Paragon HDM Pro in windows and ghost+acronis as boot CD. So far, Paragon HDM has been 100% reliable in 15-20 restorations. Backups take longer time and recovery of a 35GB used hard disk from start to end is usually 7-10 mins. Hardly a bother since backup softwares should be reliable, even at the cost of an extra 1-5 mins.
thanks for the advice!! why didn't i think of renaming! I think the extra duration is made up by the smaller size. Guess i'll stop using WIndows backup and restore
No point in taking up 15-20 GB for a final file when there is a high chance that it will be useless. Windows also has this habit of not recognising old images. Totally unpredictable in the sense that when you make a backup, you do not know whether that image will be recognised during restore. Takes longer too. See for a 35 GB used C:, windows makes a 18-22 GB file in 10-20 mins. Do it on an external hard drive and it may be totally unpredictable. I have made 2 images in one go on two different drives. In one case, the time taken was 10-12 mins. Immediately after that, a new copy took 30-40 mins!!! In that time, I can make images with Paragon and Acronis or Ghost for a total of 27-28 GB. Restore in windows 7 is the slowest even if you do it from windows itself. backup/restore-advanced options, restart, etc. Boot CDs of Acronis, Ghost, ShadowProtect (3.5 and 4) are available if you know where to look. Even the software. One more thing that I am posting for comparison. One image with the same used C: took the following space under various leading backup softwares: Acronis: 10.4 GB, Shadow Protect: 10.8 GB, Norton 11.5 GB, Paragon 11.1 GB. So clearly, Acronis makes the smallest images. This pattern has held up across various stages of my install. Shadow Protect is 4-5% bigger than Acronis, Paragon is 6-7% bigger than Acronis, and Norton is 8-10% bigger than Acronis. Hardly matters to me as noted above since reliability and comfort counts more than say savings 5-10 GB (3 images per install). I am comfortable with Paragon in windows and acronis+ghost in boot.
Can members here suggest a way out of this problem with acronis tih 2011 (and 2010) boot loader error is it related to secure zone or recovery partition or anything else. Is it possible to run atih 2011 just like a wdc edition or other backup softwares which do not create a separate hidden partition. I have had problems everytime with this issue.
+ on Norton Ghost or Symantec Backup Exec 2010. I have been using Ghost since v11 and had no issues at all. I tried acronis and I had lots of issues. I had mouse issues in the boot mode. I also had issues with the images getting deleting by the program. Ghost seems to be easier to use.
Yes, Ghost is definitely close to 100% reliable for me. But after using it in windows 7 and with that confusing user interface, use it in boot cd. For windows, I have found paragon to be great and fully reliable. Symantec Backup exec is not compatible with window 7??. Only server versions??
Yeah, I once used acronis but then it failed to restore the image. Now I am mainly using ghost 11.5, plus active disk and snapshot.
Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery will not write something to the boot sector, you must boot from the CD or USB, I like this.
I have been using ZenOK Online Backup for a few months and I think it's fantastic. The program runs in the background and it's automatic. They're nice because it's only 34 usd per year for 150GB. I also comes with a Free Antivirus, and I really liked the fact that ZenOK stores your data as the actual files they are onlinebackup.zenok.com
Following your earlier recommendations i tried acronis TIH 2011... i don't think it's necessary for acronis to have a hidden partition. The startup recovery bootloader works for me but i have chosen to uninstall the program and simply boot from acronis CD if i need to, because the program seems buggy sometimes(doesn't let me delete old tasks) and i don't need the scheduling nor advanced features. Basically it has (or claims to have) full SSD support so i use it.
Norton Ghost 15 has no problem, and I am currently using it. It's reliable. Symantec Backup exec is compatible with Win7, I use the Desktop version.