Currently use Acronis True Image Home 2010, have used ATI since ATI 8. I make manual back ups of the COMPLETE disk and manual restores of same. In the years I've used ATI I had 1 back up image that didn't restore properly, since I keep 2 or 3 it wasn't an issue.
I tried Paragon, no problems, prefer ATI.
neither Macrium reflect for me, its free and does a great job at restoring an image with ease
It's whatever works for you.
None of them are perfect. There will always be some systems that one or more backup apps. won't be happy with.
They all have different priorities also.
Paragon for example is perhaps not the quickest, it's certainly not the prettiest.
As far as I know , Paragon is the only backup image app. that will test the drive and warn of any problems. The others just rush ahead regardless.
Seems to me that is a big advantage - you don't want to find out too late there is something wrong with the drive. Corrupt images are rare , but almost always the result of problems with the drive.
It is also the lowest in resource usage - a design decision on the basis backups should go on behind the scenes as unobtrusively as possible.
ugghh.... wish I had not seen that last post!
If I can piggyback on this: what I don't see in the above discussions is what the endgame is?
The only reason I Have used all these packages and a few others is to move drives - make image, change to faster/better/cooler/lower-power/bigger drives and have the system come alive and ACTIVATE and VALIDATE, and AUTHENTICATE, UPDATE, etc without a hiccup. On a handful of system images/restores I did, Paragon was the clear winner - HOWEVER, Paragon's Bootable CD-based program is badly flawed. LIke many Linux's I've toyed with, it will work on a very narrow range of hardware, and will produce grievous errors on a slew of others.... including one sorry box I'm working with now. Just cannot sort out the box's BIOS, video, etc.
So I am back on the hunt... show me a program that can b/u and restore a full bit-for-bit image that will boot first time and activate/validate with nary an issue.....
I too am an Acronis user and have been very happy with it, and haven't had any issues so far.
If your goal is to make an exact bit per bit image, you can tell it to do a sector by sector image, as well as back up free space if want.
This isn't really needed though.
I just image the entire disc without these options, and have never had a issue with activation status, or anthing else with a restore. And Ive done quite a few of them.
Acronis can also start the back up from within Windows, and do restore at reboot.
Or from the CD if you can not get into Windows or prefer that way.
Here is the backup time I get with Macrium for a 20GB of data in a 60GB OS only partition. But as you can see, I run it on high priority. And the image is appr. 10GBs.
The boot discs that come with all the free versions are all Linux based - that includes Acronis and Macrium.
If you are happy with the Paragon app. you can easily make your own pe boot disc.
It is very easy.
You only need the 32 bit 7 install media ( or the 32 bit recovery disc that you run off from within 7 ) and the Paragon app. you already have installed.
Due to the Paragon bootable media being incompatible with my hdwe .. I'll give Macrium a shot today.
The last time I tried Macrium the image would not boot properly, and when I finally got it fixed, it would not activate.
Maybe it will be different this time.
Does anyone know if there is a way to burn to one CD BOTH the Linux and BartPE versions of their boot package? that way when the linux version fails I can use the Bart
The BartPE from Macrium does not seem to be compatible with Win7. I guess you have to make your own as SIW2 suggested. But I never had any problems with the Linux version - and I have made a LOT of recoveries (for real, for test and for demo).
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