Cold-Imaging Competition

Very much Appreciated, Aaron!

 

It all subjective as Aaron pointed out. I own almost all these tools and use them from time to time doing cold imaging. IFL is hands down the fastest on my systems (I have had issues with IFD with my USB devices and prefer the added functionality of IFL such as networking and the built in tools)...I've found nothing that can beat it in a cold scenario. ATI is one of the slowest and least reliable for me, although I think Paragon and O&O are definintely the slowest. Farstone was also very fast for me, as is DS on WinPE. I use to be a huge Acronis fan back in the ATI 8.x, 9.1, and Echo days. I use to use it in my corporate setting as well and it was good until the newer versions; now it's been replaced. My opinion has been it's gotten too bloated and unstable. I mss PowerQuest V2i before Symantec ruined another good product.

 

interesting, how does one go about doing the same as this? thanks

edit- maybe you could create a mini tutorial as to avoid hijacking this thread?

 

Another thing too...while speed is nice, reliability is better. I'm actualy weary of tools that work so much faster than other tools. I go with "how reliable is this image" over "how fast can it image" any day.

 

Question...when a new version of Active@ Disk Image is released (as the standalone product), how long does it take until the Active@ Boot Disk is updated with the new version? Hoping they are changed around the same time. Also, I assume the verision of Disk Image is the same on the Active@ Boot Disk as it is on the standalone verison boot disk?

Thanks.

 

true, but something can be fast AND reliable, in all my years of using the acronis BOOT DISK, it has never failed me.

 

True, I guess my point was (and still is) speed is just one factor and not the most important depending on your needs.

 

There's no arguement that in the backup-restore game, reliability trumps speed. For that very reason I'm not about to ditch DS for ATI based on my test results todate. In over 3-years of regular use I have found DS to be 100% reliable. So far I've created just 2 ATI cold-images and while they both restored perfectly (and did so faster than DS) that's not nearly enough evidence for me (especially in light of the many 'nightmare' stories in the ATI forums)!

So I'll probably be using both ATI and DS for quite a while - until my comfort level with ATI's reliability approaches that of DS.

Aaron

 

Good points Aaron. I love exploring all the imaging tools, but utlimately I only feel comfortable trusting my data to a few...DS being one of them thanks to you.

 

Aaron,

Did you record the file size of your created images? In my IFW test a higher compression level reduced the file size by 7% but at the expense of doubling the image creation time. I'd be interested to know if the fast apps are using less compression.

 

Brian, I'm visiting a friend, but I can tell you that I definitely used the default compression levels of all 5 programs.

Aaron

 

I know. But each default compression level may be different and that will give a different image creation time. In my test DS created an image nearly 4% smaller than the IFW image and 2 seconds faster. If DS had used the same compression as IFW it would have beaten IFW by much more than 2 seconds.

A 7% difference in IFW file size doubled the image creation time.

Edit.... I just created an image with Active@ Disk Image. It took 1:02. Much faster than DS but the image file size was 10% larger than DS so its speed is related to using less compression.

 

Brian,

In my tests the resulting image-sizes never varied by more than 7% (not enough to be concerned about with today's drives). While I don't argue that compression-level differences will affect timings, it's not as if these programs give you a variable compression-level control.

Typically, you select None, Normal or High, with the default always being the program's Normal compression level ...and that's just the way it is (so I think you're making a moot point).

Aaron

 

Sure. Compression level determines how long it takes for an image to be created. Each app uses a different default level. My point is Active@ Disk Image is not necessarily more desirable than DS because it creates an image in a shorter period of time. It does this because it uses less compression. If one wants a fast image, use no compression. I do this often when I'm testing.

I have some data for IFW....
Nil compression 0:39
Max compression 11:17

A big difference.

 

In the end it all comes down to selecting a program based on several factors, such as system compatibility, ease-of-use, reliability, and speed (in no certain order). Speed just happens to be the one factor that's easily measured, while the other factors are not. So I based my tests on speed using each program's default compression-level ...and the rest is history.

Aaron

 

I think I am using ATI version 8
not actually sure because I made the boot disk
a long time ago and just got rid of the windows
program, this version was before it became bloatware

easy to use and has always done a good job
and just as fast or faster as any other I tried
I also like the fact it only creates one file for a image
I seen some create multiple files and to me that is just
a mess, like to keep things neat and tidy

 

This might be off topic, but interesting as I found out from Macrium Reflect that in Cold Imaging all the Windows Restore Points are included whereas in Hot Imaging none of the Windows Restore Points are included.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Dearest Aaron,

Terabyte IFW uses very low memory 8192kb for imaging and uses "Disk Storgae" for imaging which is very slow. Frog, when he taught us to do hot imaging with IFW for Rollback Rx keeping all snalpshots of Rollback Rx as intact, he told us to increase the memory to 131072kb and unckeck the Disk Storgae".

If you do these settings, you will find IFW very fast for both imaging and restore.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Hi KOR,

With IFD Aaron probably means Image for Dos, which is a backup program that runs under a DOS environment (for cold imaging).

If I'm right, IFW (Image for Windows) is for hot imaging only, or does IFD also has the option to increase the memory?

I'm using IFD, because it's integrated in BIBM (Bootit Bare Metal). Some people say IFL (Image for Linux) is faster in making images and others say IFD is faster in making images. Does any of you experienced differences in the time to create images between the two of them?

Pascal

p.s. Sorry Aaron, I now see that you where also discussing IFW (hot imaging). Those abbreviations are sometimes a little bit confusing

 

Dear Pascal,

I have a WinPE rescue disck for Image for Windows for doing Cold Imaging. It is very easy to create one!

Best regards,

KOR!

P.S. I am not sure why Aaron didn't use Image for Windows for Cold Imaging?

 

Here are the instructions for Creating a TeraByte WinPE Boot Disc Containing
Image for Windows (TBWinPE)

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/tbwinpe_tutorial.htm

The Old, Old Dos which has a restriction of only 640MB RAM. However, the fancy Windows with 16GB RAM works under the engine of Old, Old DOS.

 

Dear KOR,

Thank you
I'll give it a try.

 

Aaron Wherever,
Great thread and thanks for the time invested in the tests.

I have 2 questions.
For a very non-tech user that needs to be able to make images to restore his pc, as well as be able to restore individual files/folders, which of these programs is easiest to use?
And how do all of you feel about Shadow Protect Desktop? It's expensive but is it worth it?
Thanks.
Hugger

 

Hugger,

Your questions sound a lot like Scott W's - who is searching for the holy grail of disk-imaging, so please see my response to him in post #17. There is no absolute answer to either of your questions - it's strictly a matter of personal opinion.

In this round of cold-image testing I came away believing that the Acronis True Image boot-disk is easier to use than the others. ATI also turned out to be the overall speed champ in my tests, so you might give it a trial run.

Wherever (I like that).

 

KOR,

You might also wonder why I didn't test IFL, Farstone, Ghost, Macrium, Paragon, ShadowProtect, Todo, or others. Simply put, boot CDs of the 5 tested programs were readily available at the time, others were not.

From your posts it seems that you own more PCs than most of us, and quite a few disk-imaging programs, so why don't you run some tests and enlighten us?

Aaron