Whats better than ACRONIS True image home 2009 9646 suggestions

[rd555]

Hi

I'm sacking off Acronis True image home 2009 build 9646, because they forgot to make the program properly. and patronise and stall for time pretending they have no idea what your on about when you mention this

ie Thank you for choosing acronis. .. . .. bla bla... can you explain what you mean by shedules not working properly....:-X :-X
save it ... i wasted my money... acronis used to be good. shame

so taking that into account, I've read a few other posts and tried a few demos of other backup programs

ShadowProtect
is current fave and come recommended by you guys. but annoyingly wont verify the backup as part of the schedule (any ideas how to automate the verify?)

I'm looking for this in a Backup program:


images drive and MBR
FAST (Genie took 14 hours for a 500GB drive WTF)
Reliable (too late to find out you got no air bags)
can verify backups (straight after the backup on a schedule)
differential backup with options for deleting etc (keeping more that one set unlike acronis's wack 'after thought' options)
SHEDULES that work all the time, and run if missed
Can easily explore the image and restore individual files

Has a function to backup outlook stuff (but not essential if i can work out the individual folders of outlook. can chose the files manually, but which ones are they anyone?)



I've tried

genie
- great options - but too slow

paragon
- fast but editing schedules is a bit odd and loads of files created in the folder

nti shadow
- seems great but the wrong thing for what i want

SHADOWPROTECT
- i like this but it doesn't verify after it creates the image


any suggestions like shadow protect

[jehosophat]

Do you really need to validate each and every backup?

I have been using ATI for over a year now and have stopped bothering with validation as I have done several hundred backups and never had any problems. I tend now just to open one using Explorer and see if it opens.

I have just done a Year End backup and validated this.

I may just be lucky with my combination of hardware. I have done over 30 full restores in the last year and again no problems.

I never used scheduling though, I always backup using the boot disk to a removable hard disk.

[Aaron Here]

I (and quite a few other Wilders members) use and love Drive Snapshot (http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/). You can download a fully-functional 30-day trial.

DS has a check-box that enables automatic verification immedialtely following the backup. DS is very small and portable (can be run from anywhere on any Windows-recognized internal/external/removable drive). DS is extremely reliable and very fast!

Its one drawback is that it doesn't come with a GUI recovery disk (as does ATI, SP and others) but you can easily download the free UBCD4Win (http://www.ubcd4win.com/downloads.htm) and add DS to it (as well as to any BartPE/VistaPE/WinPE disk).

Happy New Year!

[rd555]

cheers for the prompt replies guys ,happy new year :)

i would feel safer with validation, i'm not sure why they never included it as an option (apart from manually doing it)

there are options for running post backup commands, but I'm not sure if that's going to be of any use.

drive snap shot looks like it doesn't schedule.

shadowprotect is very much like acronis and its very fast.

any suggestions with the things I've mentioned on the fist post?


images drive and MBR
FAST (Genie took 14 hours for a 500GB drive WTF)
Reliable (too late to find out you got no air bags)
can verify backups (straight after the backup on a schedule)
differential backup with options for deleting etc (keeping more that one set unlike acronis's wack 'after thought' options)
SHEDULES that work all the time, and run if missed
Can easily explore the image and restore individual files

Has a function to backup outlook stuff (but not essential if i can work out the individual folders of outlook. can chose the files manually, but which ones are they anyone?)

[Brian K]

rd555,

I agree with your point regarding validation but validation should also be done on an occasional ongoing basis. Contrary to beliefs, validation isn't done to check whether your software has done a good job. It's done to see whether your hardware will be able to restore that image.

-{ Quote: "A standard validation serves primarily to catch errors that occur between the system memory and the target drive. This includes the CPU, mainboard caches, data cables, the IDE/SATA/USB/IEEE 1394 controller, and the target drive itself. " }-
We have seen several threads where the image wasn't validated prior to a restore. Bad RAM was present and unfortunately the OS partition was deleted by the backup imaging software and then the image failed to restore. A validation would have prevented this disaster.

Regarding your question, I like IFW and DS. They satisfy your criteria except the schedules don't run if missed and they do nothing special with Outlook. But you can move your .pst to another partition and back it up as a data file.

DS can be scheduled with Windows Scheduled Tasks. Quite nicely.

[Huupi]

Don't forget that what is best depend on such things as knowledge,specific configuration and personal needs,so there is no universal answer to that,at least you can ask for yourself what work best in mine special
circumstances.
Best way to see what work best for you is trialling them all.

[LenC]

I really like ShadowProtect - having given up on Acronis. Stable and fast. I would also prefer if I could verify automatically as part of backup creation. But that is such a minor shortcoming - why would you let that sway your decision?

