what backup program would you use if you didnt care about the money

im talking software wise. someone i know is looking to outfit 3 pc's in his home office. i told him my top 2 choices would be shadow protect and macrium paid. he doesnt care how much they cost he said. he would gladly pay the price for sp if this is his best option. he DOES NOT want acronis period this is what failed him this past time he needed to do a restore. he spent hours on with acronis trying to get the backup to work that the program said was a good image after he checked it but turns out it could not.

he does not want to install and remove a ton of software on these pc's since they are his home business' ones and right now is lacking a good backup solution.

is there anything other then the normal stuff out there not very heard of as good as sp and macrium? what would you do and why? i will be passing this info on to him. he is not a "forums" person as he said and doesnt like posting on them. he a older guy that is usually behind the times as he puts it lol..so also something he can use that is not as he says like "rocket science". as i said he said if sp was his best solution he will gladly pay the price for it without any questions. i suggested macrium since i use it and it has yet to fail me but when it comes down to it he wanted more info and poss more suggestions.. he is running win7 on one machine to try it out right now and the other 2 have vista still. also he said he prob does not freebies in case he needs the paid support later in the past a lot of the free programs he said he had very poor support from. so for sure a paid solution for him. thanks for any added info for him

 

anyone?? i guess what he is asking is there anything more geared for the business use out there that people rely on more for that purpose. i believe sp is this type of program. do you think that would be his better choice of whats available?

 

You'll get a variety of opinions.

I abandoned Acronis several years ago and am happily using SP. It is fast and has never failed me (restores always work). If your friend purchases a service agreement, he can always get prompt email response or talk to someone at StorageCraft on the phone.

I think it's great.

 

yeah thats what i told him i think that will be the way he goes unless there is anything better out there..

 

Might be something equally good - can't believe there is a better product. Good luck to your friend. He'll feel very secure with SP imaging.

 

Image for Windows. Half the price of SP and licensed for three computers. I'd pay 10 times the price to use IFW.

 

will ifw do continual incrementals?

 

I think SP is the best, if money is not an issue. Fast, reliable and easy to use. The only problem your friend needs to know about, is that sometimes doing a backup the wrong letters might be assigned to the wrong drives; apparently this is an issue with Windows rather than Storagecraft. This won't affect a restore as long as the PC owner knows which image is the source and the destination drive/partition. It's been happening to me very often, but knowing what's what I never had a bad restore (sometimes C: is assigned as E: and viceversa).

 

I heard only good things about IFW, but why would you pay 10 times the price, what makes it so special?

 

I would suggest SP as well, very easy to use and the continuous incremental feature is a must for me. As noted above its important to name your backups so if there is a drive letter change it will be easy to know what's what.

I am 100% satisfied with SP and even if I could get any other program out there for free I would stick with it.

 

No.

It does differential backups.

 

It is fun to use. You can do stock standard image/restores or you can customize it in so many different ways. Automatic imaging, yes they all do that but I don't know any other app that can do automatic restores. Click an icon and it happens.

For non automatic restores, you can use the app on floppies, CDs, BartPE, VistaPE, USB flash drives, SD cards or bootable partitions on USB external HDs.

You can restore over a network. They all do that but what others can restore over a wireless network. You can image your remote computers over the network from your workstation and choose whether the backup images stay on the remote computer or are copied to your computer or an external device. And it's pretty automatic. Click an icon and it happens.

Restoring to different hardware. Yes. There is an add on tool (included) that allows you to install SATA/IDE drivers to the new hardware, change the HAL, enable/disable services.

It is compatible with 2048 sector aligned and legacy cylinder aligned partitions. Restoring Win7 with the associated System Reserved Partition is a first go success. Unfortunately, other apps need a bit of work here. There is an option for writing a Win7 MBR or a Standard MBR.

There are Geometry options for creating/restoring images in computers with different geometry than the original.

Ability to do Command line image/restores.

I've restored thousands of images to the same or different HDs using a variety of imaging apps and I've never seen a failure. So I'm not claiming any app is superior or inferior. My interest is how you can have fun using your software. IFW is dead easy for a beginner or a lot of fun if you want to play around.

Edit.... You can do partition or whole drive image/restores. Also you can "copy" partitions and "paste" them to unallocated space.

 

@BrianK, LOL, that should cover it. !!

@Zfactor; your mate aint behind the times: seems to me he's ahead of the game: tell him to come and post here with all us other codgers, not everyone who posts here still has all their faculties heh heh heh

If he's spent hours with Acronis: he is well suited to enter this thread

Still finding new tricks with Terabyte here: et al...
There is little doubt re Terabyte and SP capabilities; both TopNotch.
Both imo a step ahead of other more "off the shelf" offerings.

If $$ really no object then the Tech license with SP might be the go: get that magic CD.

Brian forgot to mention..LOL...Terabyte support in newsie and directly to the devs is absolutely cutting edge. If they ( or Brian ) cant fix it, it cant be done.

Choosing btwn these two utilities (and personally the tools that come with IFW tip the balance for me...far more than just an imaging tool..and BING v2.0 around the corner ) may boil down to a question of support and then willingness to get involved.

Just to show I'm not too biased; I had some experience with these guys in the past: http://www.ultrabac.com/
V.Good tools, I wasnt quite ready at the time: and the $$$ made me swoon a bit

If he's serious and has the $$: Teach your friend the value of VMWare too.

Terabyte and SP offer free trials..suck it and see.
There is a learning curve for each.
OK, enough punditry from this old fart, heh.
Regards.

 

Another vote for ShadowProtect, very fast and reliable imaging software

 

i would be teaching him how to use them and i myself have very little knowledge of ifw as i personally use sp and macrium. how is the learning curve with ifw? ill have to test it out to see how it works

 

To be fair,with any imaging software there are complaints,even with SP just look over their forums.
I just tried every software out there and in the end it was SP with the least worries.
Must admit that even with SP i had issues.
I use only the recovery CD for backup and restore.

 

Thanks, it was a really interesting expose' of what one can do with backup software. I have 1 license for Acronis, 2 for ShadowProtect. If I knew that one license for IFW was good for 3 computers, I certainly would have given it a try.

I'll certainly test it with my next computer, as the price for SP having 2 licenses becomes a bit ridiculous for a third one, especially considering that I don't run a business.

 

I took a look at the publishers website and could not find where you get a licence for 3 computers when you purchase. Could I trouble you for a link?

Also, in the opinion of those who have experience with both SP & IFW are they equally reliable?

 

Yes they are. I have never seen IFW fail a backup or restore.

edit:My vote goes to image for windows too. As Brian K said is very easy for novices and with the extra tools and their online guides extremly powerfull for advanced users. Add to that their top notch support and you have a winner; last dicember when I submitted a bug they fixed it in only 5 hours.
Panagiotis

 

Another vote for ShadowProtect. I switched to SP after a couple of failed restores with Acronis 10. SP has been flawless.

 

another vote for Image for windows. fantastic app and has never failed me.

 

My only complaints against Image for Windows is that it doesn't use native VSS, it doesn't mount images it just explores them. image creation takes a very long time, and compression is hardly noticeable. Throw in the fact that there's no WinPE, which I like to use for things other than just backup/restoring and it gets a thumbs down from me.

 

btw there is now tbimount which allows mounting images as a windows drive letter.

 

Really? Good to know. I'll have to save that little nugget for later.