Anyone using ActiveImage Protector?

Timcan in another thread today posted a link to an imaging software I have never heard of. I'll try it out (free trial) out of curiosity, but was curious if anyone is actually using it, and if so, what their impressions are? Thanks. The link is:

http://www.rectiphy.com/products/desktop

 

throughout their site they put an emphasis on the speed of their product.
it'd be interesting to actually test the thing.

from the list of features on their site it seems a worthwhile product.
at 59$, it's not cheap but ShadowProtect is even pricier.

other features:

 

About to do an image...first impression is actually very good. When you create the boot CD you can add drivers then (reminds me of the Sysinteral's boot CD back in the day). I prefer cold imaging...the boot CD is nice, clean, but based on WinPE 2.0. Standard options, and looks similar to ShadowProtect. Will post more...

 

looks really nice and it is a bit cheaper than sp i agree it almost looks like a sort of clone to sp very similar while it is a bit different... ill await your results thanks

 

I took a live image...pretty fast...at work so I wasn't able to offically time it but I will say it was faster than DriveSnapshot...I'd say it took under 30 minutes (~60gb of data). I have some time now and will try some other things...mouting, etc. Restores are what I care about but I won't be able to do one until tonight.

 

Pretty cool options here...figured I'd post this screenshot...some good testing coming up.

 

...don't see these options in some imagers...

 

nice

 

Some good FAQ's here... http://www.rectiphy.com/support/activeimage-protector-faq/

Talks about SSD's...drive sizes (like Shadowprotect it can restore images to the same size drive or larger but not reduced), etc.

 

I think I found a drawback : it seems incremental images are only created when using scheduled tasks. I would have liked to be able to create incremental images at specific times.

 

It says it supports "Restore to different hardware", but I cannot find an option in trial version. Or it does automatically?

 

oh...its a bad news...

 

I've never had to shrink a drive...I usually only go up. Not a huge deal to me...you can restore the image and use any partition tool (like BootIT Bare Metal) to change sizes afterward. Still I guess it is easier if it was done all at once.

 

I also had the nasty behavior using the recovery media : I created an image of a small partition, mounted this partition, exited properly the environment, and after reboot on my regular system, I saw that the partition holding the image had a corrupt ntfs. I have reported the issue, I am waiting for an answer.

 

No kidding...I didn't have the time last night to experiment with the boot CD like I had hoped (and do a test restore). Let me know what you find out.

 

Chaging partition size is not a safe action, and its waste of time.

Restoring to a smaller partition needs to change partition size, I remember Drive Snapshot needs.

 

I suspect the nfts filesystem (the one hosting the image files) got slightly corrupted because the image was still mounted when I exited the WinPE environment. Still, it's rather a "faute de goût" (bad manners) for a pro software. And I found it after just 15mn testing...

 

Hi,

I have been using AIP since this week-end in a deeper way, and it starts to really stand out, despite the few issues I have pointed at before.

The incremental mode is blazingly fast, thanks to the sector modification tracking that runs in background. Minor drawback : only one job can benefit from it, which is quite logical. I mean the tracking occurs for a given partition with respect to a given full image. If you perform another full image from the same partition onto a different target (with a different job), you will not (logically) get also a sector modification tracking, and incremental images will be much slower.

I also regret the lack of scheduling flexibility, but the unique features of this imaging solution make it worthwhile considering.

 

I finally got around to testing this more...just did a few restores this morning. I have to tell you, it's fast and appears very stable in my testing. It's grown on me for sure. It's the only PE-based CD that I've used that restores with the same speed as the IFL CD. I think it's worth checking out...apparently this technology came from Japan and was just released in the NA market in April 2010 I think. While the technology itself is mature, it has a "start up" feel as it's new over here. Had decent conversations with Sales and Support.

 

http://translate.google.com/transla...HO&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&prmd=ivns

also i have not had the time yet to test this so ill ask how is the activation? is it like sp or a normal key etc? thanks

 

Just a normal serial key...it's not activated online like SP as far as I can tell.

 

I think it might since the computer name is displayed in the activation window.

 

AIP appears interesting - since you guys are testing it, I have a few questions:

- Am I to understand that AIP will not create an incremental image on-demand?

- Does AIP offer the option to create differential images on-demand?

- Does AIP's boot-disk offer the option to create a raw (all-sectors) image?

Thanks,
Aaron

 

1/ Actually, you may create incremental images on demand, using a pre-defined scheduled task. You just run manually the task, et voilà !
2/ No differential images at all
3/ Don't know

 

Thanks for the feedback Merle - however my 3rd question is most important (for my needs), so can anyone else can answer it?

Aaron