my search for best disk imaging software

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by hawkeen, Mar 3, 2009.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2005
    Posts:
    12,113
    Location:
    NSW, Australia
    Markymoo's Drive Snap is very clever too. It does need a pre made CD (just as IFW needs a pre made bootfile) but you can do an automatic restore from DOS or BartPE. Put the CD in the tray and walk away.
     
  2. Aaron Here

    Aaron Here Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2006
    Posts:
    1,205
    Location:
    USA
    That may very well be the case, but I really don't find booting up UBCD4Win to run DS inconvenient at all ...and once DS is running I do walk away. ;)
     
  3. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2005
    Posts:
    12,113
    Location:
    NSW, Australia
    That's nice too. We should feel comfortable doing a restore.
     
  4. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2007
    Posts:
    2,976
    I also love Image for windows and Drive Snapshot. Both are very flexible and extremly reliable imaging applications.

    Image for windows combined with the included image for dos and the free TBOSDTS (TeraByte OS Deployment Tool Suite) is fantastic for restoring without an external media boot disk.

    Drive Snapshot is probably the swiss knife of imaging. Beside imaging and restoring has the ability to create primary, extended and logical partitions, restoring the partition table only (without restoring the whole mbr)
    Can correctly backup and restore the latest EXT3 partitons (and for my big surprise also supports) the journalised Mac OS X partitions. :eek:

    Panagiotis
     
  5. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2005
    Posts:
    12,113
    Location:
    NSW, Australia
    Panagiotis,

    I know nothing about Macs. Is that the latest OS? Interesting.
     
  6. Jo Ann

    Jo Ann Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 6, 2007
    Posts:
    619
    Most disk-imaging programs that I've used do the job well enough, but I love DS because it's small, portable, fast and very reliable. I also like the fact that it's very light on resources (unlike some others like Acronis TI and ShadowProtect).

    IFW may also fit that bill, but I don't have experience with it.
     
  7. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 20, 2003
    Posts:
    20,590
    Not sure I'd call ShadowProtect very heavy on resources. I have it running all day on one of my desktops, and you don't even know it's there.
     
  8. Aaron Here

    Aaron Here Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2006
    Posts:
    1,205
    Location:
    USA
    Pete, a while back I installed and evaluated SP. While I found it to be a very capable program, it definitely slowed-up my 3-year old laptop! However, I thought it's boot disk was about the best one of all the disk-imaging programs I've used.
     
  9. raakii

    raakii Registered Member

    Joined:
    Sep 1, 2008
    Posts:
    593
    I and happy to use Drive snap shot , bcos in 100 restores it has int even failed once,and then its portable very fast and extremely lightweight.:thumb: For me Drive snapshot divides my computing experience into two , before DS(BDS) and after DS(ADS) just as Birth of Christ did to mark the years.:p
     
  10. vijayind

    vijayind Registered Member

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2008
    Posts:
    1,413
    Anybody tried PowerCopy ?
    http://www.datapower.de/index_e.htm

    Has many claims on site:
     
  11. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2007
    Posts:
    2,976
    Neither do I...:p
    A friend of mine has a Mac with OS X leopard (I think is the latest) and I asked him to format one of my usb hard disks with its native structure and to throw in some files, folders etc. Then I took an image of the drive (has a strange structure with 2 free spaces of 200mb each, at the beggining and at the end of the drive) then I zeroded everything and restored the image and it worked without any errors (we checked it at his mac).
    DriveSnapshot was the only windows program that managed to do it, without using sector by sector imaging. :cool:

    Panagiotis
     
    Last edited: Mar 6, 2009
  12. hgratt

    hgratt Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2004
    Posts:
    113
    FWIW, I recently chose ShadowProtect for my imaging program. The main reason was I was able to test it without purchase to insure that it worked on a new Dell Latitude E6500.

    The requirements I had was that the software had to function with the Dell's SSD system drive and perform the image\restore to an external Seagate Freeagent Xtreme HDD via an eSATA connection. SP did this without issue. It imaged an 8.1GB (image file size after compression) in 2 minutes 50 seconds. Restore was even faster.

    Harvey
     
  13. Aaron Here

    Aaron Here Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2006
    Posts:
    1,205
    Location:
    USA
    Did you make that backup-image from the Windows-installation of SP, or the boot-disk?
     
  14. hgratt

    hgratt Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2004
    Posts:
    113
    I typically make the backup image from the installed SP within windows (xp pro).

    Harvey
     
  15. Aaron Here

    Aaron Here Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2006
    Posts:
    1,205
    Location:
    USA
    Whoa, backing-up 8.1GB in under 3 minutes is incredibly fast considering SP had to use shadow mode to copy the open Windows files!!! :eek:
     
  16. hgratt

    hgratt Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2004
    Posts:
    113
    Remember, I'm using an eSATA connection to my external HDD as well as having an SSD for the system drive.

    Also, on another machine I use Acronis True Image 10 and image (from windows) to an external USB drive. The eSATA connection is a little over 2.5 times faster - which I believe is what is advertised.

    Harvey
     
  17. Aaron Here

    Aaron Here Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2006
    Posts:
    1,205
    Location:
    USA
    Oops, I did overlook your eSATA connection - that explains the amazing performance (compared to my USB2)!!! ;)
     
  18. Huupi

    Huupi Registered Member

    Joined:
    Sep 2, 2006
    Posts:
    2,024
    In my experience Sata is almost 4 times faster if compared with USB2.

    I image one station to a second internal sata disk,17 gig take 4.13 min.
    If i image to an USB2 disk time it takes around 15 min !!
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2009
  19. Aaron Here

    Aaron Here Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2006
    Posts:
    1,205
    Location:
    USA
    I'm jealous (truly)!!! :p
     
  20. bgoodman4

    bgoodman4 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2009
    Posts:
    3,237
    WOW, I had heard there was a performance difference but I had not realised it was this significant. Thanks.
     
  21. hgratt

    hgratt Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2004
    Posts:
    113
    Is this a fair comparison? I would expect (maybe erroneously) that you would have a faster transfer rate if both drives are internal . In my case, my target drive is external and connected via eSATA.

    Harvey
     
  22. Huupi

    Huupi Registered Member

    Joined:
    Sep 2, 2006
    Posts:
    2,024
    AFAIK it depend solely on the interfaces Sata or Usb,i guess it has nothing to do with internal or external.
     
  23. renegade08

    renegade08 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2008
    Posts:
    432
    AFAIK older version of Paragon can make startup disk to be on a floppy.
    I don't know for newest versions.

    I have seen that feature, although i have never tried.
     
  24. Aaron Here

    Aaron Here Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2006
    Posts:
    1,205
    Location:
    USA
    I truly can't imagine getting along without an optical drive - in your situation I would seriously consider buying an external DVD-ROM (so that you can read/burn CDs and read DVDs). Here is just one example. ;)
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2009
  25. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2005
    Posts:
    12,113
    Location:
    NSW, Australia
    Aaron,

    I've measured my USB2 transfer rate at 25 MB/sec. Currently I have an old SATA HD in an enclosure and the transfer rate is 55 MB/sec. This is the same transfer rate as when that HD was mounted internally. My new internal HDs transfer at 115 MB/sec and I'll bet it would be the same rate if I had one of those HDs in my eSATA enclosure.

    HDs just keep getting faster.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.