Backup utility - Ghost vs WinBackup vs ?

I'm looking for input as to the best all around backup utility. I've been using Norton Ghost 9.0 but have found it slooow. And, although I go from HDU to HDU of the same size and of which only 50% is used, after about three incremental backups, I have to start over with a new full backup because my backup drive is full.

I have tried WinBackup 2 on trial because it promised faster and easier performance. However, I get a lot of error message that files can't be opened, and on verify I also get failure messages.

Any comparisons between the two or ideas about other inexpensive reliable backup utilities would be appreciated.

 

Hi,

I find Aconis Truimage pretty good, is quite quick too, Powerquest drive image is pretty good but not quite as quick.

 

I'll second Acronis True Image.
Works very well and reasonably fast, depending on sys speed.

savagcl

 

Cal E

Suggest you switch to ghost 2003. Think it's unbeatable. Some folks are afraid because it works in DOS; don't be, if you can use a mouse, that's all you need for the graphical interface in DOS.

With any backup you need to write it off your computer for safekeeping; optical DVDs are IMHO the best for the purpose. They avoid the well known dangers of magnetic media.

 

It really depends on what you are trying to do.
If you are just interested in having a copy of your data, you can use windows backup or just keep track of where you save things (Like I have a seperate D drive for my Data and I Put folders there in a "My Files" folder like D:\MyFiles\Word
D:\MyFiles\Lotus\Work\Current (also a work\archived}
I also have a
D:\DownloadedPrograms
and
D:\Backup
folder.
Things I want to be sure to save a backup copy of I put not only where they belong, but put a second copy in D:\Backup.
and
D:\SecondCopies
Then periodically I burn everything new to CDR , Or I burn everything to DVD using a standard backup program.
(I use Dbxtract to save a copy of old emails from outlook express as .eml files in folders, I also copy my Mozilla Mail profile folder and do standard exports on other things, copy my favorites folder etc).
This ensures that my data is safe on a drive seperate from my OS. It is also backed up to DVD.
Also, I have more than one PC , networked and vital stuff is on them all.


Of course, locating and restoring data if I ever need to do a clean install is going to take a while, but since I never have had to , well the time averages out.

Now , if you want a "recovery disk" where you can just click away and restore everything to what it is now, ghost or true image or similar is the way to go.
You can save the image ( a bit by bit copy of your drive saved as a single compressed file) either to DVDR , CDR (by spanning the disks) or to another drive or networked computer. I find that saving the image to another hard drive or networked computer to be the fastest in terms of backing it up and in terms of recovery.
(Note that while ethernet connected network storage devices work well , as do other computers or internal drives, USB drives tend not to be easily accessible from the ghosting program you need additional drivers and software ).

As you probably guessed I do both. I normally save important stuff (by copying) to more than one computer; and I normally burn an update CD of important new files every week or so (CDR are so cheap these days and burn so fast). Every couple of months I burn a full DVD or two of everything I consider important to have archival copies of. Normally, I reserve drive images to when I have a clean install with everything perfect, then periodically based on some major change (like switching antivirus and firewall or installing a service pack) which may potentially cause unsurmountable problems (never have).

You think that ghosting to DVD is slow? I remember the old days with tape drive backups. All day listening to whirrrr becheeee chunk , whirrr becheee chunk as a whopping 504MB was backed up or restored.

 

oshwyn5,
I agree with you completely about the mag tape backups. Not only noisy but
always had to retension the tape (meaning rewind and then search for where
it left off).

I'm using Acronis TI 8.0 (took care of the 64 bit addresses) with no problems.
I backup to both a external USB2 HD and to a dvd-rw. Dvd-rw is just a safe-
guard. The Ext. HD is faster, maybe 6-10 minutes to backup the "C" partition
and 1/2 to 3/4 hour to backup the complete HD (160Gig). What i like best
about ATI is that if the system ever fails to boot, just pop-in the DVD and
re-boot, it does the rest with a minimum of questions to be answered, maybe
5 questions and thats it. Once it boots into acronis (DVD), it ask you to
find the file you want to restore so you can pick either the USB or the DVD,
whichever is the newest. This way you can have as many backups as your
ext USB HD will hold.

Theres also the option of using the F11 key (before windows) and restoring
whatever you want (i dont use this because it needs a small bit of HD
space).

My only complaint is that there is no clear, easy way to test a restore except
to verify the backup image. I suppose it could be done but restoring windows
to somewhere else would seem to create problems when trying to delete the
test files. Waiting for acronis to give me an answer on this.

savagcl

 

Acronis and Ghost 2003 are equivalent. Use Ghost 'cause it's been around longer. Both handle 64 bit addresses; use it to back up my athlon64 and that has 128 bit wide memory words. Actually that's irrelevant.