Backup Software?

[Ken Blake]

In

An ntbackup saveset made on any version of ntbackup is usable
by
today's ntbackup, right ? I never said anything about teh
crappy
backup software that shipped with 16 bit systems.

There's no certainty in long range bets, and any choice or
decision
has risk tradeoffs.

Exactly, and that's why I took exception to the black-and-white
statement you made. It may be likely to be true, but I wouldn't
bet the farm on it.

 

[abram]

Just a few notes due to the lack of time.

From
http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATIESWin/features-imaging.html
:

<<Acronis True Image 8.0 Enterprise Server for Windows allows you to
create the exact server disk image for complete backup providing the
comprehensive and cost effective server protection....
Backup only the ****necessary**** server disk sector contents
The key word is "necessary". Who desides what is necessary? If Acronis
backs up only "necessary" content, then it's not true imaging, is it?
If a "true image" contains only "necessary" data, then how is it
different from a file system backup?

Next, there's no such thing as "the exact server disk image" of a
running system, in any practical sense. There may be exact images of
offline disks, not of an active Windows system partition.

Say I have an application that writes to file. I have some file data
cached in my application, some data is cached by the file system, the
rest of the data is physically on HDD. When any "true imaging" software
tries to make a "true image", the best it can do is flush the file
system buffers, and create an image of the file that doesn't contain
the data cached by my application. Due to the structure of the file,
that cached data is important, and the file is invalid without that
data.

What we've got is a corrupted image of the file, that won't work with
my application if restored from the "true image". See "I have complex
applications such as Microsoft SQL Server..."
http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATISWin/faq.html#19.

It is in theory impossible to handle the case above without interacting
with my application. That's when the volume shadow copy service,
supported by NTBackup, comes forward. The shadow copy service tells my
application to flush all the buffers and suspend all writes, so that a
coherent copy of the file can be taken. It's a bit more complicated
that just sector-by-sector copying, isn't it? If Acronis doesn't
support shadow copies, then it's not true imaging. If it does then it's
not true imaging anyway since many applications doesn't support shadow
copies either, and they must be stopped to make true images of their
data.

The summary. "True images" created by so-called "true imaging" software
are no more, if not less, "truer" than NTBackup's backup sets.

----------

If someone states that XP's and later NTBackup is legacy, they show
their ignorance. NTBackup is far from ideal, but it is maintaned by
Microsoft who knows more than anyone about Windows file systems. In
fact, BackupExec and BackupMyPC (they come from the same source as
NTBackup) are more legacy than NTBackup since they don't support the
new minitape driver model, and they don't work with tape drives unknown
to them. As opposed to NTBackup, which works with any tape drive, as
long as a correct minitape driver is provided by the manufacturer.

NTBackup targets tape drives just because the tape is the most reliable
high-capacity media. I would rather blame NTBackup if it supported
CD/DVD and not tapes.

 

[NobodyMan]

ntbackup backs up a full running system operating sytstem partition
and, if restored, produces an identical system. I've done it many
times. How does this not fit into your definition of "image" ?

NTBackup produces a file backup set. To use this, you need to be
using NTBackup, desirably from your floppy set (ASR) but many folks
find it just as easy to re-install XP then restore from NTBackup from
that point. Whatever floats your boat.

An IMAGE program takes the image and recreates it, quickly and in one
step, from your media. It's good for fast restores, or when you are
building mutliple identical computers in an enterprise setting.

I'm not saying one is better than the other, but they do use different
forms/formats and serve different purposes.

 

[Daniel Rudy]

An ntbackup saveset made on any version of ntbackup is usable by
today's ntbackup, right ? I never said anything about teh crappy
backup software that shipped with 16 bit systems.

My experiance has been that ntbackup that comes with WinXP will not work
with Win98 backup sets. I thought that you said they would.

There's no certainty in long range bets, and any choice or decision
has risk tradeoffs. I'll assume, as long as a system that looks like
nt/w2/xp is being shipped with ntbackup.exe it will be backword
compatible with old savesets, or if Billy should walk away from the
format a third-party will come up with software to solve the problem.

That is true in any situation.

 

[Daniel Rudy]

Yup. And it was also, years ago, a target of the first DOS attack
anyone knows of. The owners of Panix have had one perp arrested, put
in handcuffs and spend some time behind bars for an incident, years
ago. There is lots of legal movement going on and the owners can't
discuss it yet.

Don't mess with panix.

(No relationship other than being a happy customer for almost 15
years.)

I mentioned it because it's very rare to hear a domain hijacking,
especially for an ISP. The last victim that I heard about was AOL back
in the mid 90's or so.

