Windows 7 backup vs. extra software

SIW2 said:

If Win Sys Img does the job for you - that's great. You don't need anything else.

I still want to say thanks for your help. You help a lot of people including me. I don't want you to have any hard feelings for me SIW.

You are the man, and you know WAY more than I about most subjects.

Thanks for all the help in the past. I hope I can help you or vice versa one day soon.

Callistra said:

Why would anyone choose extra ghosting software over Windows 7 built in backup system w/ system image option? Is there some benefit to this?

Many opinions here.
1. Windows Backup and imaging software are for someone that doesn't have lots of data and wants it easy. That is what MS imaging and backup can do.
I image my HD every week to another internal HD. If I scewup my HD within 6 minutes I can be back to a good starting point.

2. I also every few weks make an image using Terabytes Unlimted "Image for Windows" which I have been using for years. This is just a backup of MS image.

3. I also manuall save my Documents Directory at least every 2-3 days to my backup HD. So if worse comes I had to do a clean new reinstall of Win7 I still have my documents.
Oh this includes word & excel documents, pictures, favorites and my Outlook.pst file.

I always ask friends that don't backup. If you lost your HD today would you cry about it? Backup and you won't be sorry.

What do you think?


PS Yes I have lost my HD many years ago without a backup and I kicked myself everyday for at least 2 weeks. Then swore it will never happen again.

Callistra said:

Why would anyone choose extra ghosting software over Windows 7 built in backup system w/ system image option? Is there some benefit to this?

For me, it's cos Ghost is through DOS and OS independent. If i want to clone a disk, i just boot to Ghost and do it, without needing to log onto the OS. That said there are other tools that do the same so yeh which ever is easiest and works best at the moment it time i suppose.

The Win7 backup is quite good.

For myself though I use the free True Image 11 from Western Digital because:

• I like to able to put images in specific folders on my other drive so I can keep the organized, not where Windows sees fit.
• I have 3 images and everytime I create a new image with Win7 it overwrites the old one.
• When restoring with the boot CD it tries to locate the image itself, there isn't an option for "browsing" your drives.
• Although Windows backup is quick, it only takes me about 5,6 minutes to create an image with ATI, and about 15 minutes to restore.
• And the big reason, despite having a 1TB internal and 500GB external, the image sizes are about 3-5GB larger. I just use the normal compression with ATI and they are still much smaller than Windows.

Of course having said all that, if there was no True Image or Macrium Reflect, then I'd be pretty happy using the built-in backup.

Is it just me, or is the fact you can't move the location of the backup once it is created a pain?

What if you backup your system to a network location (ie. to another computer used as a single backup location for all the computers you own). Then you need to restore the Windows 7 disk, but you want to copy the backup image from the network location to an external HDD to make restoring faster. Basically not wanting to restore over the network.

Or still using the example above. I know the chances of 2 hard disks failing is remote. However, if you have data you can't afford to lose and you want to copy the backup image to another additional hard drive, no go? basically if both the Windows 7 drive and first backup image drive crap out, you can't restore from the copy on the second backup drive?

The only way I can see doing the above, is to pick a location for the backup image that is on a RAID disk (for extra redundancy). Or, you have to run two backup processes, one to your network location and another to a second drive elsewhere. Both of these are not very practical implementations esp. if you don't have a RAID controller, or want to waste time backing up twice.

Or maybe I have just been staring at the computer too long and misread something.


Any other thoughts on this?

CL