ShadowProtect (Trial/Evaluation) what's the difference?

that is way faster than ATI 9 is
does one license mean you can only backup one pc?
because if i buy shadow protect desktop and use it on my pc im gonna build soon then i might use it on my other pc for imaging as well but only if its legal in the license
lodore

 

what do you store your images on?
external usb?
or a second internal drive?
lodore

 

I can't disagree but IFD is solid. It has never failed me yet. It's very handy to have an IFD image on DVD for offsite storage.

 

ping grnxnm:

I'm sure this has been raised before: why cant you develop a plugin for a non MS/Win PE. There are as we all know lots of bootable PE cd set-ups and many have plugins for other imaging tools.

LOL, I just bet there is a really basic answer to this.
Apologies if this is a retard Q.

That is an interesting tidbit about doing restores and images outside of Win.

Version 3 ??

Regards.

PS:
Yes you can keep your Terabyte tools while using SP. ? slightly redundant.
Pete's point is that he has moved to a different strategy/tools now that work better for him.
The MBR can be copied with TU or there is a tool for writing a standard MBR.

The only other issue is the ongoing FDISR conflicts that afaik is resolved with using RSS and is under review. ( hmm by Raxco at least )

For straight image/restore SP may be a better tool. I'v just got so used to using the TU. Never failed here either. Compatible at every level with FDISR

 

Well, I bought ShadowProtect! (2 actually.)

After my first image, I am pretty impressed. I ran the image from the Recovery Disk (outside of Windows.) 11 Gig imaged in about 10 minutes to a USB 2.0 portable HD. I mounted the image as read-only and could explore the image quite fast. Honestly faster than I thought it might work.

I'll still use my good 'ole Image for DOS to burn DVD images once in a while but SP is fast enough I can no longer justify the extra time IFD takes to create an image to a HD. (Of course, I could burn the SP images I create to DVDs too but it can't be a bad idea to not keep all my eggs in one basket. )

I'm still a little unsure whether I'll bother with the Windows installation. I don't have huge system changes on my PCs and I like to keep things on the minimal side.

The only negative thing that happened was that the desktop installer file and the Recover Disk iso file both downloaded with no file extensions. It took me a couple minutes to realize they were zip files. But once I renamed them, all was well.

 

I'm confused. What's the "desktop version" as opposed to whatever you do? It's a portable app without need for installation? This is sounding more interesting with every post.

 

@longboard

StorageCraft doesn't develop or support any plugins for non-Microsoft WinPE look-alikes such as BartPE. This was a business decision.

We've made some very substantial changes to the recovery environment as far as device support goes so users will soon have even more flexibility on that front and really shouldn't ever need to resort to an environment other than the one we provide.

@Genady

The installed app includes the installation of StorageCraft's snapshot device driver (stcvsm.sys) which is able to take extremely fast incremental backups (often a matter of seconds). If you want scheduled/automated backups, or want fast incremental backups, then you will want to actually install ShadowProtect. All versions of ShadowProtect also include a recovery environment CD (bootable CD based on WinPE) that can be used to both backup and restore volumes, including restoring backup images to new blank disks (so called "Bare Metal Recovery") for disaster recovery. For users that prefer to not install anything, they can still do backup using ShadowProtect by booting the recovery environment CD and backing up from within that environment. Some users perfer this as it keeps thing clean (nothing to install) and also captures their volume(s) state(s) while there is absolutely no activity on the volume(s).

I noticed you've enjoyed using the DriveImage/Ghost product. You may find it interesting to note that StorageCraft's CTO was the architect of that version of DriveImage that was rebranded as Ghost by Symantec when they acquired PowerQuest. It (and all succeeding version of DriveImage/V2i Protector/LiveState Recovery/Backup Exec Recovery) use StorageCraft's stcvsm.sys snapshot driver (older versions of it - renamed to pqv2i.sys or symsnap.sys - check the file attributes copyright information to verify). I was also personally involved in the development of several of the core aspects of that product. At the time that Symantec acquired PowerQuest, several key people left the company. A year later they began development of a competing product (ShadowProtect). You generally do things better the second time around, and I think this is such a case. Rigorous tests will reveal to any interested party that ShadowProtect is generally faster, uses fewer resources, and is more robust, than the competition. For a more detailed comparison, see this post.

That being said, no product or solution is the end-all-and-be-all of backup. Do your own due diligence and pick the solution that best fits your needs. Hopefully you can find one for free.

 

hello grnxnm,
i want to ask you one question
atm i have a license for acronis true image 9 and a license for ghost 2003
can i get money off shadow protect desktop for kinda trading in one of those licenses or even both?
thanks
lodore

 

There used to be a competitive upgrade offer, but I no longer see it on the StorageCraft website so perhaps it is not available at the moment.

 

@grnxnm: Thank you for that great post, that cleared up some things for me. This sounds like an excellent product.

Color me VERY impressed that you were involved with PowerQuest DriveImage 2002. I love that version and the last PQ version of PartitionMagic. Symantec messed around with both and I have kept using those both of those last PQ products regularly.

However......sounds like ShadowProtect will be my next purchase. Thanks again for the great post!

 

My favorable impression of SP continues...

I imaged my other XP PC that is just under 7GB. It took just under 7 minutes (again to an external USB 2.0 drive.) I then imaged the same PC using Image for DOS to the same external drive. It took just under 18 minutes.

I then restored back to the PC from the SP image. I did not overwrite the MBR or the hidden track/Track 0. Recovery took about 6.5 minutes and the PC booted normally. Which is what it's all about!