 

[Daniel Rudy]

I can use ntbackup to backup a running server and resotore it after a
disk crash in a production environment. Done it a bunch of times.

Image ? if you mean a block-for-block duplicate of of a disk, no it
doesn't work that way. ntbackup works fine as a filesystem backup.

But, I like to have that as an option though, especially on a large HD
that is more or less full.

I don't say ntbackup was convient, or claim it replaced all the other
software out there.

I didn't say you did. I'm just saying that it doesn't really have some
of the features that are common in other backup solutions.

I never said anything about w/98. I said ntbackup.




Are you claiming that a ntbackup saveset made in nt3.51 can't be read
in XP ?

I don't know if it can or cannot because I have never used WinNT 3.51.
What I am claiming is that a backup set that was created with Win98
cannot be restored with ntbackup. I've tried it, it doesn't work. And
yes, you did not say anything about Win98, which is what I was refering
too.

 

[Daniel Rudy]

Just a few notes due to the lack of time.

From
http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATIESWin/features-imaging.html
:

<<Acronis True Image 8.0 Enterprise Server for Windows allows you to
create the exact server disk image for complete backup providing the
comprehensive and cost effective server protection....
Backup only the ****necessary**** server disk sector contents

The key word is "necessary". Who desides what is necessary? If Acronis
backs up only "necessary" content, then it's not true imaging, is it?
If a "true image" contains only "necessary" data, then how is it
different from a file system backup?

Next, there's no such thing as "the exact server disk image" of a
running system, in any practical sense. There may be exact images of
offline disks, not of an active Windows system partition.

Say I have an application that writes to file. I have some file data
cached in my application, some data is cached by the file system, the
rest of the data is physically on HDD. When any "true imaging"
software
tries to make a "true image", the best it can do is flush the file
system buffers, and create an image of the file that doesn't contain
the data cached by my application. Due to the structure of the file,
that cached data is important, and the file is invalid without that
data.

What we've got is a corrupted image of the file, that won't work with
my application if restored from the "true image". See "I have complex
applications such as Microsoft SQL Server..."
http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATISWin/faq.html#19.

It is in theory impossible to handle the case above without
interacting
with my application. That's when the volume shadow copy service,
supported by NTBackup, comes forward. The shadow copy service tells my
application to flush all the buffers and suspend all writes, so that a
coherent copy of the file can be taken. It's a bit more complicated
that just sector-by-sector copying, isn't it? If Acronis doesn't
support shadow copies, then it's not true imaging. If it does then
it's
not true imaging anyway since many applications doesn't support shadow
copies either, and they must be stopped to make true images of their
data.

The summary. "True images" created by so-called "true imaging"
software
are no more, if not less, "truer" than NTBackup's backup sets.

You bring up a very interesting point. Granted, this is a little
off-topic, but in Unix systems, you have tar and cpio. Tar or Tape
Archive is a file oriented backup while cpio is a sector oriented
backup. Futher more, on my FreeBSD machine, I can do tar -czvf
filename.tar / and back the entire machine up to one file. But, the
necessary data is in /home, /usr and /var. You still have to reinstall
the operating system though.

I define a true image as a sector by sector copy. One way to get around
the problem with open files is to boot the machine from a second
installation of Windows on another HD and backup the system that way.
Unfortunately, this requires the machine to be rebooted and application
downtime while the backup is made. But, on the positive side, you have
a true image of the harddisk.

 

[Matthew Martin]

Daniel,

Take a look at:

http://www.argentuma.com/backup/
http://www.argentuma.com/backup/software/

Matt

 

[Dave]

I use Norton Ghost version 9 for the same purpose. With it you can schedule
automatic backups. I do a base backup of my C: to the D: at 1AM every
Sunday. Then it does an incremental backup at 1AM each day Mon thru Sat.
Then on Sunday it deletes all of the and does a new base backup. It will
let you select the level of compression. I'm very pleased with it.

 

[Al Dykes]

I use Norton Ghost version 9 for the same purpose. With it you can schedule
automatic backups. I do a base backup of my C: to the D: at 1AM every
Sunday. Then it does an incremental backup at 1AM each day Mon thru Sat.
Then on Sunday it deletes all of the and does a new base backup. It will
let you select the level of compression. I'm very pleased with it.

ntbackup will backup 200GB of OS and data onto a 400GB disk just fine.
Format the target disk NTFS and set compression property. You should
get at least 3 generations of full backup.

 

[Charlie]

Try Acronis True Image http://www.acronis.com/ I have used it for a couple
of years and I prefer it over Ghost.