Probably the BEST backup software!

After a long web-search of reviews, where the vast majority of them were praising Acronis True Image 2009 as the best backup software -for no justified reason, I found the following rather honest, no BS review which made me decide to invest on Storagecraft's ShadowProtect as my next backup software, since I was looking to replace Acronis'.

I bought the software without trying it first because I was convinced and I was interested just for the "Recovery Environment" bootable cd (I always prefer the safety and precision of "cold" partition backups) and the cd iso was not included in the trial.

Compared to Acronis, ShadowProtect looks and feels Professional instead of amateurish. It provides the user with just the information, the feedback and the sense of security that is missing from Acronis, (I still refer to the "Recovery Environment" NOT the desktop software), it is a lot faster in backup, restore and verify (about 2x or more), it is NOT buggy, it is responsive and intuitive, it is reliable and it supports some pro features which I might explore some time in the future. The desktop application (actually there are two) seems very good but I haven't tried to do anything with it yet.

In sort, I'm a happy camper. At last a serious, fast, complete and reliable software, not a buggy, amateurish one! Read the review: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2254460,00.asp

 

A very nice review for sure and I have no bones to pick with it, but how do you KNOW its unbiased? Its so glowing it could almost be an advertisement.

 

Because in my experience, first of all, he wrote the whole truth about Acronis vs all the others who just didn't. Most of them were judging by how many bells and whistles each software had, instead of what is really important for the user.
As usually, most of them don't dare to tell the whole truth, either to keep the companies send them free copies of their products, or to avoid damaging other companies advertised. In other words, they give priority to their advertisers instead of their viewers which is wrong. Without viewers, there won't be advertisers either. With lots of viewers, the advertisers will come begging. (Not to mention that they might not even tried the software). But they are also responsible for the promotion of poor-made applications based on swallow "features" instead of deeper qualities.

And the truth can be ugly or really pretty too. After all, I bought the software and I agree with his view for a second time. With so much badly designed/implemented software, you can be enthusiastic some times.
So I don't care if he's biased. He's right!

 

Basically speaking about all in one imaging software like SP,ATI and Paragon,there is a slight preference for SP,at least here on Wilders but i guess that in all camps the majority is quite satisfied with there choices.
I for one fell in love with SP a few years ago and never looked back.

Just like the OP only using the recovery environment for backup and restore.

 

Shadowpretect has always saved my ass, even a Hardware Independent Restore after a motherboard change, OS was booting up, started installing new hardware drivers and worked just as great as before !

 

I have done around 30 bare metal restores using SP on different PCs having XP and Vista installed. It was always smooth sailing and never failed me. I cannot say this for Acronis, O&O and Macrium Reflect.

In the meantime bare metal restores have become a monthly routine with SP on my PC.

 

Please try Drive snapshot or Image for windows , they work better for me.I have done 250 successful restores with DS alone and it has never failed for me.

 

Nice Review!...Price is only thing holding me back from buying this after reading Peter's recommendation awhile back. I am using Image For Windows for now. Any comparison to SP?

 

Does it work with Linux partitions?

My Acronis seams to be having problems with the 256 byte inodes in ext3 file systems in recent versions of Ubuntu.

 

I have both. I switched to Acronis Echo Workstation because ShadowProtect does not support Windows 7. ATI Echo Workstation works great on Win7 and so does Universal Restore. It is much improved over older versions.

When ShadowProtect supports Win7, I will probably go back because it is about 30 percent faster and even more so on the incrementals.

Silver

 

This is absolutely no joke!

I concur 100% with DriveSnapshot, this is some masterful programming for a backup imaging program on the scale of a FD-ISR that i will repeat with no exaggeration whatsoever, it has never once failed, faltered, acted up in any way and is been 100% flawless in both imaging and restoring within a very reasonable time limit.

Trust me friend, when it's restored by DS, you won't even be able to tell anything before it ever was out of place or otherwise.

A truly remarkable feat of individual engineering compacted into such a minature sized image app.

I vote it into the Guiness Book Of World Records.

Thats right critics, no fluff, just the facts as Joe Friday would say on Dragnet. LoL

 

I use DS, because i dont do incrementals.DS is portable and always work faster than Shadow protect on my comp.Though this speed differ from one config to another.

I dont think anyone need to look beyond 1)IFW 2)Shadow protect 3)Drive snapshot.

 

On my computer - 16GB in use on C: partition ( results are following:
DS: 8min 30sec (image file: 6.26GB)
SP: 6min 10sec (image file: 6.17GB)

 

Now I want to try ShadowProtect
I'm using ATI though, due to all the praisings in the media.
Any discounts promotion for this product?

 

As far as i know there is only one discount on SP. It is available when you buy "ShadowProtect Desktop Edition 3.3 - Home User Bundle -" - that means one serial number, licensed for THREE computers:
http://store.storagecraft.com/acb/s...UserID=1766862&SessionID=CLKbm8b2ujBZpgN1bBkV
The regular price for SP is $79, when you buy it in this special pack you get ~$63 per license.

 

With all due disrespect to reviews, I don't need to read anywhere that ShadowProtect is great. I'm even using it as an ISR (I uninstalled FirstDefense PC Rescue) as it is as fast as most of them (9-10 minutes to restore 21 GB), for example I have several images with different applications including one with Vista 64 bit that I like playing with, when I have time. Like others I always use the recovery CD, never failed once, and never validated any: it just works.

 

Do you know is there any possibility to use USB instead of SP CD recovery? It is more handy/portable if you use notebook when you're away from home.
I am asking because ISR softwares editing MBR sectors of HD and you don't need additional Rescue Disk.

 

I'm sorry but I can't answer your question. All I can say is that if it were possible it would probably be included in the help file. I also don't know how the computer would distinguish booting from the main drive and a USB drive.

 

I would still be using SP but could never get it to work on my Thinkpad T400 laptop as others have also had problems with restoring SP images on these machines. Anyway, it is a great program if it works with your hardware.

Gary

 

Great product.
Way too expensive for a student like me to buy.

 

Acronis is a good program to stay away from.
I have used it and it is only reliable with a straight backup.

I now use a free program called "Clonezilla".
It backs up my triple boot system just fine.
Running Windows and Linux.

I guess you guys have the big bucks to spend.

 

Not with SP that I'm aware of.
However there are options available,UBCD4Win can be run from a USB drive and you can create an Acronis plugin for it,also plugins are available for Macrium Reflect and DriveImageXML.