Any one using Drive snapshot???

http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/
Tried trial version and created backup of my c: drive . Not taking high resources and image creation was quick. Any one tried this ?
Is that good??

 

If you search this forum for "Drive Snapshot" you will find quite a few DS fans (I am one) plus lots of good info...

 

Yes, DS is a great piece of software, just remember you'll need to create a recovery disk with bartpe or something similar to restore your C:\ drive.

 

"Drive Snapshot" and "Image for windows" are two of the fastest and most reliable imaging applications.

Panagiotis

 

oh thanks for the replies . But how good is it compared to macrium reflect free??

 

For me the correct question is "how good is a product compared to drivesnapshot?".

Drive snapshot and Image for windows are the only products that I have never seen failing to image/restore... not once. And I have done hundrends of images/restorations with them on very different system configurations.

Panagiotis

 

DS is a quite remarkable program given its small footprint and size. Not needing to be installed, it can be run from anywhere or just about anything as long as you can boot into some sort of GUI. Unbelievably simple to use and reliable too.

 

Drive snapshots also has powerful command line features, such as

C:\> snapshot --exclude:*.mp3
would perform an image snapshot and exclude the data within every mp3 file.

At restore, files are re-created but empty (you may clear them with a little .bat script that is created during imaging).

I also use it to backup my Tomtom rather than the cumbersome TomTom dedicated app. Differential backups are very quickly done.

The only minor gripes I may have with it :
- restoration CD is too minimal, you have to use a bartCD or any WinPE liveCD to get some ease of use
- some powerful features are only accessible through command lines.
- no integrated CD/DVD burning engine (Image for Windows/DOS/Linux are more powerful there)

 

There are other features missing from Drive Snapshot that have not been mentioned, such as the ability to include more than one partition in an sna file (useful for restoring Windows 7 and the hidden system partition), and complete compatibility with Windows 7 (excluding of the the swap and hibernation files). I've repeatedly asked Tom for these necessary features but they seem to have been ignored.

 

Strange, but this may work now : you open the GUI and Ctrl-Click each partition you want to save, and I think it does what you need ?

 

thank u for replies.

 

Is that with 1.39 or with the 1.4 release candidate?
Can it do that from the command-line?

 

With current 1.39 version it works fine. Regarding the command line, I have not tried, but I guess something like :
> snapshot c: d: "f:\backup of c and d.sna"
might work.

 

BTW, where did you get information about a 1.4 version ? I'd be most interested... Thanks.

 

I have done 500 restores with DS,works fine.My second option is IFW.Another great piece of software.

 

He might be referring to me. I've been in contact with Tom and have discussed DS 1.4. I know that the second release candidate is in the testing phase but that it includes none of the features that I think are needed; the ability to exclude the swap and hibernation files or the ability to include more than one partition inside a single *.sna file.

 

n8,

I'm fairly certain that DS excludes the swap & hibernation files in WinXP. Did this stop working in Windows 7?

Furthermore, I am able to image both of my partitions at the same time by highlighting my C & D partitions, followed by giving the destination file the name $DISK (with credit to Jo Ann).

Aaron

 

Yes it did.

Doing this will allow to to create the images at the same time, true, but they are not both contained within the same file. The is very important in windows 7 as there is a system-created partition that contains the kernel and other system files that the user would need.

 

n8, you just gave me two more reasons for being very content with WinXP.

Do you have an idea of the enhancements that will be introduced in v1.4?

 

new in 1.40 will be

• support for Exchange 2007
  
• restoring the system partition 'at the time where CHKDSK runs', on next reboot. handy if your system is compromised, but still booting
  
• better working --AddDriver for moving to different (RAID) disk controllers

 

Thanks n8 - you must have a very special relationship with Tom...

 

This second feature is what I have been looking for a long time ! Only R-Drive Image has it I think (maybe Acronis too).

 

Does this hopefully mean that you dont need a boot cd anymore (in case its still booting)?

 

yes, exactly. this will however only work for local images (on another partition or USB drive), but not for network files