Penny Arcade Forums› Games and Technology› Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.

Whatcha think is the best Backup software?

mfroggmfrogg Registered User regular
edited November 2010 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
I've got a computer with 3 partitions on a physical drive.

I'd like to actually image the whole drive and make a backup in case something bad happens. Ultimately, I'd like to be able to boot from a dvd/cd, and run a "restore to factory"-esque thing, like Dell's/Gateways/most computers from big-guys these days do..

I've looked around on the net, and names like Acronis pop up, but there's reviews saying the images don't work as planned.

What does the forum think?

mfrogg on

Posts

  • TL DRTL DR Not at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered User regular
    edited November 2010
    Do you want to be able to run regular scheduled backups? Are you looking for something free?

    ShadowProtect is awesome. I don't recall what a license costs, but you can get a free 30-day trial. Even without activating, you can boot from the disc manually to create, explore, and restore volume images.

    TL DR on
  • mfroggmfrogg Registered User regular
    edited November 2010
    I don't need scheduled backup. More like a "Here's what the base machine is..." and then I deal with the other data.. or heck, maybe scheduled would be nice..

    <investigates shadowprotect>

    I see, in the future, a harddrive going limp, requiring a clone of itself in a new body to continue on with stuff..

    mfrogg on
  • XantusXantus Registered User regular
    edited November 2010
    or give clonezilla-live cd a try. takes a bit of reading, not as easy userfriendly as most...
    I use that one at work and it's been reliable for reimaging lab computers.

    Xantus on
  • Apothe0sisApothe0sis Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Registered User regular
    edited November 2010
    This seems like a complete bazooka to kill an ant situation.

    Restoring from an image is really only required in really specific circumstances or if you're building a whole lot of machines a whole number of times.

    What are you trying to achieve? Or rather, what are you trying to protect against? If you're only looking to make rebuilding your machine faster, that's a fairly smaller payoff for a considerably outlaying of time and effort. It's hardly work anyone's time to back up an operating system.

    On the other hand, content is important - but having a single, static backup doesn't really help anyone.

    Apothe0sis on
  • ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited November 2010
    I just use dd for imaging drives, really. Then I use a distro from CD or USB stick to restore it if needed.

    ronya on
    aRkpc.gif
  • DritzDritz CanadaRegistered User regular
    edited November 2010
    Apothe0sis wrote: »
    This seems like a complete bazooka to kill an ant situation.

    Restoring from an image is really only required in really specific circumstances or if you're building a whole lot of machines a whole number of times.

    Guy just wants to create a disk to install a base system should the need ever arise. It isn't that crazy of a request. It's worth it for anyone to figure out what they usually install on a fresh system and create a 'restore' disk to get there if it's ever needed.

    Clonezilla has been mentioned and it is indeed awesome for this purpose.

    Dritz on
    There I was, 3DS: 2621-2671-9899 (Ekera), Wii U: LostCrescendo
Sign In or Register to comment.
Penny Arcade Forums› Games and Technology› Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern