I currently use WinXP Pro SP3, with Acronis TI Home 2010 for backup
purposes
for my HDD. I am investigating other choices, because what I want is a
package that will easily allow me to make an image of my HDD, then restore
it to a new, different-size replacement HDD (say, from current 120 GB
drive
to a new 500 GB drive). As well, it would help if the software could do
P2P
restores where it can restore to a completely new PC system.
I see Paragon offers a Pro package that seems to do the task but I am not
sure; anyone use it now? Does anyone have iodeas or suggestions on any
products for this purpose? I am a home user, so this is just for
upgrading
in the future, otherwise Acronis works fine for me, but it has limitations
in this regard.
Any ideas/comments welcome....
bobster said:
You could try the free trial version of Casper 6.0. It can make a clone
from your current 120 gig hard drive to a new 500 gig hard drive by
mounting
the new drive in either a USB or SATA connected external holder or in the
second position internal slot. Then you would have an exact replica of
your
original drive on the new 500 gig drive with all that neat new space.
Casper can be found here:
http://www.fssdev.com/default.aspx
I've used Casper 5.0 and now 6.0 for about a year and wouldn't be without
it. So much easier to use than Acronis IMHO.
Pete:
Just let me add a few add'l comments to those of "bobster"...
I too am a long-time fan of the Casper disk-cloning program, particularly
the Casper 5 program which we've been using over the past few years.
You should note, however, that Casper is a disk-to-disk (or
partition-to-partition) cloning program. It does not have "disk imaging"
capability similar to that of your Acronis True Image program.
I'm not clear as to why you could not use your current ATI program in
accordance with your stated requirement of restoring the ATI disk-image to a
different-sized (larger) HDD. While except for some cursory experience with
the ATI Home 2010 program, I've worked with various earlier versions of the
ATI program and I'm pretty sure the program had the capability you desire.
If I'm wrong about that I'm sure other responders will correct me.
And, of course, Acronis also has disk-cloning capability as well.
But getting back to the Casper disk-cloning program...
In addition to its outstanding qualities in terms of general effectiveness,
simplicity of design, and ease of use even for inexperienced users, the
chief advantage of Casper (in our view) is its rather extroardinary
capability of creating "incremental" clones, using what Casper refers to as
its "SmartClone" technology. Understand that the "incremental clone" is a
*complete* clone of the source disk. The result of this incremental clone
process is that it takes the user only a fraction of the time to create
subsequent clones of the source HDD than it would otherwise take using the
typical disk-cloning methodology.
As an example...
When a typical disk-cloning program undertakes its disk-to-disk cloning
process it does so without regard to the fact that the "source" and
"destination" HDDs involved in the disk-cloning operation may be the
*identical* drives that had been involved when a prior disk-cloning
operation had been undertaken (which is the usual scenario for the great
majority of users). It doesn't matter to the disk-cloning program whether
the HDD now being cloned was cloned an hour ago, or a day ago, or whenever.
The "now" disk-cloning operation will proceed as if the HDD recipient of the
clone, i.e., the destination HDD is bare of data, even if that same
destination HDD was the recipient of a prior clone from the same source HDD
10 minutes ago.
As a result...
The disk-cloning operation will take a substantial amount of time to "do its
work" each time the disk-cloning operation is undertaken, without regard to
the fact that perhaps only a relatively few changes involving the source
HDD's data has changed since the last disk-cloning operation. So, as an
example, let's say it takes about 30 minutes or so to clone the contents of
a HDD containing 40 GB of data to another HDD. Two days later the user
decides to again back up his or her system by undertaking another
disk-cloning operation. Presumably the data changes over those two days
haven't been especially large. But with the typical disk-cloning program,
e.g., Acronis True Image, it will take the disk-cloning program just about
the *same* period of time to perform current the disk-cloning operation as
it did originally, i.e., 30 minutes in the preceding example. And so on and
so on in the following days.
