Backup: ASR or Ghost - which is better (to USB external drive)?

[Philip Herlihy]

I'm backing up to a USB/firewire external harddrive. I've used "ordinary"
ntbackup, created an ASR (Automatic System Recovery) set, and made a Ghost
image of the partition.

I'd like to be able to recover from (another!) disk failure without having
to reinstall everything as new, in a way that fits into a daily (data)
backup routine. Any advice gladly appreciated.

 

[InfoQuest]

The down side of using Windows Backup Utility/ASR is that if the drive goes
bad, you must reinstall Windows and then restore the backup off the external
drive. I have just started looking at another option of using software
like Ghost 2003, Drive Image 7 or True Image. These are able to span
disks, backup to any device, work like a backup, and if the whole hard drive
goes bad, you can restore the backup image in minutes. It is a hard
choice! Drive Image 7 appears to be having a number challenges. CNET
approval is only 25% and the latest PC Magazine review only gave it 3 out of
5. Ghost 2003 has a CNET approval rating of 52%, but has moved past Drive
Image in the latest PC Magazine review with a rating of 4 out of 5. One
concern in reading the reviews was the number of people having trouble
getting it to work with externals. Acronis True Image has a CNET approval
of 65% and was one of the only to receive CNET editors choice. The latest
issue of PC Magazine rated it 5 out of 5 and gave it PC magazines editors
choice. You can get a 15 day trial version, which is what I am doing right
now. I am still trying to confirm a couple of questions, but so far the
menus and interfaces have been very straight forward.

http://www.acronis.com/download/

Hope some of my research helps.

 

[Guest]

I'm backing up to a USB/firewire external harddrive. I've used "ordinary"
ntbackup, created an ASR (Automatic System Recovery) set, and made a Ghost
image of the partition.

I'd like to be able to recover from (another!) disk failure without having
to reinstall everything as new, in a way that fits into a daily (data)
backup routine. Any advice gladly appreciated.

An image file is the only way to make a complete backup that can be
independently restored in it entirety and get you back to exactally what you
had before. The drawback is that it is time comsuming up front. I have been
using Drive Image for several years (Win98) and it works pretty well, although
I have had a couple images that would not restore. I know we use Ghost at
work and I have not heard of it ever failing personally.
-gm

 

[Philip Herlihy]

I'm grateful to everyone who replied. These are the conclusions I've come
to after studying everything very carefully (!):

ASR is a waste of time for my most important machine, as it is a laptop.
From the XP Resource Kit:
"you must use locally attached devices such as the following devices
attached to ATA or SCSI adapters".
I've backed up an ASR set to a USB hard-drive - useless. (Very glad I
asked!). Reference:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prdg_dsm_htwo.asp

To save precious time, I want to avoid having to reinstall everything
(programs, settings, etc) I want to use an image of some kind. I have Ghost
available, and for now I'll use that, but I'll be investigating Acronis,
based on the comments here.

Thanks everyone! The ASR disk requirement gotcha could have wiped a smug
"but I have a backup" smile off my face.

 

[Philip Herlihy]

Having now studied the Acronis True Image 7.0 user guide (downloaded from
their website) my ideal backup plan appears to be the following:

When SP2 arrives, rebuild my system from scratch, which I planned to do
anyway. I'll partition my laptop HDD with 40Gb for System/Apps (lots of
developer apps!) and 20Gb for Data. Install Windows and SP2. Change the
properties of any user accounts so that the My Documents folder points to my
Data partition. Install all essential apps, including Office. Create the
first True Image system image. Restore existing data to the Data partition.

From then on, take a monthly, maybe quarterly full system image of my System
partition, plus a weekly incremental image (big plus for True Image, also
the fact it runs from Windows, not DOS).

Meanwhile, use good old ntbackup on a weekly-normal, daily-incremental basis
to manage data on the Data partition.

I'll be deleting those useless ASR backups (all 10 Gb each) next time I
power up that USB drive...

 

[InfoQuest]

It is great to hear that the information was helpful. When deciding how
to allocate your hard drive, it would be a good time to decide and take into
account if you are ever going to use Acronis Secure Zone. This is another
feature of True Image that allows you to allocate protected storage on the
hard drive for an image.

 

[dmac]

be sure to always run image integrity check in ghost after creating image
file.

--
-----------------------
dmac
(e-mail address removed)
remove 1 to mail
Ati 9800pro 256
P4 2.8 @ 3.1 1gb ddr466
twin seagate 120 sata raid 0

 

[Philip Herlihy]

I looked hard at that - these days even a 60Gb drive doesn't seem that huge
any more, and I think I probably wouldn't use the Secure Zone, preferring to
use a bootable (Acronis) CD to reinstate my disk. After all, although I've
been "once bitten", a hard disk failure is still a rare event (if a costly
one) and I have all those apps to house, to say nothing of endless photos
and mp3s from Radio3!

 

[Philip Herlihy]

Bad experiences?

 

[dmac]

2 or three that were not checked were corrupt. I added command line to boot
disk to automatically check image file and so far have only had 1 corrupt
file. from there its simple to just reimage it.


--
-----------------------
dmac
(e-mail address removed)
remove 1 to mail
Ati 9800pro 256
P4 2.8 @ 3.1 1gb ddr466
twin seagate 120 sata raid 0

 

[Philip Herlihy]

Warning noted - thanks!

The only thing worse than no backup is a backup that you can't use!

 

[Rick Brandt]

Warning noted - thanks!

The only thing worse than no backup is a backup that you can't use!

In addition it is possible with Ghost to produce an NTFS image that will verify
and still cannot be used to successfully restore from. IMO this disqualifies
Ghost as a viable backup solution for critical systems.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Warning noted - thanks!

The only thing worse than no backup is a backup that you can't use!

In addition it is possible with Ghost to produce an NTFS image that
will verify and still cannot be used to successfully restore from.
IMO this disqualifies Ghost as a viable backup solution for critical
systems.

I still find it strange so many people are having issues with Ghost images.

I make a dozen or so a week, some from machines that would be a lost cause
for the end-user I am working on it for and in only a couple (in the last 4
years of using ghost in this manner) have I been unable to create the image
and in no cases have I had a corrupted image.

I use the latest version at all times (dependent on the time, as I said the
past 4 years) and have always (excluding a few) done images to networked
servers (either Windows or Linux (or derivative) based.) I do have to use
switches (command line) on occassion, but I see that as part of "knowing the
tool you are using".

 

[dmac]

I have never had that problem, but don't doubt it. but is there any software
that never has a problem?


--
-----------------------
dmac
(e-mail address removed)
remove 1 to mail
Ati 9800pro 256
P4 2.8 @ 3.1 1gb ddr466
twin seagate 120 sata raid 0

 

[Rick Brandt]

I have never had that problem, but don't doubt it. but is there any software
that never has a problem?

Traditionally ALL backup software/methods strongly suggest you do a verify step
afterwards to insure that the backup is usable. My beef with Ghost on NTFS is
that the verify guarantees nothing.

 

[dmac]

I haven't researched it any, but I thought I heard someone talk about a
switch that does a sector to sector verify of the image compared to the
actual partition being copied. I think I'll look into that to see if I heard
right.

--
-----------------------
dmac
(e-mail address removed)
remove 1 to mail
Ati 9800pro 256
P4 2.8 @ 3.1 1gb ddr466
twin seagate 120 sata raid 0

 

[Geoffw]

quite a few different switches in the ghost options

Geoff