Review of imaging software

[Rebel]

Well I've made the switch to ShadowProtect . I have imaged 2 systems and I have restored 2 systems with nary a hiccup. Shadow Protect will shortly be installed on my remaining three systems. Yes, SP is approximately $30 more expensive than True Image Home, but SP includes the ability to perform a bare metal restore. To get this functionality in True Image, the Workstation edition is required and this edition is $30 more than the Home edition. In reality then, they are priced comparably with each other.

ShadowProtect is still young (at least in the home user, desktop sector), and it doesn't have all of the extra bells and whistles of TI, but my main requirement for this type of program is quite simple - reliable imaging and reliable restoring- and ShadowProtect does exactly that. In addition to the application itself, the support forums are PHENOMENAL. Questions are answered promptly and in great detail. The techs there address each and every problem that is posted. To me, this level of support alone is "worth the price of admission". Since the PC Magazine review , there certainly seem to be a great number of Acronis users migrating to SP. If this trend continues and the user base expands, I would expect that either the excellent service will slacken a bit or more resources will be allocated to the forums. From what I've seen so far, I would bet on the latter.

I'm certainly not dumping on True Image. I've depended on this product for more than a few years now. But I'm seeing the same trend with True Image as with several other products. With each release, more and more "features" are being added. I don't want all of these "extras". I simply want a product that will backup my system and successfully restore it should I run into problems. Shadow Protect (at least for me) works as advertised.

Sorry for the long winded response. I don't usually get too wound up or excited by new products, but I am very impressed with Shadow Protect. So in answer to your question, I for one agree with the magazine's assessment.

[JoeP517]

Before spending all that $$$ you really ought to check out Windows Home Server. You can automatically backup all the PCs it finds. If you have an older machine you can buy it retail (or online for about $175 USD) and install yourself. See Buy HP MediaSmart Server EX475(GG796AA#ABA), Desktop direct from the HP Home & Home Office Store. Don't pay much attention to the price, look at the machine specs. It doesn't take much of a machine to suppor WHS. BTW, if you install it yourself I think you can get a full Windows Server 2003 environment.

Joe

[ledunch]

An informative and useful posting John.

Thanks,
Paul

[bigaldoc]

I agree with Paul, John and thank you for your feedback. I too might join the switch as I've become increasingly frustrated with the performance of TI in the last couple of releases. This morning I downloaded ShadowProtect and will try a few runs with the trial version before I fork out the cash for a registered copy.

At the risk of boring some, my problem with TI for a long, long time has been that of selected file, i.e. "My Data" backups which I do on a nightly basis of about three or four important directories of stuff. In TI 10 the scheduled tasks run OK and the files in the backups check out OK, so that much is good. I've tried doing some selective (test) file restores and can't seem to get it to work to a location different than the original source location. TI 11, which I'm on my second try with (I went back to 10 when 11 first failed) will NOT run the sceduled tasks for some reason. I've deleted the tasks, recreated them with different names and they still don't run. The main GUI says they did, but the resulting file is a zero byte file. If I try to run the task manually, TI hangs in the middle of the job and I have to use Task Manager to end it. My patience is running out and the forum has a number of entries similar to mine.

[Rebel]

Interesting idea Joe, but unfortunately, I don't have an older spare machine that I can dedicate to WHS.

[Rebel]

Al & Paul,
Glad to be of assistance. Hopefully ShadowProtect does not fall into the evolutionary cycle of trying to be all things to all users. It works and it works simply and reliably. BTW Al, the scheduled incremental backups (if you choose to use this feature) work almost transparently. I've tested this exhaustively and I haven't had a failure yet. The incredibly short time it takes to perform an incremental does not impact system performance (at least that I have noticed). I really think that this "new kid on the block" is going to have a significant impact on the "established" backup software producers.

[bigaldoc]

I've done my first test, John and it was successful, but I have a couple of comments (maybe they're questions). I think the mag reviewer was a bit enthusiastic in his "blazingly fast" comments. SP made a full image of my C: drive in about 24 minutes, which is about the same time that TI took to do that same job. So, I don't see any speed advantage to the product.

Unless I'm a dummy (always possible!) I can't find where the product will let me backup ONLY selected files or directories on a volume. It wants to backup volumes and NOT selected files. Well, I've scheduled an overnight backup of my entire C: drive rather than the few directories I normally backup nightly and I'll see how that goes. I really don't need to make full images every night, but what the heck, I'm sleeping anyway and the drive space the images take is not a big deal. The size of the resultant SP image is also about the same size as the file created by TI for a full image and space is not a problem.

I guess I must've been misreading the review. I DID check the mounting of my test backup and ability to restore selected files and that seems to be kosher.

[Rebel]

Al,
No. SP will not backup only selected files or directories. It's the whole volume or nothing. This ability may be instituted in future releases, but for now, that's not possible. Let us know how the scheduled overnight backup goes.

[peterg]

That looked like a dead thread. Thanks.

One attraction of Shadow Protect for me is that it can back up an entire installation to a laptop USB drive, and I happen to have one that conveniently fits into a dedicated slot on my desktop PC. I was happy to see Home Server mentioned, as I gather it is an attractive setup.

There is nothing to say that you can’t have more than one backup program on a computer, and imaging is a specialized application. The first version of Ghost had to be run under DOS. I have another conventional backup program, TurboBackup, which would be suitable for backing up plain data to any destination, complete with automatic scheduling. You may already have backup programs you didn’t think of. Nero and Roxio have them in their suites, Iomega has downloadable backup software, and you may have them on U3 or other flash drives. Check what you already have before you go shopping for more, or keep it in mind if you were considering purchasing any such suites or devices. Hardware such as a DVD burner will have software bundled with it as well.

'Successfully restored' is music to my ears. 'All or nothing' is an argument in favour of partitioning.

[Bob Archell]

Hi John,

I have also switched to ShadowProtect.

As reported earlier, I had downloaded the full evaluation of SP and gave it a whirl... after I had uninstalled True Image and Disk Director. I performed a regedit after the uninstalls and removed all evidence of Acronis' products to prevent those reported BSODs. After testing for a few weeks, I remitted the $$$ and got my serial number. SP performs in my Vista environment without any hitches. I am now hooked on SP but will leave ATI v10 on my secondary PC (Window XP test bed) and my wife's Win XP beast.

I have seen your notes, as well as other subscriber's messages on the SP Forum. I have to say that the support as provided by "Nate" is excellent. It has been a long time since I have seen that level and timeliness of support from an application developer.

Cheers, Bob

[Rebel]

Hi Bob,
Thanks for the feedback. I don't think either of us made a mistake by making the switch. To date, I haven't had a glitch. Most importantly (at least to me), I now perform backups with the confidence of knowing that the restores will work properly. And as you say, the support provided is the best that I have encountered. I think we're going to hear a lot more from SahdowProtect in the future.

John

[peterg]

O&O DiskImage is a top-rated imaging product that has not been named or discussed in this thread. Sixty bucks from a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Anyone with experience with it is invited to report.

Note to Al: You have to back up the whole thing, but you can restore any portion of it.