BTW, every backup of mine has validated successfully8)

[Osaban]

ShadowProtect will verify on demand, but like most users will agree, if it works well the first time, you won't have to worry ever again. I heard of members having done literally hundreds of restorations (Peter2150, Sukarof) without ever having any problem. I haven't counted but I have restored my system at least 10 times in six months.

[wat0114]

ShadowProtect would be my choice. No problems yet the first few months of use.

[jonyjoe81]

If you need speed you also need to look at "macrium reflect", I've been using the free version and it's as fast as true image. The paid version has the differentials/folder backup features. I already used the free version to restore my drive and it works as fast as true image. That's what I'm using on my computers. It's a program to look at.

http://www.macrium.com/features.asp

[C.S.J]

whats better?

Drive Backup by Paragon.

[AKAJohnDoe]

-{ Quote: "whats better?

Drive Backup by Paragon." }-

Agreement :thumb:

[Peter2150]

It's true, I've done hundred's of restores with Shadow Protect. On the machine I run continuous incrementals, I don't verify but periodically will do a test restore. Never had an issue.

If I am doing an image before I do something critical, I will boot to the recovery CD, image the system. Test the image by extracting a file from it, and then restoring the image. That's the only real validation.

Pete

[rice4lunch]

i saw a post on this forum, someone wrote a front end to drive snapshot that allows schedules, etc. so DS might be what you are looking for.

[rd555]

cheers guys

I'm thinking of sticking with ShadowProtect now its had a few recommends.

Its really straight forward to use. and has some great scheduling options,
ie
Monday do a full backup
Tuesday-sunday incremental
after a few weeks delete the incremental and keep the full one so just a weekly backup

http://www.storagecraft.com/products/ShadowProtectDesktop/





also
looks good but not tried
http://www.macrium.com/default.asp
cheers for that one


I've recommended acronis to so many people, now i steer them away from it. it was the same with ghost.

do these guys get drunk on power. :)

[rd555]

without getting all off topic

what folders do i need to backup to backup outlook 2007

[Brian K]

-{ Quote: "
I'm thinking of sticking with ShadowProtect now
" }-
You will enjoy it. Despite the comments here about not validating images, two of the ShadowProtect developers have recommended validating images from time to time, to pick up hardware issues that could cause a restore failure.

[Tu5]

Try Drive Snapshot with markymoo's Drive Snap Frontend (just do a search in these forums for the Drive Snap thread). The frontend makes it extremely easy to use and adds a lot of additional functionality. In my experience, Drive Snapshot is the fastest and bost reliable backup software ive ever used. Only downside is the high price.

[davidjschenk]

-{ Quote: "whats better?

Drive Backup by Paragon." }-

Phooey!

I can't even get the Paragon launcher to load on my system. I checked their forums and knowledge base and there's no information on the problem I'm having. C.S.J., are you fairly knowledgeable about this software? I get an error message every time I try to launch it that says:

Operation Failed
Drive Not Ready Error
Error source: Hard Disk Manager
Error code: 0x10097

Have you any idea how I might fix this so I can try out the software and see if it's as good as most people say?

StorageCraft ShadowProtect, by contrast, loads just fine and seems to work just fine. At the moment, I'm leaning toward buying that one. The attractive thing about Paragon is the ability to customize one's backup image, leaving out those files and/or programs that one does not want to include in the backup. That, if it worked, would be awesome.

If it worked...

-David

[rd555]

I sacked off Shadow Protect in the end


reason one , scheduled backups wouldn't run or only one would run on reboot if missed.
reason 2 the boot disk came up blank, I got some info about adjusting stuff in the bios but didn't try it.
reason 3 i had to edit and delete files to get it to work because of files left behind from ACRONIS, (did i mention acronis sucks :))


I'm using MARCRIUM REFLECT

its like Acronis but works:-* , there is a completely free version or a £20 version
they have won awards

so far its very fast and reliable

thanks to jonyjoe81 for the tip


my final thoughts

ACRONIS SUCKS and is totally unreliable at £45

scheduled backups are a grey area, a lot of people don't do them, I want my backups running like clockwork so i can set up and forget them. also a lot of people run backups from the boot disk, which is also a massive time waster.

i have a 1TB drive that backs up my OS is case of disaster every day. While I'm getting a bowl of porridge, my backups are running ....sweet :)

thanks for the input guys, i love the forum

It Macrium give me heat I'll post back :)

[rd555]

http://www.macrium.com

[ronjor]

-{ Quote: "I'm using MARCRIUM REFLECT" }-Well, that settles that. Thread closed.