Anyone web based image back up services or Acronis Drive Image 7.0 vs Symantec Drive Image 7.0

[FransHals]

I have an aging HP Pavilion machine running NT 4.0 SP 6. I want to
back the image up to a new machine. The older HP has USB 1.1 or a
serial port.

I want to make a copy on a ROM for offsite plus plug in a new machine
in the server room to back up the old machine on a regular basis. I
already back up the data daily but I want an image in case the old
machine dies.

Is there any web based back up services that also do the image?

Alternatively, has anyone used Acronis 7.0 or Symantec 7.0 (both Image
back up).

Acronis seems to have a great product but their tech support is a bit
slow. I would pay in case of an emergency. They should offer that
option. I don' want the old DOS products like Ghost.

Also does anyone know a service where you can find a local tech who
can set this up. Our programmers hate doing tech work. What
accreditation should I look for MSFT certified what? MSCE? I don't
want to get someone in and they screw it up.

 

[bearman]

I have an aging HP Pavilion machine running NT 4.0 SP 6. I want to
back the image up to a new machine. The older HP has USB 1.1 or a
serial port.

I want to make a copy on a ROM for offsite plus plug in a new machine
in the server room to back up the old machine on a regular basis. I
already back up the data daily but I want an image in case the old
machine dies.

Is there any web based back up services that also do the image?

Alternatively, has anyone used Acronis 7.0 or Symantec 7.0 (both Image
back up).

Acronis seems to have a great product but their tech support is a bit
slow. I would pay in case of an emergency. They should offer that
option. I don' want the old DOS products like Ghost.

Also does anyone know a service where you can find a local tech who
can set this up. Our programmers hate doing tech work. What
accreditation should I look for MSFT certified what? MSCE? I don't
want to get someone in and they screw it up.

I use True Image to make a clone of my main (boot) drive. So far, so good.

I wouldn't even consider anything Symantec puts out (Peter Norton should be
ashamed his name is still on those products).

Acronis support is a little slow but my questions have been answered (via
email).

Bearman

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

Our programmers hate doing tech work.

I assume they would rather write specifications for peopns to
implement. Maybe you are in the wrong business. Programming is
technical.

 

[David Chien]

Recent review in a Japanese computer magazine picked both Acronis & V2i
desktop edition as their two top picks from the lot of common backup
programs.

Ghost produced images that were smaller than the other programs, but
took longer to make the backup - naturally since compressing more adds time.

V2i here:
http://sea.symantec.com/content/product.cfm?productid=3

---

IME, Ghost always does a perfect job in making working backups in the
years I've used it. Yes, annoying because you have to drop to DOS to
start the backup or restore, but that ensures you are making a 100%
backup w/o worrying about open files (that are constantly changing)
during backups (never do trust backup programs that run while the OS is
also running myself though - even Acronis admits this:

"I have complex applications such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle or
Microsoft Exchange running on my server. I plan to create an image, but
I'm not sure if these applications can be running during the imaging
process. What should I do?

Although Acronis True Image 7.0 takes care of hard disk and
filesystem-level consistency via snapshot technology, it does not
guarantee application-level consistency. We recommend you to suspend
complex servers such as Microsoft SQL, Oracle or Microsoft Exchange
before pressing the Proceed button on the last page of the Acronis True
Image 7.0 application wizard. Once the imaging process starts, you can
resume server operations. It is not necessary to suspend the
applications for the duration of the imaging process.").

Drive Image has been another long-time favorite used by many in the past
(http://www.powerquest.com/driveimage/) that works well.

---

Of these various programs, Ghost does do backups to external USB/FW DVD
& CD writers, which most others can't.

---

http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1738,4798,00.asp

Keep in mind that you also can't do a perfect bit-by-bit,
sector-by-sector full backup of a HD w/o dropping to DOS to make a 100%
perfect image of the entire HD. You'll need this if you're doing file
recovery, have programs that write program protection bits to parts of
the HD outside of the normal filesystem, etc.

 

[FransHals]

I use True Image to make a clone of my main (boot) drive. So far, so good.

I wouldn't even consider anything Symantec puts out (Peter Norton should be
ashamed his name is still on those products).

Acronis support is a little slow but my questions have been answered (via
email).

Bearman

Thanks. I read some reviews of Symantec Drive Image 7.0 on Amazon and
other places and they were scathing. Everything I have read about
Acronis 7.0 is very positive.

 

[Peter]

I would add a few items to the list:
-Ghost (8.0) seems to create images slightly faster than TI 7.0
-TI does not automatically exclude swap file and some other known vm files,
that unnecessarily adds time and space to the image
-TI cannot perform a full sector-by-sector image for forensic (data
recovery) purposes
-TI does a very poor job for incremental backups (huge file size for no
change in files) if disk defragmentation is being run frequently
-TI depends on Linux for driver support and is not bound to DOS only driver
support (this is going to be a nightmare for Ghost pretty soon)

You can always boot your PC with Acronis TI CD and perform a
not-from-inside-running-Windows image.
Network or USB based image backup seems to be the best for repeated use in
unattended environments.
For small unattended jobs write a script to burn data on your DVD burner.
4.37 GB of compressed data might be sufficient for many. And DVD media is
getting extremely cheap too.