Imaging Software not requiring VSS?

Hi,

Which imaging software do not need VSS to make a hot image?
My Vss is kind for broken. So it would help me a lot.

Best Wishes,
ams963

 

Image for Windows does not need VSS (although it can use it) as it has its own technology, named PHYLock.

 

Paragon Backup & Recovery has it's own hot processing:

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/

 

All the major commercial ones have their own alternative to VSS, although they can also use VSS which tends to be faster (at least on my laptop). My favorite backup program, Drive Snapshot, doesn't need VSS although I always use it.

 

That's interesting; I'm also a DS fanboy (for several years now) but I've always used the default setting, which uses DS' own driver. I'l have to try the VSS setting to see if I notice a backup time difference.

Scott

 

I have Macrium and Drive Snapshot.

Macrium uses VSS, DS doesn't as far as I can tell.

DS is definitely the faster of the two, more significantly on full images than on differential backups on my XP Pro SP3 system.

 

Actually, as pajenn and I discuss above, DS will use VSS (if you set it to so in Advanced Options).

Furthermore, I just confirmed pajenn's claim that using VSS with DS results in a much faster backup than using DS' driver!

The exact same backup of my C-drive (DS default driver vs VSS):

With DS' driver: 18 minutes
With W7's VSS: 14 minutes

Scott

 

When I set my "advanced options" in DS I left it at the default as regards VSS.

The difference in time you quote (four minutes) is about the same time differential between DS (at default) and Macrium (using VSS) on my system.

Whether DS would be faster still if I change that default setting yet remains to be seen, but at the default it is faster than Macrium for a full backup.
On a "differential" backup the margin is cut by about half (or two minutes).

I'll try to remember to change the setting for my next backup. I did one with each of the two apps earlier today.

 

Have you considered fixing whatever ails your VSS?

 

He already did in another thread lol..

 

Excellent Scott, but what about restoration, any problems?

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Excellent point...thanks for asking this.

 

KOR/Blues,

I just finished the restore of my first ever DS backup using VSS, and as always* it completed successfully.

*Over the past 5 years that I have been using DS it has never failed to restore any of its backup images!

 

Scott, was the restoration commensurately quicker as well?

Thanks.

 

Thank you Scott, much appreciate!

Best regards,

KOR!

 

You're welcome. I know that you are an IFW user so it would be interested if you conducted a similar backup test to see if using VSS results in a speed advantage over IFW's Phylock.

Scott

 

I use four different imaging programs, IFW is one of them. I am not in speed as sometimes one imaging software is much faster and another time it is the another one.

I rely on good imaging program to ensure that I can restore the image without a hitch.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

No and you shouldn't expect it to be any faster - all system-partition restores are 'cold' (performed from some other booted OS), so those snapshot-locking drivers do not come into play.

Scott

 

Obviously that is paramount - but given comparable reliability, faster is better.

Scott

 

You mean like Speedy Gonzalez!

LOL.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Thanks for the good info.

Like KOR, I like having options...in my case either going to Drive Snapshot or Macrium Reflect (Standard).

I use DS as my main "go-to" but once when I couldn't get Windows to load the Macrium restore function at boot-up came in very handy and saved me some time and hassle.

 

I find Rollback Rx very handy in such situations - but whatever works!

 

Regarding differential (or incremental) images, I think Macrium by default takes the difference based on file sizes and time stamps, whereas Drive Snapshot uses file checksums. The latter method is more reliable but slower. I'm a big fan of the particular way Drive Snapshot implements their differential backups, but in general I like the faster incremental method more because otherwise differentials can be almost as slow as full backups, so you might as well only make full images.

In terms of Drive Snapshot, however, it creates a small hash file for the initial full backup, which you can then use to make small differential snapshots. Because both files are relatively small (assuming no major changes on your system drive), I can keep the hash file on a secondary (data) partition and make differential backups of the system drive to that same secondary partition, whereas with full backups I always make them on to an external hdd, which I don't carry with me when on the go. Plus Drive Snapshot differentials are a bit faster than the full snapshots. That said, I wish DS gave the user an option to also use the faster, less reliable, file comparison method for differential snapshots.

 

pajenn, I can only speak to my own experience...but the following is a pretty close approximation of how things are currently on my system with about 15 gigs of the hard drive being imaged:


Drive Snapshot (default setting): Full image takes about 10 minutes.

Macrium Reflect: About 14 minutes (give or take)

______________________

Drive Snapshot (default setting): Differential image takes about 4 1/2 minutes.

Macrium Reflect: About 4 1/2 to 6 minutes (as a range). The last image I did following DS was very close in time.


I am very happy with both of these programs. DS is the one I tend to rely upon more often for images but Macrium proved its worth to me when I needed to boot into its "system restore" before loading Windows. It was very fast (and painless) and saved me a lot of grief when I couldn't get my system booted to install an image from DS.

I'm a relative newcomer to imaging having only been using it for about the last year or two but I am completely sold on its value now and make use of the process regularly.