Paragon Drive Backup

I have been using Acronis TRue Image since version 7. I have licenses for version 8 and TI9.1 Corporate but I have found version 9.1 corp unreliable and version 8 does not appear to be compatible with HDS rollback.

I have stopped using version 9.1 and gone back to version 8 - as I've been unable to resolve my problems with Acronis.

I think the time has come to look at other products.

What do people think of Drive snapshot/ Paragon Drive Backup? problems / how does it compare / more like TI v8.


I'm pretty happy with the functionalilty of TI 8 but would like a product with universal restore. Suggestions?

 

I've just installed version 6 - free cover disk in the uk from a magazine. Images fine - need to test the recovery disk carefully by the sound of it

 

Sometime in June 2005, Smart Computing Magazine tested Norton Ghost 9, True Image 8.0 and Paragon Drive Backup 6.0. True Image 8.0 came out the winner. This was last year, it may not be true today given the updates on these softwares.

Symantec has just released Norton Save and Restore. I have the impression that this is a reborn Norton Ghost engineered for average computer user. It is simpler and can create and restore images faster than True Image 9. CD recovery disc, however, is very slow. Suggest to wait until the bugs are properly addressed. Should expect to pay more as Symantec products are always expensive and supports are not that good.

 

Well, somebody has to pay for Symantec's intensive advertising and their phone support is so expensive that you buy another software with it.

 

starfish,

Around the turn of the year I tried Paragon's Drive Backup. For whatever reason, it would not properly detect my Backup HDD, reporting it as an unrecognizable volume, so I gave up on it. I might add that its interface is very cluttered and not nearly as user-friendly as ATI.

I've never tried Drive Snapshot, but a friend of mine who tried it last year said that it had a very clean interface and created the disk-image quickly, but was problematic during a few restore attempts, albeit utltimately successful.

I have a high confidence-level with ATI. Yes, it has some quirks, such as working with certain USB and wireless devices. And after all of this time, ATI still isn't reliable for a spanned DVD backup (wish it were as that would be ideal for my laptop situation). For desktop use however, where I backup to another HDD, it works flawlessly (for me).

Hth, pv

PS., I find ATI 9 as compatible with RBx as one can expect with any instant-recovery program. Imho, there will always be some degree of difficulty using 3rd party imaging products with RBx (and like programs). Until HDS comes out with version 8 (which is supposed to provide an all-inclusive backup solution), you just have to 'work-around' the ATI-RBx compatiblility issues.

 

Thanks - unfortunately TI 9.1 will not image on any of my 3 systems any more - not every time. TI 8 was very good for me ... but will not work on Rollback. So if I persist with this I've gotta find something that works.


So far Drivesnapshot and Paragon both seem to work fine every time. Not tried Paragon restore cd yet?

That leaves Shadow Protect
http://www.storagecraft.com/products...rotectDesktop/
or
Terabyte Image for Windows
or
Ultrabac UBDR Gold - Can produce images - has a universal restore functionality - not tried it

I think I'll give Paragon Drive image v6 a proper try over the next week. It has the added benefit of being free uk magazine cover mount.

But only TI and Ultrabac have universal restore functionality?

 

I' ve been using Paragon Drive Backup for one year and it's good. I've never had any problem.

 

Just one question and two comments:

1. Specifically, what are the problems you are running into with ATI 9.1

2. It would be a bad mistake to make the assumption for any of those products appearing to work seamlessly while creating an image (with Rollback installed) that they will have no problem restoring that image.

3. Universal Restore is only applicable when restoring a disk-image to another (different) PC ...so personally I fail to see the big deal there, because one could simply create a disk-clone which can be migrated (usually) to another PC.

Just my $.02 ~pv

 

1. I have SATA drives TI seems to be unable to lock the os partition and sucessfully image. Happens on more than one system. Cannot get to the bottom of it.


2. True - Drive snapshot can restore but snapshots are lost and RB needs reinstalling . True image can clone from recovery disk with same result as drivesnapshot. Not tried Parrogon yet. I guess this is why I like First Defense and archiving of snapshots so much .... kinda wish that I had just bought FD x3 rather than x1 with RB x2



3. Depending on system -if you have a vanilla MB and no SATA you could be lucky I have done this twice when it worked and afew times when it did not.
Mostly this won't work unless you use sys prep before the image. Scheduled images are unlikely to be created that way. Universal restore is the only reason I changed from T8 to TI Corp 9.1

 

if you are interested in how to make it work with RollBack read here.

