I'm in the market for a paid imaging solution. My choices would be possibly macrium v8, IFW,ShadowProtect, DS, or anything better. Price is not an issue. I need fast imaging/restoration speed and reliability. Can anyone advise ? Thanks
Hello @Banshee I'm in the same shopping mode as you currently. There will be some really sharp imaging specialists here within the forums who will chime in with reliable replies to help make your choice(s) to fit your expectations. Personally ShadowProtect, IFW, and Macrium are highest on my own list but am still just now only taking them around the block myself. Macrium is fast enough for me after the first full run and restores have been picture perfect. IFW and ShadowProtect those verdicts are yet to be determined but i expect show much promise in what you have in mind. Cheers EASTER
I purchased Drive Snapshot years ago and still use the exact same version (1.44 - October 2016) because it has not only been absolutely perfect on all of the computers / laptops that I've used it on but you don't have to install anything and it can be completely automated using batch files, which I also like the fact that Drive Snapshot is a featureless straight to the point product Plus you can explore the images and what benefits my family members is they can restore their backups in Windows (using a compiled batch file I left on their desktop) and their computer will reboot, restore the backup without the need for them to do anything else. Drive Snapshot is quite pricey though but to me I got what I paid for.
I only know macrium of the three mentioned: I'm using it for years now with dozens (maybe hundreds or restores now). Restoring from an backup in often under 2 mins (when you have SSD) while having reliability is what I like about them. I think only the paid version of macrium has the fast restore option. Maybe use macrium free and wait/hope if the have a black friday sale again (or just buy and enjoy it before).
The imaging speeds of most imaging products vary a bit but not necessarily widely. Most of the products use varying compression methods and some don't do the entire image... they compress DATA but also interject index and checksum information in their images as well. There are huge differences in restoration speeds if the disk/partition being restored is still on the disk at the time of the restoration. Both Macrium REFLECT and the Terabyte products use a form of DELTA restoration... restoring only the differences between what's on the disk and what's in the image. These operations are very quick. If you're restoring an image to a blank disk, most all products are nearly the same. When using SSDs instead of HDDs, these DELTA restorations are not quite as impressive, but still very efficient, and when using high-speed NVME SSDs, the differences get even smaller. When I first started using REFLECT when v6 was released in 2015, I was blown away by its RAPID DELTA RESTORE feature when restoring images to HDDs... it was almost as fast as a SNAPSHOT product (which really doesn't backup anything, it just allows for state changing of protected disks). With all the risks of snapshot products, I uninstalled mine (RollbackRX) and installed Macrium REFLECT... and haven't looked back. With a full suite of images available (Full, Differential & Incremental) and excellent scheduling capability, I have found it to be an excellent product. I back up that primary imaging solution with Terabyte's "Drive Image Backup & Restore," the current version of the original "Image For Windows" product. Both have been trouble & error free for me.
Great paragraph right there @TheRollbackFrog Your expertise on imaging (and @Brian K) is of so much value.
i dont speed of imaging is important unless theres a huge difference, reliabilty and security is more important
no compression is still the fastest, whichever software is used. compatibility is also important, eg acronis 2010 can not read acronis 2013, but other way round. (not sure about newer builds)*. for me also important is the ability to build an independent ISO file for recover, some free products dont offer this or only prebuild ISO which do not run on all machines. in special for acronis i cannot run all windows pe, but all linux builds. (same for aomei). and linux builds starts faster, much faster. In case of a defectiv ssd/hdd an ISO file is mandatory, same for working on partition tables in special drive C (windows, all os) and/or the efi/recovery. for the choice - you have to try them all, no way out. i like acronis most although i own an aomei license. i also use the ISO file for backup and recovery, this is complete off any OS which can fail anytime. and an installed acronis had issues in the past, also aomei. * acronis ISO 2010/2013 is still useable on newer machines than this date because its independent of OS
Since transitioning to TeraBytes HDD's my backups (full mind you) seem slow but even that is of no consequence. I take it that the image solution of choice is accurately duplicating with a reliable and proven formula (aka:algorithm-hate that word)
Good choice. I must say there's been positive flawless results on this end with what restores have been done covering maybe 4 years or better. I doubt rapid full imagings technology is even viable at this point for those looking for snap replacements. The was a program in these forums at the backups sections that nearly achieved fastest recovery but was not able to overcome difficulties with tracking sectors given the many always moving parts in these electronics.
Yeah, Reflect is great. @Gaddster Drive Snapshot works and works and works. I'm glad to learn that your 2016 version is still faultless.
So am I. Like simple stable and long lasting programs more so when it comes to reliable images and restores when we need them most. Sometimes in a pinch where they can really shine and prove their metal.
Until there is a genuine reason to download a newer version I'll stick with this version as it is near as perfect as you can get (especially for backing up precious data). I wish more developers would make drive imaging software like Drive Snapshot instead of bloating them up with ridiculous features and horrible interfaces, which sure I know they want to make money but where do you draw the line? Look at Acronis. They've totally ruined True Image by turning that into a horrible bloated virus-checker.
@Gaddster, as DS 1.44 still works for you would I be correct in presuming you are not using Windows 10?
I personally use Windows 8 but have used Drive Snapshot 1.44 on other peoples computers to image and restore Windows 10 without any issues whatsoever (especially restoring and my family members would be on the phone if it failed to restore).......It just works.
Of course "it just works" - that's why I've been a licensed DS user for 14 years, but what I was getting at in my prior post is that v1.44 does not fully support Windows 10. While I do not usually update DS with each of its minor monthly releases (I've addressed that in the DS thread), I always update DS with each of its major releases - because those releases have important changes to fully support the latest Windows releases (as well as other fixes and enhancements!) - as per their major release 'What's New' notes: V1.48 - December 2019: Changes to support recent operating systems (Server 2019) and Windows 10 (1909) Fixed some problems in the encryption V1.47 - May 2019: Changes to support recent operating systems (Server 2019) Completely rewritten encryption. Improved speed and security. Instead of a plain text password you can use a public encryption key now. New option (--EjectMediaAfterBackup) to eject a backup medium after the backup has finished. V1.46 - March 2018: Changes to support recent operating systems (Windows 10 (1709)) Improved speed when verifying images Additional options to create differential images much faster (--FastDiff) Possibility to remove a removable drive after successful backup (--EjectDrive) Improved image repair functionality (--repair) Improved partition handling for Linux partitions Support for recent versions of XFS (V5 with CRC) file systems
It's a fine piece of German engineering. And my snapshot64.exe is only 442 KB. It's hard to believe that such a small program can perform so faultlessly.
