Guest guest Posted November 24, 2005 Report Share Posted November 24, 2005 backupmypc got very good reviews, and on that basis, i bought it (v5 deluxe). i have been using it for backup on my server, ms 2000 pro os. i then became interested in ghosting my computers in case of hard drive failure, so i looked at acronis and norton. acronis got better reviews than norton, and so i thought that acronis would be good to get; acronis 9 was almost out, so i waited. in the meantime, i called acronis and asked them about their product. i was disappointed to learn that trueimage is only for non-server os's. i have been planning to upgrade my server os from 2000 pro to ms sbs 2003, and in order to ghost and backup with acronis, i would need a far more expensive "enterprise" product from them. that's when i posted here asking if anyone were interested in acronis, for ghosting and backup, with the possibility of a volume discount, based on my discussion with them. i didn't hear any interest here. in the meantime, i got a seagate 200 gb external hard drive to use for backups, and have been using backupmypc to back up to it, and, as i have been doing previously, to continue to back up to cdrw and dvdrw. i wanted to append differential backups to the one original backup made to the external hd, since that would be the most efficient method, both in terms of time to back up, and for recovery, in case i ever needed to do so. lo and behold, i discovered that my version 5 of backupmypc deluxe wouldn't let me do that! i think they released different models of v5, with different features. anyway, i went to their website, and they offer v6 for a free upgrade. i downloaded it, and now i can backup the way i want to. moral of the story? review pcworld's articles of acronis and backupmypc. be aware that acronis 9 won't work (unless they changed their policy from 8) for any server-based os, and that you'll need a far more expensive product. if you're using xp pro, it should work fine. the other advantage of acronis is that it's great for ghosting, according to the reviews. you can trial download it on the web. backupmypc v6 or later should also work well, just make sure you can back up differentially, so you don't do a complete backup every time, which is very time consuming when you want to leave the office. again, if anyone is interested in the enterprise edition of acronis for ghosting and backup, and putting the squeeze in for a special discount, please let me know; when i talked with acronis, they were quite interested. maybe they would be interested in a volume discount for their trueimage 9 also. i want to emphasize that ghosting and backup are two different but related concepts. i think the ability to be able to do both is important. i would also like to make clear that i have backed up, but i've never ghosted. backing up is to preserve data; ghosting is to recover your hard drive settings and programs without reloading everything in case of hard drive failure. i have had to reload a hard drive after a potential hard drive failure. trick or treat! hope that's helpful. LLMax Yarowsky wrote: What do you prefer about the Acronis? Does it give more discrete control over which files are backed up? I'm about to get some kind of backup and am looking at BackUpMyPC. Maxlawrence lyon wrote: additionally, although i would prefer acronis true image 9.0, but have not tried it yet, i am using backup my pc v5 just upgraded for free to v6 for the cd and dvd and external hard drive backups. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 24, 2005 Report Share Posted November 24, 2005 You are head and shoulders above me in knowledge of how all the computer stuff works. In your research, have you run across Veritas? My emr support team loaded a trial version on my server and it has run flawlessly. It backs up not only my emr, but everything else that changes (Word docs, Excel stuff, etc) and it does not require my database to be off when it records to tape. Except for the $500 price tag, I am happy with it. My trial version is up in the first half of December, so I have to say yay or nay. The old way worked, most of the time, but my data was not accessible during the middle of the night when the tape was recording, so this is better. Any reason I should be wary? Annie Re: acronis vs backupmypc backupmypc got very good reviews, and on that basis, i bought it (v5 deluxe). i have been using it for backup on my server, ms 2000 pro os. i then became interested in ghosting my computers in case of hard drive failure, so i looked at acronis and norton. acronis got better reviews than norton, and so i thought that acronis would be good to get; acronis 9 was almost out, so i waited. in the meantime, i called acronis and asked them about their product. i was disappointed to learn that trueimage is only for non-server os's. i have been planning to upgrade my server os from 2000 pro to ms sbs 2003, and in order to ghost and backup with acronis, i would need a far more expensive " enterprise " product from them. that's when i posted here asking if anyone were interested in acronis, for ghosting and backup, with the possibility of a volume discount, based on my discussion with them. i didn't hear any interest here. in the meantime, i got a seagate 200 gb external hard drive to use for backups, and have been using backupmypc to back up to it, and, as i have been doing previously, to continue to back up to cdrw and dvdrw. i wanted to append differential backups to the one original backup made to the external hd, since that would be the most efficient method, both in terms of time to back up, and for recovery, in case i ever needed to do so. lo and behold, i discovered that my version 5 of backupmypc deluxe wouldn't let me do that! i think they released different models