Restore software-what is your choice?

Rollback version 8 can do 2 types of backup.
1. You can take snapshots that reference some snapshots to the baseline snapshot. Maybe this is not technical but I think you know what I mean.
2. You can backup a snapshot to an external location. In this case it will backup the complete snapshot with all information not just linking to others. It uses Bart PE plugin to do the restoring of those backups.

Hope this helps,

Chris

 

I guess you could call them differential snapshots, but linked by whatever has changed between the baseline and the point in time snap that is taken.

FD-ISR creates an exact copy when you take a snapshot hence the sizes are the same.

 

I also don't mean in any way to discount Rollback's effectiveness, in fact i took a fancy to it at first and there are a few features that i really favor and especially the analog clock. LoL

What i like to see is a good stable and very dependable Version 9 of Rollback Rx. I think if it panned out i would definitely feel more confident when judging comparisons between it and FD-ISR although i will never part from FirstDefense whatsoever. It's opened a whole new door of excitement and confidence in recovery for me but much more than that, finally you can run several separate instances of your system and customize them to your heart's content. That is fantastic for everything from testing programs all the way to completely redressing the looks and actions of XP.

 

Symantec LiveState Recovery


Regards,

Smokey

 

I guess when I hear everyone talking about First Defense like it's perfect I get a little confused. I have read posts that said First defense is not compatible with some programs. The only program I can think of seeing Rollback doesn't work with is Other backup programs and disk defragmenters. In my opinion it can do everything First Defense can do and a whole lot more. But I guess we all will have our preferences with programs I guess.

Thanks,

Chris

 

I don't think the "perfect" program exists. There are so many different variations, and what might suit one may not work well for another. The only hope is that software engineers strive to improve each version so that some or all of these kinks can be ironed out to suit the majority of users remembering every set-up is different. The developers can't possibly know every rig in the world, but they can get pretty close with most of the common configurations.

 

View Poll Results: what is your choice?
RollbackRx 23 16.43%
FirstDefence 47 33.57%
DeepFreeze 5 3.57%
CleanSlate 0 0%
ShadowUser 8 5.71%
Norton GoBack 5 3.57%
Restore it 3 2.14%
Others( pls specify). 49 35.00%

This result is the most interesting which kind of stands out.

So far there are more than double the FD-ISR (Perfect) users than Rollback Rx limited. lol

 

I can see discussing this further with you is useless. Yes FDISR has more votes than Rollback. It has also been around longer than Rollback. This forum also has FDISR Forum which does seem to have impact with these polls. Just take a look https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=160734 . Nod is ahead and wait they have a forum here as well. People that use these products come here so of course the voting will be skewed. If we put a list on Rollbacks forum I bet Rollback will be higher. It doesn't really matter all I am saying is feature to feature Rollback has much more to offer than FDISR. Again we all have our preferences but that does not make a program that has much less to offer better just because you like it. It just makes it better for you.

Thanks,

Chris

 

And yet there are 49 users who use other products which they obviously consider to be a better option than FD-ISR or Rollback Rx.

It's immaterial. It's what works best on one's system, which makes it the "winner" in their eyes.

 

I agree.

Thanks,

Chris

 

Have to agree with you Chris.
Right now I use FDISR which I made the mistake buying from Raxco, who seems to forgot they sold it, and promised to provide support for.
I like the program but I doubt , that down the road with new versions, if I'd pay full price again from someone else.
I've trialed Rollback and think it does a good job also. Maybe that would be next.
But as you said it comes down to preferences. If it does what you want it to do, then it's the best program for you.
Regardless of how many people may use it.
Hey, nothing wrong with following your own drummer. Most individuals, do!

 

I have used Acronis for years, FD-ISR for months and have just bought a copy of DeepFreeze. I would still like to add to my collection. Rollback Rx sounds interesting. I may have looked at it once before. Is it possible to set it up to
just restore OS and programs ? I don't really want any program messing with my data.

