IBM R&R vs Acronis TrueImage

[Vindicated]

Last night I had to do a full system restore and "System Restore" was disabled so I had to use IBM's Rapid Restore utility and got my system like it came from the factory. Midway though reinstalling all my software, getting my system back to how I like it, XP got currupted. So I did the rapid restore again. After that every time I installed a few programs I'd reboot then do a manual backup.

My problem with IBM's R&R is that it's fairly slow and I can't really work on the computer while it's doing the backup. I'm looking for an alternative solution and was wondering how you guys feel about Acronis TrueImage?

I prefer the backup programs that take a snapshot or image of the entire hard drive. That way when I need to restore my system (I like to assume XP isn't bootable) I just pop in a DVD-R or press F-11 and choose the restore point I want to go back to. All new files and programs should be gone - none of that backuping up the registry and a few key areas. Those programs never work for me.

What program do you guys use and recomend? Is Acronis the best alternative? What about Roxco's FirstDefense?

[dokein]

Acronis is the best IMO. I have been buiding my full acronis image from a slipstreamed XP over the past couple of days, creating checkpoint images along the way, just in case. Takes about 5 minutes to back up 6 gigs of stuff, maybe 10 to restore it - beats the hell out of R&R.

[Nolonemo]

Acronis rocks. The only downside to the present release is that you cannot back up directly to DVDs (CDs only). Not a huge problem for me because I backup to a networked desktop. If I go travelling, I burn the latest backup set to DVD (data on the road gets backed up to a thumb drive). Acronis lets you create a bootable CD that you use to start the whole restore process off (though you can also restore from the desktop install).

[mysbca]

Another vote for Acronis. I back up images to an external drive and then occassionally burning one of those images to dvd.

[storage_man]

Acronis TI is super product - Saved my butt a bunch of times. By the way you CAN write directly to a DVD, but you need to have a 3rd party UDF burning software available ie INCD from NERO.

They also allow you to create incremental backups, with no worry about date and time stamps. Restores go extremely easy and they support a wide range of hardware. TI also supports Drive cloning, so you can have a point in time instant replacement hard drive in case of total drive failure.

Storage_man

[Nolonemo]

Acronis TI is super product - Saved my butt a bunch of times. By the way you CAN write directly to a DVD, but you need to have a 3rd party UDF burning software available ie INCD from NERO.

Right, forgot about UDF, never use it, won't have it on my machine.

They also allow you to create incremental backups, with no worry about date and time stamps. Restores go extremely easy and they support a wide range of hardware. TI also supports Drive cloning, so you can have a point in time instant replacement hard drive in case of total drive failure.

Storage_man

Storage_man, what I understand about the incremental backup is that if anything has changed on the partition being imaged since the last time the partition was imaged, the whole partition will be imaged. (I've never used it because something has changed on all my partitions between backups, so there didn't seem to be a point). Is that the way it works? Thanks.

[hkhalil]

Hi folks,

Can anyone tell me if TI would let me backup my whole drive and if need be, pop a new one into the machine and restore from scratch? It would be great if this could be done over the network, but CD/DVD is OK.

What about the IBM pre-desktop area - is this included in the backup or do you guys run without it now you are using TI ?

Mnay thanks

[tselling]

Why not try the free trial: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/pr ... trueimage/

[Nolonemo]

Hi folks,

Can anyone tell me if TI would let me backup my whole drive and if need be, pop a new one into the machine and restore from scratch? It would be great if this could be done over the network, but CD/DVD is OK.

What about the IBM pre-desktop area - is this included in the backup or do you guys run without it now you are using TI ?

Mnay thanks

Yes, TI will do the whole drive, can be done over network (if you created Acronis boot media) or from DVD. I don't know about the pre-desktop area, though, I'd expect so, but I don't know.

[storage_man]

Nolonemo

To your question "what I understand about the incremental backup is that if anything has changed on the partition being imaged since the last time the partition was imaged, the whole partition will be imaged. (I've never used it because something has changed on all my partitions between backups, so there didn't seem to be a point). Is that the way it works? Thanks.

TI backups up your disk/partition by sector. During the incremental backup, it compares each sectors - if a sector changes, then a new copy is made in the new backup .TIB file. The only time I have ever seen a downside for doing a incremental backup, was after a partition DEFRAG. You can understand why. The elapsed time for an incremental backup usally is shorter than a full backup, but depending on how much changed, can take just as long.

Hope this helps

Storage_man

[Nolonemo]

TI backups up your disk/partition by sector. During the incremental backup, it compares each sectors - if a sector changes, then a new copy is made in the new backup .TIB file.

Got it, thanks for the reply.