Cold-Imaging Competition

It is because of many PCs in my home which I take care, I am not really into imaging. If they fail, I format them.

I got into imaging when I rejoined this forum about six months ago. To me it is pain in the rampus.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

KOR,

Judging from you participation in this thread (and many other threads on the subject of backup) I'm very surprised to hear your feelings about disk-imaging.

I couldn't disagree more. I consider disk-imaging the most important means for surviving a computing-disaster. It's beyond my comprehension as to why, in the event of a computing-disaster, you would think that formatting the drive, reinstalling Windows (and bringing it up-to-date), then reinstalling all of your apps (and bringing them up-to-date), is less of a pain than restoring a recent disk-image.

That doesn't make any sense to me, but as they say... 'different strokes for different folks'.

Aaron

 

tnx Aaron for taking the timnes to do the testing.

as for me, i used to be the King or Reformat.
I used to know my 25 digits serial number for Windows XP and W7.
i reformat very rarely since i discovered imaging about 3 years ago.

i don't understand either why would someone want to spent many hours/days reformating and re/installing everything when it takes minutes to restore an image.

what problems are you having with imaging KOR?
maybe we can help...

 

Dear Aaron,

Imagine trying to keep 9 computers in a home, updated on a regualar basis and then imaging them regularly.

There are tons of Windows update every Tuesday, and each and each program is updated almost weekly. Add to that the drivers update too.

Imagine trying to update these on 9 comptuers in a home. And, then imagine trying to keep update images of all these 9 computers in a home.

The time spent in a home on these is very time consuming and not worth the salt. If a computer fails due to hard disk, which is rare, then formating a new hard disk is better option.

If a computer fails due to virus and so forth, then most probably the most recent images are infected with the virus and so forth.

However, I am leaning forward to keeping a virgin image in case of a failure, but this will still require all updates for Windows, programs installed and all new drivers for the hardware.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Add to that there are tons of imaging programs and each and everyone has its own quirks.

 

KOR, while I don't know the particulars as to who uses all of those computers in your home, I believe in teaching a computer user the proper way to care for their computer and all that is on it ....no, I can't imagine having to take-on such a burden!

Is there no need to recover personal data on those PCs? - your means of recovery doesn't provide for that.

In any case, this is straying way off-topic so if you wish to pursue this subject please start another thread.

Respectfully,
Aaron

 

Aaron- Ghost 15 lets you create a Boot CD with the same ease as Acronis (Tools>Create Boot CD). I personally alternate between Acronis Home 2011 and Ghost 15. Although as you noted the Image size difference is trivial, Ghost will complete the Image Job in about 30% less time.

Great post, btw!

 

@King of Rapture: Not hard at all, especially with scheduling.

Imagine re-installing all of them at once.

 

KOR,

I thought you were an imaging man. You have tried more imaging apps than most folks.

 

I haven't tested applications systematically as Aaron Here did (how interesting to deal with imaging tests rather than antivirus!) but I have a Paragon license (won as a Wilders member) an Acronis TI 9 (my first Imaging tool) 2 ShadowProtect licenses (my favourite, used with the most important machines) and Vista own imaging tool.

Except for Vista's own application I use all the others and they have been reliable, honestly I believe people had failures in restoring, but in my experience they have all worked perfectly(I only do cold imaging). Hence speed is the most important parameter particularly when one uses imaging to test configurations or new programs. Now comparing Acronis, Paragon, and ShadowProtect in terms of speed ShadowProtect is very fast. I have the latest of ShadowProtect whereas Acronis 9 is fairly old therefore in fairness to Acronis (particularly after reading Aaron's results) the latest Acronis could be as fast or faster than SP.

 

The "Try and Decide" function of Acronis 2011 is an excellent and efficient way of testing programs. Although initially reticent to use it, it has become totally invaluable for me.

 

Nice post.

It is true that the speed of Acronis is fast and the compressional rate is high.

But unluckily, I like Symantec Ghost(not Norton Ghost) more.

 

The original competition consisted of creating and restoring standard images (i.e., only Windows' used sectors). However, since I more often work with raw images (i.e., Windows' used sectors + Windows' free space), I'm going to see how well these programs deal with that.

I realize that most of you have no need for raw images, but if anyone is interested do let me know and I'll post the results later today or tomorrow.

Aaron

 

I have never made a Raw Image. How is the compression ratio of Windows free space in a Raw Image?

Example: 250 GB Hard Drive with 30 GB of Windows used space (uncompressed size). Say with a normal Image you get a compressed Image file size of 17 GB. What would you estimate the compressed file size to be for a Raw Image?

Thanks in Advance.

 

TheKid7,

This is just an observation and I'd be interested to hear others experiences.

If you wiped the 250 GB HD with zeroes and installed an OS which consumed 30 GB of space then the raw image could be 17 GB as zeroes compress well. But if you had been using that OS for a few years then the free space in the partition could be "full" of deleted files, etc (not zero sectors) and your raw image might be quite large.

