best paid backup and recovery software

Hi.

Well...I'm sick and tired of free backup and recovery softwares with limitations.

Now I've decided to buy a full version.
Any suggestions?

Thanks for any reply.

OS: Win XP SP3(32bit)
RAM-1 GB

 

Get Acronis True Image I haven't had any problem with it with my XP at the moment I'm using an old version when I bought my own Acronis True Image v10.0.4942, I haven't bought a new version yet when I upgrade to W7 soon if you're asking what the best paid backup and recovery software is Acronis True Image.

Others many have different views on which is the best paid backup and recovery software, sometime it hard to tell which one work better.

 

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=297142

There are really so many threads dealing with this question. If you wish to have a survey type of thread, my pick would be ShadowProtect Desktop from Storagecraft.

 

shadow protect is awesome but pricey.... personally either the full paid version of macrium or image for windows would be my picks, i would NEVER point someone to acronis myself... its ridiculously bloated and i have had numerous issues with it and so have my customers.

o&o disk image isnt to bad and you can get it for as little as 20$ but it requires a "start cd" to recover from and otherwise doesnt work

 

Image for Windows/Image for DOS/Image for Linux.

 

I got to the point where I was sick of testing & trialling different ones every few months, trying to find the ideal one for me.

So I just bought Macrium a while ago - seems fine, and it`s comparatively light.

 

Hi.

Well from what I have read and understood, shadow protect by storagecraft is recommended by most, image for windows is the second.
So I think I'll go with either shadow protect or image for windows.

Okay now, which one do you guys prefer?

 

Acronis&Todo Backup, I think.

 

there's no way i'd spent 90$ (storagecraft) on an imaging app, especially considering Windows 7 own imaging utility is excellent.
and free.

i settled on IFW because of the features, price and speed.

 

I have to agree that in this case, buy IFW/IFL/IFD. I love ShadowProtect as well, but the price (which is for one computer only) is high compared to the equally stable IFW for ~$39 that you can use on three computers.

 

ams, I use and highly recommend that you try Drive Snapshot $56 (39 Euro).

Pros: Tiny executable (installation not needed - it's portable!). Simple user interface. Restore can be initiated from inside Windows. Fast and reliable backup/restore.

Con: Only comes with a DOS recovery disk (but since it's portable you can bootup with any WinPE disk and run DS from anywhere)!

Aaron

PS. Keep this thread going long enough and I'm sure you will have received a recommendation for just about every image-backup program out there!

 

I wish I could agree... but I cannot. True Image v9 was the last decent version of this imaging app, and worked VERY WELL with Windows XP. Since then, every newer version has gone lower downhill than the one previous. The current release, v14, is horrible and very buggy. I totally abandoned versions newer than v10 (not bad but more bugs than v9).

I currently use "Image For Windows" for all my HOT imaging, and the BartPE version of "Image For Windows" under MiniXP (Hiren's release) for all my off-line imaging.

 

Best value is Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011, because it includes both a partition and a backup manager, and an EXE file to easily build a WinPE boot medium.

 

Macrium Reflect Complete Edition

 

That's the choice I made some time ago.
Excellent for the price.

 

So true.

 

i think i own every imaging program out therei dont even use most of them since i honestly dont like them why i bought some of them i dont know. my overall fav is shadow protect and i agree with peter the continuous backups are the reason why and it collapses them at the end of the week then the end of the month then the year etc so you always have a constant backup. it is very expensive though i honestly would be using it on every system i own if it was not just so expensive.

now if you dont need the continuous incrementals and just need to make backups from time to time honestly i think you are overpaying for shadow protect because its really not that different except for this stuff.

for second place its kind of a toss up for me between macrium reflect paid and image for windows. macrium imo has a much better overall gui with everything kind of in front of you including making your bootable discs etc. i have yet to ever one time have macrium fail me. and i own maybe 10-12 lic's total. its fast has pretty good compression and just does its job. however if you are not knowledgable with xml files and how to write them it may be difficult to do some of the custom stuff it can do which is a lot. like when you make your first backup you can save the task as a xml file then use that file to create tasks or simply run it to make another backup with the same options. overall though a great choice just for some not the easiest to use depending on what you are doing with it.

image for windows now on the other hand imo after giving it more of amchance i bought 6 lic's now (remember each one is good for 3 pc's and you can buy ifw for 29.xx instead of 40$ btw), ifw from much testing can do some awesome stuff and much of the advanced stuff of the others also but again it requires more work than say shadow protect but its pretty easy to learn. it very easy to make a bootable winpe disc and add stuff to the image to run while you are booted up to that disc. it also can be a simple process though as well. simply open it and click full and next , next , and finish it then you are done. i have found it reliable enough to use in my own office and i have tested it pretty crazy over the last week in many different scenerios trying to make it fail and it has not yet!!

i also own o&o, paragon, rollback, acronis, todo, ghost, drive snapshot along with others and the above three are my fav's and would be my first choices. i feel for price ifw cant be beat especially at the special 29.xx price, the at 40$ macrium is great also. unless you need that continuous incremental thing i would not pay 90$ for shadow protect myself i love it dont get me wrong but am kinda kicking myself for buying it for systems that dont need that feature.

hope this helps some

 

I've used a ton of backup/recovery programs and used to test them for myself in terms of backup/recovery speed and so forth. however, all the testing just made me more hesitant to give absolute recommendations because their performance (relative to one another) often varies from one machine to another, and they have different features (strengths and weaknesses) so what's best for your needs on your machines may not be best for me.