 

At the very least, RB protects the C-partition on your C-drive. If you have multiple partitions on your C-drive, it's up to you (at time of setup) whether or not you want RB to protect those as well.

When you do an RB restore, it restores the designated snapshot in its entirety (i.e., the entire protected partition at the time the snapshot was taken). This restoration becomes your current snapshot. Sometimes, you might want to restore individual folders/files from another snapshot to the current snapshot. You may do that at any time, but that is a separate and intentional recovery process that you initiate at your discretion.

Hth, Jo Ann

 

Exactly my point made in the reply. Although Rollback & FD-ISR are highly voted these "others" obviously take exception to BOTH products.

So there you go Chris.

 

As Jo An said if you have a seperate partition you can tell Rollback to protect only your system partition if you want. Also if you want Rollback can be set up to restore at reboot which is very similar to what deepfreeze does.

Thanks,

Chris

 

Hello Chris,
Exactly, and I really make good use of RB's ability to easily recover specific files/folders, which is just like having a file-by-file backup!

Rollback Rx rocks! - that is v7.2.1 (v8 is still too 'young' to trust).

 

I'm assuming your talking about the issue where you uninstall Rollback and when you reinstall you have to activate again and then you activation limit is exceeded?

Thanks,

Chris

 

Just out of interest, how do you keep track of what files to recover?

 

Tony, I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by 'tracking'. If you can clarify your question, I'd be happy to answer it.

 

I'm not real sure what you mean but I'll describe both ways.

1. You can recover any snapshots that you have taken. Maximum of 60,000 for the pro and enterprise versions.
2. You can select a snapshot you have taken and then browse to any files/folders that you need to restore and then you can restore them to the same location that they were in previously or you can save them to another location.

Hope this helps and if you have any further questions feel free to ask.

Thanks,

Chris

 

Suppose it's Sunday and I find that I have to restore a snapshot from Saturday. Since it's the weekend, let's assume that the only thing I would lose by doing that are Sunday's emails.

I restore Saturday's snapshot which becomes my current snapshot (taking less than 2 minutes). As I use Outlook, I know that my emails are in Outlook's pst file, so using RB's Recover Files option, I can specify that I want to recover *.pst and then indicate that I want that file from Sunday's snapshot.

RB finds the file in about 30 seconds. I right-click to restore it to my current snapshot which takes about 10 seconds. Now my current snapshot, which was taken on Saturday contains the emails I received up through the time I did the snapshot restore on Sunday. If I wasn't sure about the file name or extension, I could have browsed my files on any given snapshot (as Chris said).

Btw, in the above example, RB provides the option to overwrite Saturday's pst file with Sunday's file, or to keep them both in my current snapshot (quite cool)!

Hope that's clear.

 

Nice explanation Jo Ann.

Thanks,

Chris

 

The explanation given by Jo Ann is very good, and I figured as much. My point was relating to how you keep track of files you've worked on to know which to recover. Obviously, if it's only emails or say a couple of files, that's easy, but what about if you've worked on a few files since the last snapshot, say Saturday's snapshot like in your example.

 

Tony, every time you take a snapshot you give it a title and a description (which is optional). So let's say I've made major changes to an Excel spreadsheet, example.xls. I could take an RB snapshot, label it 'example.xls' and then I could provide a brief description of the changes made to example.xls. If I didn't want RB to ever delete the snapshot I would lock it. If I ever wanted to restore that file, I would go to RB's Snapshot Mangement, find the snapshot in question and restore the file (as described in my previous post).

Since RB Pro can take up to 60,000 snapshots, the only practical limitation of the number of snapshots you take is your free disk-space. Fwiw, while the size of snapshots can vary by quite a bit, mine seem to average out at about 350MB.

That said, no instant restore program (RB included) is really intended for saving/tracking various versions of files. Seems to me that a file-by-file backup/synchronization program (with version tracking) is much better suited for that job.

Jo Ann