of v5, with different features. anyway, i went to their website, and they offer v6 for a free upgrade. i downloaded it, and now i can backup the way i want to. moral of the story? review pcworld's articles of acronis and backupmypc. be aware that acronis 9 won't work (unless they changed their policy from 8) for any server-based os, and that you'll need a far more expensive product. if you're using xp pro, it should work fine. the other advantage of acronis is that it's great for ghosting, according to the reviews. you can trial download it on the web. backupmypc v6 or later should also work well, just make sure you can back up differentially, so you don't do a complete backup every time, which is very time consuming when you want to leave the office. again, if anyone is interested in the enterprise edition of acronis for ghosting and backup, and putting the squeeze in for a special discount, please let me know; when i talked with acronis, they were quite interested. maybe they would be interested in a volume discount for their trueimage 9 also. i want to emphasize that ghosting and backup are two different but related concepts. i think the ability to be able to do both is important. i would also like to make clear that i have backed up, but i've never ghosted. backing up is to preserve data; ghosting is to recover your hard drive settings and programs without reloading everything in case of hard drive failure. i have had to reload a hard drive after a potential hard drive failure. trick or treat! hope that's helpful. LL Max Yarowsky wrote: What do you prefer about the Acronis? Does it give more discrete control over which files are backed up? I'm about to get some kind of backup and am looking at BackUpMyPC. Max lawrence lyon wrote: additionally, although i would prefer acronis true image 9.0, but have not tried it yet, i am using backup my pc v5 just upgraded for free to v6 for the cd and dvd and external hard drive backups. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 24, 2005 Report Share Posted November 24, 2005 i believe backupmypc is a spin-off from the veritas program, aimed at those who want a lower cost solution. i like your description of what it does and how it works. i believe it may be similar to how the enterprise version of acronis works, but i don't know for sure. if one loses one's data, it is very difficult if not impossible to recover. if there is a one-time cost of $500 and it also ghosts all your computer hard drives over the network, and provides you with peace of mind about your data, it certainly may well be worth the price. i will find out what i can. thanks for the info. LLAnnie Skaggs wrote: You are head and shoulders above me in knowledge of how all the computer stuff works. In your research, have you run across Veritas? My emr support team loaded a trial version on my server and it has run flawlessly. It backs up not only my emr, but everything else that changes (Word docs, Excel stuff, etc) and it does not require my database to be off when it records to tape. Except for the $500 price tag, I am happy with it. My trial version is up in the first half of December, so I have to say yay or nay. The old way worked, most of the time, but my data was not accessible during the middle of the night when the tape was recording, so this is better. Any reason I should be wary? Annie -----Original Message-----From: [mailto: ] On Behalf Of lawrence lyonSent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 8:44 PMTo: Subject: Re: acronis vs backupmypc backupmypc got very good reviews, and on that basis, i bought it (v5 deluxe). i have been using it for backup on my server, ms 2000 pro os. i then became interested in ghosting my computers in case of hard drive failure, so i looked at acronis and norton. acronis got better reviews than norton, and so i thought that acronis would be good to get; acronis 9 was almost out, so i waited. in the meantime, i called acronis and asked them about their product. i was disappointed to learn that trueimage is only for non-server os's. i have been planning to upgrade my server os from 2000 pro to ms sbs 2003, and in order to ghost and backup with acronis, i would need a far more expensive "enterprise" product from them. that's when i posted here asking if anyone were interested in acronis, for ghosting and backup, with the possibility of a volume discount, based on my discussion with them. i didn't hear any interest here. in the meantime, i got a seagate 200 gb external hard drive to use for backups, and have been using backupmypc to back up to it, and, as i have been doing previously, to continue to back up to cdrw and dvdrw. i wanted to append differential backups to the one original backup made to the external hd, since that would be the most efficient method, both in terms of time to back up, and for recovery, in case i ever needed to do so. lo and behold, i discovered that my version 5 of backupmypc deluxe wouldn't let me do that! i think they released different models of v5, with different features. anyway, i went to their website, and they offer v6 for a free upgrade. i downloaded it, and now i can backup the way i want to. moral of the story? review pcworld's articles of acronis and backupmypc. be aware that acronis 9 won't work (unless they changed their policy from 8) for any server-based os, and that you'll need a far more expensive product. if you're using xp pro, it should work fine. the other advantage of acronis is that it's great for ghosting, according to the reviews. you can trial download it on the web. backupmypc v6 or later should also work well, just make sure you can back up differentially, so you don't do a complete backup every time, which is very time consuming when you want to leave the office. again, if anyone is interested in the