But with the Casper program, the program has the capability of recognizing
*only* the change in data that has occurred from its last disk-cloning
operation and will proceed to "do its work" on that basis. Thus, given the
example above it will probably take less than 3 or 4 minutes to complete the
disk-cloning operation. And so on and so forth.
So you can see what a valuable incentive this is for users to systematically
& routinely backup their systems with the Casper program - knowing that the
expenditure of time to complete the disk-cloning operation will be
relatively slight. Surely this is a strong incentive for a user to maintain
his/her complete system in a reasonably up-to-date fashion. Obviously the
amount of time it will take to complete this "incremental" disk-cloning
operation with Casper will be dependent upon the total volume of data being
cloned as well as the additions, deletions, configuration changes, etc. that
had been made since the previous disk-cloning operation. So the user is
encouraged to perform these disk-cloning operations on a relatively frequent
basis since by doing so the expenditure of time in completing the operation
will be relatively trifling.
And keep in mind that the recipient of the clone - the destination HDD -
will be a precise copy of the source HDD with all its data immediately
accessible in exactly the same way one would access data from their source
HDD - their day-to-day working HDD in most cases. And the destination HDD,
should it be an internal HDD or installed as a internal HDD from an exterior
enclosure will be immediately bootable without the need of any recovery
process. (And now, with the new Casper 6 program a USB external HDD that has
served as a recipient of the clone can be a bootable device. See below for
details.)
As "bobster" has recommended, you could download/install a trial version of
the Casper program to at least get a feel as to how you like the program.
But bear in mind that the trial version is somewhat "crippled" in that
(using your example) the trial version will not allow you to clone the
contents of your 120 GB HDD to a 500 GB HDD. The trial version does not
provide volume resizing. For example, let's say the total data on your 120
GB "source" HDD totaled 55 GB. While you could clone those total contents to
the new 500 GB "destination" HDD, the trial version of Casper will create
only a 55 GB partition on the 500 GB drive to hold those contents. The
remaining disk space of the drive would be "unallocated" disk space, i.e.,
disk space that you could subsequently partition/format.
Understand that this limitation applies *only* to the trial version. The
licensed version of Casper would permit you to manipulate the disk space on
the destination HDD in virtually any fashion you desired. For example, you
could (using the Casper program) create a 120 GB partition on the
destination HDD to hold the contents of that 120 GB source HDD, or you could
use the entire 500 GB to hold the contents, or you could establish whatever
size partition you desired to hold the contents (as long as the partition
was large enough to contain the contents).
I want to emphasize to you and others who might be interested in a
comprehensive backup program that the Casper program's outstanding advantage
(again, in our view) over similar type programs is its speed in undertaking
backup operations. In order to achieve this advantage it's important that
the user employ the program on a routine & frequent basis . Hopefully the
user will use the program not less than weekly and perhaps even on a more
frequent basis and ensure that he/she has an up-to-date complete backup of
their system at any given time. Frankly, if the user is merely interested in
an occasional comprehensive backup of their system, say, every few months or
so, or only when they install a new larger HDD as their day-to-day working
HDD, then virtually any disk-cloning (or disk-imaging) program will suffice
for those needs.
A word or two about the recently released Casper 6 program...
Apparently the two major changes (as far as we can discern) incorporated in
that program over the Casper 5 program are...
1. It's designed to be compatible with the new Windows 7 program (in
addition, of course, to XP), and,
2. The program now provides for USB boot capability.
With respect to 2., heretofore while the contents of the source HDD could be
cloned to a USB external HDD for backup purposes, that latter device (as a
practical matter) was not bootable. Now Casper 6 has that capability of
creating a bootable USBEHD (at least based upon our limited experience with
the new version in an XP environment. We haven't worked with the program to
any appreciable extent in a Windows 7 OS environment.)
Needless to say that's a significant "leap forward". Naturally the
motherboard's BIOS must support a boot from a USB device in order for this
capability to exist. And not all motherboard BIOS's support that capability,
especially older motherboards.
Anna