Disk Cloning

devoir

Currently looking at updating our Ghost software to the latest version, but it looks like they've moved to a per cpu licensing scheme which doesn't fit the way we run our client hardware support. I'm making further enquiries with our licensing contacts to clarify but while they are getting back to me, I'd like to know what else other people have used seeing as we're going to be changing the software, maybe there's something more suitable out there

The disk cloning software has to be:

a) capable of NTFS and FAT, up to terabyte size
b) capable of to-network, to-DVD writing of a recoverable file copy of the system
c) capable of to-disk sector-by-sector copying
d) rock solid, easy to use and informative
e) capable of booting from DVD/CD and preferable also able to do it from USB
f) preferably have some sort of remote management console thing to monitor from when doing a to-network write
g) well supported by whoever develops it

I have no preference to open source or closed, commercial or free, it just has to do the job well.

Djeet

check out acronis enterprise server trial. it looks pretty good.

DrFrylock

I'm not sure about your particular requirements, but I had to do some disk cloning recently and was completely thwarted by Ghost, which I was trying to use because it was (at one time) the gold standard for that sort of thing and I had a copy. Between trying to construct a boot floppy that had the appropriate voodoo of USB drivers and ASPI bullshit, I gave up and headed to Google. I downloaded a trial copy of Acronis TrueImage (the 'home' version of their software) and was done in an hour with very little hassle. Try it out; I was very satisfied.

devoir

Thanks. Unfortunately it looks like TrueImage also runs with the "per PC" licensing approach, which is a bit sticky considering we basically need the software for disaster recovery. Ideally we'd be able to plonk down $500 for a once-of buy rather than buy a license everytime we need to restore/transfer a PC's data for a client. Otherwise we're going to have to add the software license charge to our own costs everytime we need to use disk cloning.

I guess the alternative is to use a "home" product.