Drive Snapshot - disk imaging software

For those who need to make full disk backups in Windows 2000/XP and are considering the likes of Symantec Ghost, DriveImage or Acronis TrueImage, also checkout Drive Snapshot (trial download available with a time-limited backup function).

Cost-wise, it is slightly cheaper (39 EUR = $46) which will cover upgrades for at least the next 2 years (according to an email I received from the developer Tom Ehlert) but the biggest difference is size. Drive Snapshot is a single 140K executable file that requires no installation (though a 1.4MB conventional Setup option is offered which includes a floppy recovery disk image).

Like Acronis, it can backup your system in the background without having to reboot to DOS (it only needs Administrator access). It can verify the image (which can be split across multiple files) and "mount" it allowing you to view it in Explorer and can handle disk volumes on USB, FireWire and RAID. Performance-wise, I get 600-650MB/min on a 1GHz PIII laptop with a 7200RPM 60GB Hitachi hard disk backing up to an external Firewire drive, with a 25GB partition giving a 16.5GB image.

 

Drive Snapshot was mentioned very briefly on another forum I visit.
So I checked out the website, & was rather surprised at its small size.

I already have Drive Image 6, worked well for me with Win98 - but I would need DI7 when I get XP - which I'm not inclined to do now that it's a Symantec product.

Would love to hear a member's review of Drive Snapshot.