Benefits & Costs?

[marse.robert]

Hi all,

When I first purchased FD-ISR I did not use the Application fully. I merely used the Primary and Secondary functions. As time went by, and after reading some very informative suggestions, I graduated to using the Archive function - getting too big for my boots!

I am now using the Freeze function, and with that, I am facing a cost and benfit question. Having said that, perhaps my thinking is wrong.

This is how I employ FD-ISR. Primary, Secondary with an Archive on my second hard drive (+ an Archive on my external drive.) At first, this seemed adequate as I had an image by True Image 10 on a third (internal) hard drive.

Now I am considerering the benefits of the Freeze function. Now, having the Freeze in place, I get the comfort of booting to a clean copy of Windows. Anything that goes wrong, I can Unfreeze and then boot to the Secondary; update the Primary and then refreeze - and I am up and running once more.

As my data is not on the C: drive, I now find that the drive containing my data can be compromised.

My question is, where does this all end? Is the cost in time and money, plus the learning curve of new applications outweighing the derived benefits? Can we block all security holes? I do not have the confidence in entrusting the internet with my banking facility. Furthermore, in the past 5 years, I have not been troubled with any virii (sp?). My biggest trouble causer is me, and my inexperience with technology. I cause all of the problems with my computer's downtime. My issue is that I want to be up and running in the least amount of time, and FD-ISR is very convenient to that end.

Under these circumstances, would it not be better, to simply have a Primary + Secondary + 1 Archive, and forget the Freeze function?

marserobert

[Acadia]

marserobert, you bringing up, in my opinion, some interesting points. I have wondered about some of these things myself and am looking forward to the replies. I find the "ErikApproach" thread particularly interesting because, like you said, "where does this all end?" Perhaps life on the Internet will always be a crap shoot, after all, every time we hop into our automobiles there is a real possibility that our bodies will end up all over the highway, but that does not stop us from driving because we deem it an "acceptable risk". Perhaps the Net is the same way, we can never make our systems completely safe but we can reduce it to an acceptable risk; now I just have to learn how to do all these exotic but interesting things that these fellows are doing with the "alternative" security programs and techniques.

Acadia

[Peter2150]

Originally Posted by marse.robert

Hi all,

When I first purchased FD-ISR I did not use the Application fully. I merely used the Primary and Secondary functions. As time went by, and after reading some very informative suggestions, I graduated to using the Archive function - getting too big for my boots!

I am now using the Freeze function, and with that, I am facing a cost and benfit question. Having said that, perhaps my thinking is wrong.

This is how I employ FD-ISR. Primary, Secondary with an Archive on my second hard drive (+ an Archive on my external drive.) At first, this seemed adequate as I had an image by True Image 10 on a third (internal) hard drive.

Now I am considerering the benefits of the Freeze function. Now, having the Freeze in place, I get the comfort of booting to a clean copy of Windows. Anything that goes wrong, I can Unfreeze and then boot to the Secondary; update the Primary and then refreeze - and I am up and running once more.

As my data is not on the C: drive, I now find that the drive containing my data can be compromised.

My question is, where does this all end? Is the cost in time and money, plus the learning curve of new applications outweighing the derived benefits? Can we block all security holes? I do not have the confidence in entrusting the internet with my banking facility. Furthermore, in the past 5 years, I have not been troubled with any virii (sp?). My biggest trouble causer is me, and my inexperience with technology. I cause all of the problems with my computer's downtime. My issue is that I want to be up and running in the least amount of time, and FD-ISR is very convenient to that end.

Under these circumstances, would it not be better, to simply have a Primary + Secondary + 1 Archive, and forget the Freeze function?

marserobert

Good question. First I don't consider FDISR as primarily a security tool. I use it to be able to undo software installs, and as a backup to my backup plan.

I use a primary snapshot, a primary archive, and a single secondary snapshot, for a boot haven. Very occasionally a will make another temporary snapshot for testing, but it is short lived.

For me I don't consider the freeze function worth the bother. My system is always changing and moving forward. The few occasions it might be worth it I can do it manually. This is where I've drawn the lilne.

Pete

[farmerlee]

Your simple setup is a nice, simple solution. I employ the same setup, a primary working snapshot, a secondary backup snapshot and 1 or 2 archived snapshots on a different hard drive which i import from time to time if i need to test something out. I find the freeze function too slow and too much hassle. I'd rather use something like powershadow which i can easily turn on and off as needed.