I am still trialing backup software and am curious to hear from people who have used both Image for Windows and Paragons Backup and Recovery 15 Compact Edition. I have licensing for both softwares. It seems they both use proprietary image formats meaning I need some kind of boot disc for both to do any kind of recovery if my SSD fails. Is that correct? It also seems that both allow direct file restores from the images if a file is to go corrupt and I can still use my PC. I believe this is what TBIMount is. In Paragon its under Archives and you select which archive you want and which restore method (Disk, partition, or files/folders.) Also curious on reliability of backups. I have read Paragon has a high failure rate. Can anyone confirm or deny? What about IFW?
I can't speak for Paragon (although I have tinkered with it a couple of years ago) but the Image for Windows family (which includes Image for DOS and Image for Linux) have been rock solid for me. I cannot remember ever having an image that wouldn't restore. Ever! The IFW family was one of the first imaging programs I ever tried and I still use it as one of my core backup strategies. Yes, to my knowledge, if you run IFW, you need to be able to boot into some type of OS other than the normal one you run under to be able to restore. It is not like say, Macrium, in this case (again to my knowledge.) If you run IFL or IFD, by their very nature, they are the backup and restore media. And yes, TBIMount is the image explorer used to pick specific files/folders if you don't need to restore an entire image.
IFW is really no different than Macrium... if you need to restore a LOCKED volume, an external Recovery Media is required. Otherwise the restoration may be done under Windows (remember, the OS volume is always LOCKED... others may be as well depending on activity). And, of course, the Recovery Media ISO may be placed as an option in the BCD w/BOOTmgr (I use EasyBCD) so that you may LOCAL BOOT into that media (much faster than CD/DVD or UFD) for any needed LOCKED restorations. Separate Recovery Media is only needed if restoration requires a new disk for the OS.
Isn't this natively supported in Macrium 6 as a user preference? (I don't have access to check where I am at now.)
Yes it is... but IFW does not support that feature that I know of (Brain_K?) and this will allow a "Do it Yourself" for IFW users...
IFW, IFD and IFL can boot into a recovery environment without the need for boot disks by using a "bootfile". This creates a TeraByte Unlimited virtual partition on the boot drive and the recovery environment appears identical to that seen when using a boot disk. http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/tbwinre_tutorial.htm (search for "bootfile") http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/howto-ifl-bootfile.htm http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/howto-ifd-bootfile.htm These can be automated so you can double click an icon in Windows and the computer will restart into the recovery environment, run the restore/backup and restart into Windows.