I do have a question (to anyone that can answer...) I did not see anything that notes where I could make an image verification (which, for example, IFD can perform.) The manual mentions exploring the image as a method to accomplish this, but I am wondering if there is something going on in the background as the image is made that allows SP to know the process has completed successfully. (This may be a better question to ask over at StorageCraft.)

 

@grnxnm (again sorry )

The term "Bare metal Recovery": Could you elaborate a bit.
What exactly does this mean?
Will this protect against HD/HW failure in a single box?

Are you talking about a situation where an HD is unbootable; a new HD is installed ( ie different HW, different size, different manufacturer, unformatted etc ) Boot with recovery CD and an image can be restored to the new HD from back-up source, and it will just boot-up?

This is what happened to me recently: primary work HD failed. Had images on external USB HD.
Had to install new primary HD as above : all different: installed the HW then had to reinstall XPee and then restored image with good results. Have back-up redundancy with file copying to USB stick and so lost nothing. Whew.

Unless I am completely stupid or SP has genie software: What about HAL, drivers, sysprep etc

What if I had taken the option to get a whole new system: mobo, chipset, HD etc, plugged in my USB external HD and booted with the PE CD?
Would SP restore to the new HD in the new system? Heh seriously "bare metal"

Unless I am completely stoopid I am trying to learn from this.

Might have to check RAID type solution but don't want to overload with HW atm.

Sorry if you have addressed this before.

Thx.

PS i was asking before: when for V3 ?

 

Question about Shadow Protect: I keep reading about "online backups". What if I don't want to do an online backup? I don't want to pay a monthly fee for backup services. Does Shadow Protect only funtion in this capacity?

I want a reliable disc imaging program, that's it. I don't want my backup strategy relying on an internet connection. I don't want to buy the software then keep paying monthly fees. All I am doing is backing up one PC.

Is Shadow Protect for me or not?

 

mixed termology.
i will try to explain.
an online backup means make the image in windows with the background services running. also known as hot imaging it has nothing to do with the internet.
hope you understand that
lodore

 

I understand now. Thank you.

 

Hi Grnxnm,

Just a quick question. Since I purchased SP Desktop on Jan 24th 2007, will I have to pay for 3.0 version?

Thanks,

 

@HAN

All version of ShadowProtect automatically verify any image during restore using CRC32. If you want to verify an image separate from a restore operation you can only do this on the command line. As Pete mentioned, a GUI has been added for this separate verify operation in version 3.

The command line to verify a base image is:

sbrun.exe -mdn ( sbfile -r C_VOL-b001.spf : sbcrypt : sbrest )

To verify a base plus some incrementals, do this:

sbrun.exe -mdn ( sbset C_VOL-b001.spf C_VOL-b001-i001.spi C_VOL-b001-i002.spi : sbrest )

*NOTE* - It is critical that you leave spaces before and after the ( ) and : characters when executing the above commands, otherwise they will return an error.

@LONGHORN

Bare Metal Restore/Recovery is the recovery of a volume to a system that has no operating system. The machine is "bare." It has only blank drive(s). Backup products that are capable of bare metal recovery are capable of restoring your backup images to new blank replacement disks, and also making the machine bootable as it once was. Any decent disaster recovery backup product will support bare metal recovery. The case you mentioned is a perfect candidate for BMR.

BMR is for restore to the same machine. If you want to restore an image to a different machine (one with significantly different hardware such as a different chipset, different storage controller, etc) then you need to use additional functionality to patch all kinds of drivers (as you mentioned) and configuration settings. Acronis has such a feature, called "Univeral Restore." Symantec's equivalent is called "Restore to Anywhere." StorageCraft's is called Hardware Independent Restore, and has completed a very successful beta. If you would like to try out the Beta for this feature, send an email to support 'at' storagecraft.com and request to participate in the HIR beta program.

We have not committed to a date for version 3's release. Much of it is finished, but we are still implementing some features.

@ERJ

The term "online backup" is sometimes confusing, as it's used to refer to two types of backup solutions:

1) Backup that is capable of saving content of all files, even open files (when the file system and applications are "online").

2) Backup that saves/stores your files on a remote machine.

ShadowProtect falls into the first category. When ShadowProtect is referred to as an "online" backup product, it's probably better described as a "hot" backup product. It's capable of backing up your drive without booting to an alternate environment. It can backup your drive while it's hot/in-use/online.

There is no service fee for the use of ShadowProtect. It's a standalone product and does not use the services of any remote machines. It does not use your internet connection (other than to activate at install time, and even then this is optional).

If you install ShadowProtect then you will be able to create hot/live/online backups of your disks without rebooting and without stopping any of your apps. Hence there is no downtime for backups if ShadowProtect is installed. If you do not install ShadowProtect, you can still use the included bootable CD recovery environment to backup/restore your volumes, but you will have to stop your apps and reboot into this recovery environment to do so, which means that such a backup is not hot/live/online. Such a backup is often considered to be ideal as it will capture your volume state in its ideal not-in-use state.

@RILLA927

If you purchased maintenance when you bought ShadowProtect, and if version 3.0 releases before your maintenance expires, then you will receive version 3.0 free of cost. If you didn't purchase maintenance, I believe you will still be able to upgrade to version 3.0 for half the cost.

 

How big was the image? How big of an external HD do you have?

When I buy my next PC later thjis year, I will be migrating over to a product like Shadow Protect, Acronis, Paragon etc. I want to have some sort of idea how big of an external HD I will need to buy.