 

1. My C-drive is a WD 360 SATA and I have no problems whatsoever creating images of that drive (to an external drive) and restoring those images. I've done that quite a few times without ATI ever messing up!

2. If snapshots are lost during recovery by DS (or any other disk-imager) then it/they are worse than worthless and I've already related my Paragon experience. Imho, Rollback (I've had my share of problems with it) is not ready for 'prime time' - it has some terrific features, but it also has a yet to be remedied bug. In any case, it is easy to create ATI images using Rollback, but problematic to restore them (usually requiring an fdisk /mbr).

3. All that I know for sure is that our IT Dept uses Ghost to Clone their master disk-image when rolling-out PCs to users without any difficulty (they are all various Dell models).

 

Kenjin thanks - when I restored RB with Drivesnapshot resulting in missing snapshots it seemed to take the current snapshot state - so I think that it writes the changes and records the old version of files to un used sectors - just my take.

Either way copying everything seems to be the way to go - thats what I thought I had done with Drive snapshot but - not from a PE disk.

To be honest an image without snaphosts from windows would do me most of the time because I'd like them to be scheduled to a second harddisk. So that would save a lot of time in a HD failure - bare metal restore. But that would still leave the MBR - should be ok to copy this once in a while.

First Defense is a whole lot easy to backup than this.

 

Thanks


1. That is interesting I'm beginning to think that it is a chipset issue with my Mbs as the disks appear clean with ckhdsk.

2. TI could image but not retain the snapshots - For me I can only image with TI outside of windows. So even worse.

Drive Snapshot could be used in a way that retains snapshot information using Kenjin's instructions above


3. I used to use ghost before TI. But don't like the new versions much.

 

For disk-cloning you should check out Casper XP (just be aware that it's not for image-backups)!

 

Why look any further than Image For Windows?
It's got a dedicated following because, it just works.

---securityx---

 

@starfish

I know I know...I feel like a spammer; This is a great solution.

or

I have also been looking at this.
They even have a rep in Oz!
Very expensive AFAICS for "workstation"/stand alone box.
? More network server orientation

The only issues fro me with Terabyte softs is the lack 0f immediate boot solution without copying your system to separate partition and doing updates for same.

Also there is no incremental ( I am using this term as synonymous with differential) image or copy overwrite function so each new image/copy has to be created anew rather than updated. Each image for me with about 22g resolves to 14g size and dated images can be kept for recovery as you know.

There is news on the Terabyte support pages of just such an option (incremnentals) coming soon.

That being said, with external HD, this is otherwise faultless apps. There is also significant benefit to be obtained by going through the learning curve wrt to boot management.

May seem slightly clumsy and perhaps slower but unbreakable so far.

The only other option that would seem to have the edge with speed of restore is FD-ISR, but for me with somewhat bloated and untidy 22Gb C priomary partition, there is a cost in terms of snapshot size!!

I am looking at "re-arranging" my C to re-activate FD-isr. The potential boot issues that arise btwn FD-ISR and BING are related to intstallation of BING which is really only needed if you want multi-boot system. Using BING from floppy has virtually everything else covered.

I am going to start a thread with different question about FD-ISR.

I am trying not to respond to often with probably meaningless waffle again.

Selah;
LBD

 

What version are you using? The last few versions of Image For Windows couldn't be any easier for booting from disk. You check to write to optical drive. It burns the image directly to DVD. When you want to restore image, you simply put the DVD in the drive, it's recognized, asks what partition to place the image - and it's restoring. Hardly a learning curve at all!

---securityx---

 

@securityX

LOL

ABSOLUTELY, No argument from me

Most any discussion about imaging /back-up is over for me.

I was more referring to using the BING floppy and learning about partition managemnet.

Some people seem put off by the less glossy GUI and the installation proceedures for making the floppies if required.

Lbd.

 

OH! I gotcha. Sorry, I misunderstood!

---securityx---

 

Very unlikely IMO as a) the outside view would then show files as per current snapshot and not as per baseline, and b) uninstall of Rbx to current snapshot would be quicker than uninstall to baseline (actually it's vice versa). Anyway, only HDS could tell for sure.
The reason why it restored the current snapshot state is that you created the image in Windows.

 

VM is no real machine, sure. However in my experience, results of tests done in VMs are absolutely reliable and always produce same result on host machine.

 

@pvsurfer
I didn't notice this hidden gem before.

I have used this. Very good app for its' specific purpose.

Can keep updated clone on external HD.
Can keep clone in a partition just a bit larger than used space, does not need same size partition. CAn clone while system active. Supplies some limited partition control, has bootable disc avaialble = Bare metal restore option.

Good support.