 

As one who typically creates raw images (in order to capture my entire Rollback Rx environment), I found that downsizing my C-partition was the real key to 'living with raw images'. The C-partition on my laptop and desktop are just large enough to comfortably hold Windows, my apps, and Rollback Rx's snapshots. I keep my data, docs, music and photos on a D-partition. I raw-image my C-partition weekly and standard-image my D-partition bi-monthly (although I'm considering going to bi-monthly imaging for both the C & D partitions - much less confusing)!

One final comment on compression. While both standard and raw images can be compressed, the degree as to how much they are compressed depends on your file-type mix (e.g., you don't save much, if anything, compressing mp3 or jpg files, as they are already compressed).

Aaron

 

excellent info Brian/Aaron

 

Aaron, what percentage do you use for drive C files vs. RollBack space?

Thanks,
SourMilk out

 

SM, I don't use a %. I find allocating 8 - 10 GB for RB snapshots works for me over a week during which I average 2 RB snaps a day. I then image my C-partition weekly followed by updating RB's baseline. If I decide to image bi-monthly (with bi-weekly RB baseline updates) I'll have to resize C adding another 8 - 10 GB.

Aaron

 

Thanks for the reply Aaron . I just resized my Windows 7 64bit to 30gb (20gb plus 10gb for RollBack). Can't wait to play with IFW hot boot and ATI cold boot. I've read the posts by you and RollBack Frog and ready to rock with my experiments.

Best to you,
SourMilk

 

I wouldn't leave 0 free space if I were you.

 

Dear Brian,

Before I rejoined this forum about six to nine months ago, I only had a SyncBackSE program for backing up my data. This I bought many years ago for $19, and since then it has been regularly updated on a monthly basis.

Imaging, I learned on this forum. The first true imaging program I bought was Macrium Reflect. Soon, I lost confidence in it. Then I bought EASEUS Todo Workshop and my nightmares with it.

I have bought many since then. The most scary one was IFW/IFD/IFL due to how it is implemented. But I have found out, it is the most stable and the best so far.

I am coming around the idea now, that maybe making a virgin image (a newly formatted OS, with most used programs and users settings) is not a bad idea. With so many imaging programs in arsenal, I am not sure which imaging program to use. Maybe, I should use two, IFW and one of the other ones.

Would I do agian, what I have done and learned in these last nine months. I surely would. I have learned a lot from everyone on this forum, and especially a lot from you for which I am grateful. Life is learning experience and this forum has some very great members who are very helpful to others and helpful in parting their knowledge.

This is a great forum, and first thing I do every morning when I get up is to visit this forum and then quite a many times throughout the day.

My friend, thank you for what you have taught me with your patience.

Many thanks and best regards,

KOR!

 

KOR,

That is an excellent start. If you need any help in creating an IFW image, let me know in a new thread.

 

I repeated my cold-imaging tests, this time creating raw (full) images. Because raw imaging is more time consuming than standard imaging I eliminated IFD from this group (as it had finished well out of the running the first time around).

Each program's default compression level was used and no compressed image differed in size from another by more than 7%. All reported times were rounded to the closest 10 seconds. Most significantly, while AIP shined, ATI 'tanked'!

Programs Tested:
Acronis True Image 2011 (ATI)
Active@ Disk Image 5.02 (ADI)
ActiveImage Protector 3.0.3 (AIP)
Drive Snapshot 1.40.15721 (DS)


Bootup Time - time to get a (functional) CD-GUI:
1. ATI (0’ 50”)
2. ADI (1’ 20”)
3. AIP (1’ 40”)
4. DS (1’ 50”)

Time To Create Image:
1. AIP (10’ 10”)
2. DS (11’ 30”)
3. ATI (12’ 50”)
4. ADI (14’ 20”)

Time to Validate Image:
1. AIP (5' 50”)
2. ATI (6' 30”)
3. DS (6’ 40”)
4. ADI (7' 10”)

Time to Restore Image and the Result:
1. AIP (7' 30”) - Successful restore
2. DS (8’ 30”) - Successful restore
3. ADI (9’ 00”) - Successful restore
4. ATI (--’ --”) - Failed to restore (2 attempts)!

Total Time to Backup & Restore - fastest to slowest:
1. AIP (26’ 50”)
2. DS (30’ 20”)
3. ADI (33’ 10”)
4. ATI Refused to restore stating 'insufficient space on partition'?

I guess I won't be switching from DS to ATI anytime soon! So while DS continues to be my personal favorite, AIP (easily the fastest of the group with a successful restore) deserves a good hard look.

Aaron

 

Interesting Aaron...thanks for doing all that! Good to see AIP is doing well. Was that the newest version that came out a few days ago?

Edit: Ignore that...you posted the versions you used.