my search for best disk imaging software

I don't know much about imaging software, so it's great all the info being provided in this thread.

Another member mentioned EAZ-FIX for recovery/rollback in another thread. I noticed Easy Image was featured on the same vendor's site.

Anyone used Easy Image? Has a 15-day trial.
http://www.eazsolution.com/en/easyimage.php

More info here:
http://www.pcundo.com/easyimage.php

 

Easy Image is the same product as Keriver Image V4 which I use. It works quite well, the only minor issue is that for the moment, image files cannot be encrypted. And I think there is no direct DVD burning (maybe not, I didn't try). It supports both differential and incremental images, and the recovery CD is WinPE based, also a plus.

 

Thanks for that MerleOne. It's seems to be a low price too.

For those interested, so it's the same as:
http://www.keriver.com/index.html

Documentation/instructions:
http://www.keriver.com/document.html

Videos:
http://www.keriver.com/tutorial.html

How's the backup speed?

 

Satisfying enough. A bit slower than Drive Snapshot but fair enough, also differential backups are considerably faster than full backups.

Hot backups rely on Microsoft Shadow Service, so it causes no compatibility problems.

Best thing is to use the trial period and see if it suits your needs.

 

Just a quick update.

I have used O&O image software for almost 2 months and it has been rock solid. I have restored it many times and no failures yet. There has been one major update and the original restore cd worked with images made with the new update so no problems here and god is it fast!!!!


Hawk

 

That's a problem with O&O : whenever they release a new build, as a registered user you can only gain the Windows installer, not the new bootable CD, unless you paid for a new media you get by post !

 

I am running a triple boot system: windows vista and windows XP Pro on the 1st Sata Drive. Ubuntu 9.04 /ext3 on the 2nd Sata drive.

I use Acronis TI to do Full backups. I want to switch to what I think will handle my triple boot setup: Drive Snapshot. So today(05-05-09) I went up on "drivesnapshot.de/en" and tried to download the test "setup.exe" from the site. My Eset Smart Security found the "win32/genetik trojan" and stopped the download.

I sent an email to the author of Drive Snapshot about the virus but I doubt I'll get an answer.

When and if I get the chance to download from the site, I have a problem understanding which version to download. I am a non business user.
Thanks for any help.

 

DS Developer usually answers quickly. Try the following :
1/ Upload this setup.exe to Virustotal.com and see if it's really infected. If not (a majority of AV engines see it as safe, simply exclude him from Nod32 detections)
2/ Submit setup.exe to ESET as a false positive for them to analyse it and change their sigs
3/ Download the standalone executable snapshot.exe, you will have almost all functionalities

 

Some success.
Eset responded in about 24 hours and now the Win32/genetik trojan no longer
stops the download.

From what I have been learning, I might as well go with the Markymoo "Drivesnap" front end for Drive snapshot.
It seems that the Vista download might work for the Ubuntu image BUT the download of "setup.exe" will not
work in Ubuntu for imaging Windows. IMHO this would open the possibility of errors in the backup procedure and
certainly isn't automated.

 

me too.
i'm using Drive Snapshot since 2003 and recommend it to all my clients. actually i use it on more than 10 servers. i schedule a job per batch, so every night the system is imaged.
this helped me a lot when system broke down. i successfully restored more than 10 times a complete server in about 3 hours (each time) including the time for assembling new hardware. (my clients were wondering, why the previous admin needed days for that task and were very happy)
for restore i use a BartPE CD with Snapshot. May be it is more comfortable for unexperiented users to use a recover CD like the one from OO, but i couldn't do my job without a BartPE CD. so i invested a few hours in building such a CD and burn a new one with newest software releases only once a year.

my experiences with other imaging software: too slow (imaging and restoring) or worst case: restore doesn't work at all.
in my opinion is DS still unbeatable, because: fast, inexpensive, scriptable and IT WORKS. it fits on one floppy, you don't have to install it, just execute.

yes i am a fan of DS.

tom

 

Interesting. I have three questions about DS:
Does it work on Win7 RC? How difficult is it to make a boot cd? I have been using ATI and really like it. No problems with it. The only thing i want to get rid of are the 4? services always running and using cpu and ram.
With ATI the backup time on my system is about 14 minutes and 6! minutes to restore. Is the DS restore time also half the time of the backup time like in ATI? Thx

 

Boot cd is not big thing to do, and its a once in a lifetime process.Drivesnapshot is very very fast and most importantly portable .For me recovery of xp+apps takes just 70 seconds .Normally users should spend 2 minutes if xp is configured properly,it takes 5 minutes for vista.If u dont like DSu may try IFW which is just as good, but dont whether its really portable.I am not going search for another app ,unless it is as portable and lightweight as Drivesnapshot.

 

The license doesn't appear on the site, but the clear implication is that you must license a copy of the software for every machine on which the executable is installed. So, however good DS may be, I wouldn't call it inexpensive.

 

What do you mean by portable? What boot environment do you use? The problem with porting a boot CD from machine to machine is that SATA and network drivers (for example) differ from machine to machine. A BART/PE disk for machine A won't necessarily work for machine B. In our small shop (five machines) we image to a network repository, so the network driver problem is an issue with boot disks for all imaging tools.

 

I'm on a triple system too, and I like to sometimes backup all three partitions at once. I also like to have the choice to either restore one, two or all three partitions whenever I feel like.
Free and open source Clonezilla does that for me. Backup or restore are done from one boot cd. Fast, easy,powerful. Does not care whether you try to save a Windows or a Linux partition, xp or Vista or Win7, desktop or laptop, it does it all without problem. Complete cloning of a whole drive at once is no problem either.
Of course, you can also save one partition at a time if you like too.
Give it a try. After a learning curve of a few minutes, you'll love it as much as I do and marvel at its power and precision.

 

I use Clonezilla and its never let me down. If there's another Imaging program with a neat feature like voice activation I might give that a try

 

I second that. Just remember to select the "experimental" (Ubuntu based) version if you use ext4.

 

Does Clonezilla supports differential or incremental backups ? This is a very useful feature if you want to save backup space.

 

No, it doesn't. No problem for me as I'm always doing only full backups.

 

OK, thanks. Considering the fact I perform differential backup at least once a week for both data and system partition, at home & at work, I couldn't do without differential backup.

 

Please ignore my previous posts here as I have completely changed my mind.
I found an imaging program that works very will in my triple boot situation.
Clonezilla-live. I only do full backups and the time to backup 36G is about 10 to 15 minutes.
I use a WD Sata HD to backup to. I also did a test restore and I know now that works also.
So why spend money on Drivesnap or Acronis TI etc. when this product is free and a lot better.
I can't speak for Drivesnap but I could never get it to work for me. Acronis TI needs a
lot of work to ever be a 1st class program IMHO.

 

No voice, but i think it has differential.
http://www.mondorescue.org/