Anyway, here are brief comments about my favorites in no particular order of best-ness:

1. Drive Snapshot: it clocks in at ~300 KB size if you use only the main exe, or under 5 MB installed (i.e. with help files, uninstaller, and virtual 'floppy' image added). It's very fast for backups, portable, great command line support, very smart differential backups, and basically has all the feature (sometimes more) as its competitors at a fraction of the size. Obviously there's zero bloat, no conflicts with other software, no added background processes or 'always-on' services. It's an incredible sample of programming prowess. Overall it's also very reliable, except for some of the (newer) features that aren't.

2. ShadowProtect: It's big and expensive, but very fast for backups and restores, and it's the program I trust the most in terms of reliability. If I need to change hard drives for example, this is the program I to migrate my system. So far I've only restored twice to a different (real) hard drive (both were upgrades to larger, faster drives on two different laptops, both succeeded with ShadowProtect, but not with some others I tried before it).

3. Macrium Reflect (full version): Excellent all around. Offers fast incrementals. Not as light as Drive Snapshot, but no bloat either. Good all around choice. I haven't tried it for restores between different hard drives, so cannot speak to that, but my regular restores with it never failed.

4. Acronis Backup & Recovery: This is Acronis' corporate product (not their True Image for home users version). It's super fast with excellent command line support, feature rich(est?), and offers fast incrementals like Macrium. However, it's also big and bloated. As for Acronis True Image Home, I gave up on it because of the bloat, some reliability issues, and lack of sufficient command line support for my needs at the time, although it did have some unique features (e.g. Try & Decide) which you may either love, or mildly hate in so far that you don't need them or use them.

5. Image for Windows/DOS/Linux: Excellent reputation, very lean (between Drive Snapshot and Macrium Reflect). I used the DOS version for a while because it was the best DOS based backup and recovery solution I could find and booting to a virtual floppy is virtually instantaneous. It's kind of a geeky program though; full of features, but potentially difficult to understand what options to use. Also not as fast for me as some of the others, but definitely a top contender and ymmv depending on the hardware.

6. Others: I see Paragon recommended a lot so obviously their product is working for lots of people (I tried too but didn't like), and Active@ Disk Image and Active@ Boot Disk have their advocates. I will say that the latter is the best ready-to-go or out-of-the-box WinPE boot disk for backup/recovery and other related needs that I know of, but I prefer to custom build my own so their super boot disk is not a selling point for me.

 

I know that the poc wants a paid image making program, however, not knowing his OS or basic backup strategy, I would suggest trying the "free" Seagate DiscWizard or the free Western Digital offering before committing money. I use DW on Windows 7 64bit without a hitch. It offers "cold imaging" with the rescue cd. With cold imaging, you can image a drive that has its MBR modified by another program. It also backs up your MBR (modified or not).

SourMilk out

PS. I use Acronis True Image Home 2011 on another computer and found you don't have to use the constant backup feature.

 

one reason i so highly recc image for windows. it has so many options of how it will work it comes with image for dos, image for linux and the tbiviewer along with using phylock. its just so versatile that way.

 

Must change my previous statement(s), as I had spend too many hours with SP with no good results. Macrium is really much better program regarding system restore.

 

I heartily recommend Active@DiskImage 5, home user version, not that pricey and having a great recovery media builder.

 

I 've tested a while ago a.o. Shadowprotect, Macrium, and some other that i can't remember at this moment. But i 've not tested Image for Windows.
What i still remember is that Shadowprotect was significantly faster to restore a backup. I think, if I remember correctly, that it was twice as fast as Macrium. (tested it with a partition of about 40 GB)

You had Shadowprotect and Image for Windows. Which one is the fastest to restore a backup? And is it significantly faster?

The same questions for you.
You also had Shadowprotect and Image for Windows. What do you think is the fastest to restore a backup? And is it significantly faster?

 

I have used both a lot (IFL more than IFW and Shadowprotect). Both are fast taking the images...I would say based on my testing using IFL to restore an IFW image is faster than SP...not a huge amount that would make me switch from one to the other. I am sure you'll find people with the opposite experience. Both are great products for sure and you can't go wrong with either one...just note SP is a lot more expensive and a little more restrictive with activation.