Alternatives to SP3(Shadow Protect 3)

Well,put it this way-if you arent convinced of the advantages of SP,which a lot of us are-dont change until its too late

 

Will you play the scare tactic with EASTER?

 

No scare tactic-Easter is a big boy-speaking on personal experiences to do with reliability and the HIR feature
Also of course absolutes come into it-like speed and company support and image size and scheduling ability and incrementals.

 

In other words, a rational and informed decision
Each one of us have different priorities so each variable has different weight in the making of a decision.

 

No question at all -reading some of your other posts likeEF/RB can also see your rationale,but at least a decision should be made in an objective, logical,rather than a subjective manner.

 

Hi Guys,

Excuse me, could someone please comment on post #40?

Thanks & Take Care
Rico

 

Be a little careful here Hairy - you are very close to implying that those in favor of SP3 are being objective and those against are reaching a subjective decision.

SP3 is a fine program - no doubt but I have no need to change. There is nothing that it does that we make me spend more money. The title of the thread is "Alternatives to SP3". The answer is that there are many - and some just as good or even better - depending upon the needs of the end user. A small point to some but Activation alone means that I would not use this program - just too much trouble.

 

Couldn't agree more

Activation is your showstopper

 

Exactly!

I have speed when i need it with my 100% dependable backup apps without a single issue, i don't feel the need personally to gamble on making trouble where trouble simply doesn't exist. HIR, nice a feature as it is, is of no benefit for me, no real need for it no matter how good it is.

My backup apps are reliable and have a long track record, even my most recent acquisition of DriveSnapshot is showed exceptionally satisfactory results and to my surprise both speed and dependability, and thats all thats needed really since back up images are our final line of rescue or recovery.

Incrementals/differentials are reliable enough in Paragon Drive BackUp and not once never given me reason YET to doubt it's effectiveness time and again.
I harbor no reservations whatsoever that SP is everything as good as claimed with it's additional features, but if there are one or two dissuading factors against it at all, for me anyway , it's the CD XPpe disk plus the fact it cannot backup an entire drive all at once, but one partition at a time if i read things right, and my image apps can easily return the entire drive image with ALL partitions completely intact all at once without stoppage in one fell swoop.

Plus it's somewhat discouraging from a home/user's standpoint imo that StorageCraft would focus moe heavily toward server/enterprise customers at the expense of looking at the opposite end of it's market too (us) as small fry. But like i said once before, i completely understand that policy given it's attack before from pirates to it's products before which is caused them no other choice but to have to change direction in that manner.

FWIW, though, crack sites are still right back at it again and even offering this SP for open access at underground sites. I seen it with my own eyes with shocking surprise and i don't know know how they get away with it, but they obviously seem to have no problem whatsoever accessing then cracking apps no matter what they are. It's virtually unstoppable & i assume since this is a global market it will continue unihibited for the foreseeable future.

 

Never had an activation issue,but if there is one,doubtlessly tied up with this,quite understandably!

 

What's wrong with it?

Software will always be cracked. But, with activation involved, there's a big difference. Home users are willing to crack an application, activate it throu obscure mecanisms and be done with that. OTOH, business users can't have the luxury of an application stopping to work from one day to another and so they pay without hesitations.
That's why ShadowProtect has activation, not for protection against cracking but for as a measure towards enterprises/corporations. And the money is with them, not home users.

 

"Originally Posted by EASTER'
it's the CD XPpe disk"

The preferred recovery SP environment is Vista based PE,which works flawlessly,also of course with XP.

Presumably this is being compared to a Linux based one.

Linux based recovery environments are fine for Linux,but problems have been reported with Windows recovery.
For example,when using ATI 10,the Linux environment quoted a restore period off the scale,which is two hours-so effectively I had to assume it wasnt working,after waiting 5 minutes for the bar to change.
I then booted into BartWinPE with TI-the restore took about 13 minutes.
This sort of scenario was quite common for me.

The only possible advantage from memory was that the Linux base one was fractionally faster to load

 

All else being equal then yes. If I have no choice then I have to put up with activation. Paperport has no competition as far as I am concerned so I put up with their activation program. If I want to change from one machine to another I go on line and deactivate machine one and activate machine 2. If their server is down ........ pain in the A. when I bought powershadow I naturally tested it on a spare machine. I activated and then found I could not remove it and install elsewhere. As Hairy said this is understandable - from the software co point of view but it provides no benefit whatsoever to the user ( no matter what MS claim) so when I have a choice between 2 equal programs ( and for me Acronis 10 is more than equal with SP) then I opt for no activation.

