Disk Imaging utilities

[b4u]

Hi,

I'm looking into some disk image tools, and currently I'm getting info about:

Norton Ghost
Acronis True Image
R-Drive Image

Looking into this comparison site, I can see, for example, that only Ghost can change the SID of a disk.

I want to be able to image Windows 2000 Pro/Server systems, Windows 2003 Server systems and Windows XP systems.

For windows 2000/XP, I want to make one image and copy it to many computers, so my question is, isn't it important that I choose a software that can change the SID?

What would you choose? Any other software you recommend? Money is not an issue here ... and Acronis have a bunch of versions around ...


Thanks

 

[Bglad]

I've been around the block with this just a few times, and again in the past couple of weeks.

The part the chart doesn't tell you is that Ghost is notorious for giving you corrupted images. Some people here disagree and use it successfully but do a google search for yourself on "ghost" and "error" or something and you will get an eyeful.

I was able to get Ghost to work fine doing a backup to a local drive, but what kind of backup is that? I was trying to backup some networked computers in my office to an NAS drive and later to a USB external drive. Every backup from every computer on my network gave me corrupted images in that setup. Seems to me Ghost can get very finicky if you need to do network backups etc. Then if you need to do anything out of the ordinary you have to use command line options which I don't think are in the manual and are hard to use.

Anyway, went and bought TruImage Workstation last week to replace Ghost and it backed up everything just fine.

Just my 2 cents. And if you decide you want Ghost, I have several copies of Ghost 10 and 2003, brand new original discs with manuals that have never been registered that I will sell you

 

[corkyg]

SID changes are not altogether honest, and there is some risk. It is a good point you raise.

SID

For quick and accurate drive cloning, I have tried everything, and Acronis wins that game for me. TrueImage 9 is the latest version.

I'm not sure why you would want all computers to have the same SID. ???

 

[b4u]

Originally posted by: corkyg
I'm not sure why you would want all computers to have the same SID. ???

I don't ... that's the point. If I make an exact image to another computer, it will have the same SID ... and that's what I want to avoid, so a nice way to change it would be great, and it would be great if the image software do the job for me.

 

[networkman]

I've used Ghost 8.0 Enterprise edition at my work and have had only 2 corrupted images in all of that time over many dozens of images in all. And those two that were corrupt weren't even a big deal, as they were "post-Sysprep" images and I still had the "pre-Sysprep" images to work from.

I've had no problems ghosting servers with scsi drives or PCs with IDE or SATA drives. Some folks swear by Acronis - truth is, I can't speak to the capabilities of Acronis because Ghost just continues to work well for us.

Edit: Looking over that comparison chart, I'm a little skeptical about some of the categories and qualifications. Do make sure that you're comparing apples to apples as it were. My comments are about the "older" 8.0 Enterprise edition which does support Multicast Deployment and does it very well in fact. My guess is that the review is only looking at the consumer editions of the software which is fine if you're looking at imaging for your own personal use, but if this is for a company, be sure and look at the Corporate or Enterprise editions as appropriate.

 

[Hadsus]

Don't want to sidetrack the discussion, but I'm taking delivery of a new Conroe system in a couple of days.....will have XP installed. I want to image that right off the bat before loading stuff on. How much space will the image use if I use something like Acronis? I just purchased a 60 gig external HD (a small WD pocket job) that I'm using to back stuff up and am hoping that it will do the job for both backing up of save games, images, etc., and an OS image of my new system.

 

[Bglad]

Paragon Drive Backup will change the SID.