Are there other IMAGING options out there?

Paragon looks similar? I heard bad things about Ghost (and Symantec loads too much crap!). Is that it, next to free/share ware which I don't want to use.

Is RAID a method that mirrors the base drive to another in real time move after move...so i don;t have to create a image at intervals? What if a virus gets on the base drive...will RAID transfer this virus to the drive being mirrored to...so that drive would be useless also? if the base drive fails, will the mirrored drive also contain that bad data or sector rendering it also a duplicate failed drive? or not?

Looking for the BEST method for backup...that isn't to anal to pull off.

thanks.

 

Some folks find it too hard to get support from symantec. They closed down their maillist/forums ages ago so you don't have that kind of resource last time I looked.

RAID1 and above will provide redundancy in the event that a hdd goes south -- that's all it does. If one of the hdds goes south, the RAID can rebuild when you replace the one derective drive. The value of RAID is that hdds don't usuually all go bad at the same time.

If there is a software muck up--virus, bad installion, corrupt files, etc., it will generally be mirrored and RAID won't help there at all. You need an independent backup of the hdd if you want to be able to go back in time to before the software muckup reared its ugly head.

There are a few other imaging programs out there; all have their problems and benefits, but ATI seems the best of the bunch and you can try the latest version for free to see if it works for you. I don't know if any of the others do that.

 

Sorry guys but this topic isn't suitable for the Official Acronis True Image forum so I've locked the thread. If you wish to continue the debate, please do so in the Software and Services forum. Thanks for your cooperation.

Menorcaman