 

Hairy Coo i don't dispute that potential issue for a moment, yet i can safely say with confidence that of all different machines from Gateway to Dell and others i never had a single problem using Linux-Based disks although it can and does happen for some.

And be honest please, ATI is never really been a hallmark at trouble-free operations be they recovery environments or their program itself. Their forums is overloaded with issues and i would venture to include as clear evidence, their post percentages make up the highest amount of posts in Wilder's, and it's certaintly not positive by any stretch. But one can argue the majority of their users simply are ill prepared and just not ready for a program of the type that they offer the buying consumer.

Linux vs Microsoft recovery disks have always it seems been at odds but with the exception of WinInternals XP Recovery Environment, issues with Linux i feel have been given a bad rap over time.

If microsoft had the best interest of it's consumers in mind there would likely never been any need for a Linux CD to perform tasks that MS always seemed to suffer some limitations with.

BartPE is been like a saving grail for many when either or neither environment would come through for them as expected.

As concerns SP's CD Recovery, apparently it also retains some limitations itself although to a much lesser degree.

 

Easter,

Never had problems with Linux based disks except RECOVERY ones!

The one you recommended, for example -Linux Based Parted Magic-G Parted, is fantastic

Cant really find any limitations whatsoever with the SP disk-it just works.
Initially,when coming out of the recovery environment,I thought it had stalled and did a dirty reboot,but subsequently discovered that it was just a matter of waiting until it had exited properly.
The Linux base ones ,as I said, seem to be speedier with loading and exiting.

 

its my experience that Linux based in particular their Acronis are much faster in up and down,thats nice,but as said Acronis did a bad job by lack of hardware support. its not a fault with Linux Pe itself.

 

Hello Peter,

Thanks You, for responding!

Take Care
Rico

 

That's exactly right. We're aware of a crack for SP, however, many cracks also contain malware. The IT staff of our target market (the enterprise crowd) pretty much universally avoid using cracked software because it often compromises the security of their systems. Most experienced users avoid cracks for the same reason.

I hope that the piracy won't be too rampant because if it is we'll have to change the way we support our users so that only verified-legit users will receive decent support. Otherwise we'd be wasting a lot of time/money helping thieves. Up to this point our support has been rather generously provided to anyone, including pre-purchase customers.

Someone mentioned how they're not particularly thrilled that StorageCraft focuses on the enterprise crowd rather than home/end users. I would say there's good evidence to suggest that despite our focus, our desktop (end user) product is still a very good product for home users. For instance, as some have mentioned, our desktop product recently won PC Magazine's Editors' Choice in a roundup of the major end-user (not server) imaging products. This independent review by a reputable periodical should be comforting verification.

All that being said, if you're using some other imaging product which works well for you then I recommend that you stay with it. It makes no sense to switch when your current solution is working well. If you're currently undecided (and haven't purchased any such product) then do your due diligence and thoroughly test them all on your machines. What has worked for some other forum member may not work for you.

*EDIT*
Oh, wow, I just noticed the title of this thread. Sorry guys, if I had realized this thread was about alternatives to SP I wouldn't have discussed SP here. I kind of did a double take, actually, when I saw that thread title because of the implications. In the past, it's been threads like "Alternatives to True Image" or "Alternatives to Ghost," etc. Maybe this means we're finally on the conscious-radar of many users. That's an amazing thing really, because we've spent relatively little on marketing, vs. our competitors who have spent many tens of millions on marketing.

 

If really comparing features,the only alternative to SP at an affordable price,which has a type of HIR,may be Acronis True Image EchoWorkstation,plus Universal Restore.

Its also aimed at the enterprise/business market.

 

Word of mouth works It works even better on the Internet, specially when you get the attention of tech fluentials

 

I saw the PC Mag review of Shadow Protect 3 and was interested because it would write an image on a drive that had different hardware.

I tried Acronis. It worked once out of three times. I've been using Norton Save&Restore for the images. It has worked well and I've recovered twice with no problems. For backing up DOCS, I've been using SmartSync, which also works well.

But it's that ability to write an image regardless of hardware that's intriguing. Any info would be appreciated.

 

SP will restore an image from an existing computer onto a new drive on a DIFFERENT/ NEW computer altogether,none of the others can do that.
They can only clone/copy a drive to a new drive on the existing computer and as you say not too successfully.

 

Thank you very much for the info — and now — any idea where I can get it for less than $80?

 

Having been developed for the commercial market,you will find its a take it or leave it situation pricewise-no discounts-but still a bargain at the price.
Suggest you also buy the maintenance program entitling you to updates for a year