enterprise edition of acronis for ghosting and backup, and putting the squeeze in for a special discount, please let me know; when i talked with acronis, they were quite interested. maybe they would be interested in a volume discount for their trueimage 9 also. i want to emphasize that ghosting and backup are two different but related concepts. i think the ability to be able to do both is important. i would also like to make clear that i have backed up, but i've never ghosted. backing up is to preserve data; ghosting is to recover your hard drive settings and programs without reloading everything in case of hard drive failure. i have had to reload a hard drive after a potential hard drive failure. trick or treat! hope that's helpful. LLMax Yarowsky wrote: What do you prefer about the Acronis? Does it give more discrete control over which files are backed up? I'm about to get some kind of backup and am looking at BackUpMyPC. Maxlawrence lyon wrote: additionally, although i would prefer acronis true image 9.0, but have not tried it yet, i am using backup my pc v5 just upgraded for free to v6 for the cd and dvd and external hard drive backups. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 26, 2005 Report Share Posted November 26, 2005 I am still trying to understand the backup technicalities, so I can make good decisions about purchases, and so I don’t get caught with lost data because I didn’t understand how it works. I don’t think my continuous back up goes to the tape continuously. My server has two hard drives and I believe that the continuous back up is from one drive to the other, and then the whole shootin’ match goes to tape once every morning, and then I change the tape. I rotate the tapes off site so that at any given moment, there is a tape with everything thru yesterday in my bag, there is a tape with everything thru day before yesterday at my house, and the server has the most up to the minute stuff on both hard drives. If the server dies, once it is replaced and the software reinstalled, I can for sure get back all the data from the last tape, and PROBABLY rescue the most current (that day’s) stuff from the hard drive as well. If not, I can live with losing a little. It’s not like paper records were never lost/stolen/destroyed. If the building burns, and I’m not there to carry the server out, well then I WILL lose whatever didn’t get on to the tape, but like I said, I can live with that; if paper charts burn, you lose everything, so if all I lose is one day’s data, I can live with that. The following is what my IT guy had to say when I asked him about ghosting. I think that means my system is not currently set up with ghosting capabilities. Any comments on his reasoning? It seems sound to me…. “………..We have covered this once before. Here is my thought process in a nutshell. The reason you would restore a machine is that it crashed. After 6 months of us a laptop/desktop is not in optimal form, and a rebuild would make it better than it is after that 6 month period. So if you routinely Ghost your system, and then one day lets say the hard drive dies, you would then put a new drive in it and Ghost the image of the machine back to it.. In effect restoring it to its not so perfect state. I have done this several times in the past, and moved away from it with the thought that the data should be backed up in one of many ways, and that a PC or Laptop is a commodity that can be replaced at any point by simply installing the needed software and pointing to the data. So..while I agree with the ghosting process, I would personally not use it for a backup solution. I don’t want to restore a system that failed….. with a the information from the system the day before. So… if you would like I can get the software you need and set this up for you…(grin). Remember, hire 2 painters to paint your house, they both will do it differently and end the end you will have a painted house. Neither way is right or wrong, just different. So I’m not disagreeing with his approach, I just think it should be done differently for various reasons ………..” This guy has another client in town who uses the very same system as mine, and they had a complete crash with loss of all data from their server. The good news is that they were able to reinstall the software, load all the data from the tape, and had the whole system back up in less than 2 hours, so I know it works. (The bad news is that they never could figure out what caused the crash. Most votes are for operator error, but nobody knows for sure.) Annie Re: acronis vs backupmypc backupmypc got very good reviews, and on that basis, i bought it (v5 deluxe). i have been using it for backup on my server, ms 2000 pro os. i then became interested in ghosting my computers in case of hard drive failure, so i looked at acronis and norton. acronis got better reviews than norton, and so i thought that acronis would be good to get; acronis 9 was almost out, so i waited. in the meantime, i called acronis and asked them about their product. i was disappointed to learn that trueimage is only for non-server os's. i have been planning to upgrade my server os from 2000 pro to ms sbs 2003, and in order to ghost and backup with acronis, i would need a far more expensive " enterprise " product from them. that's when i posted here asking if anyone were interested in acronis, for ghosting and backup, with the possibility of a volume discount, based on my discussion with them. i didn't hear any interest here. in the meantime, i got a seagate 200 gb external hard drive to use for backups, and have been using backupmypc to back up to it, and, as i have been doing previously, to continue to back up to cdrw and dvdrw. i wanted to append differential backups to the one original backup made to the external hd, since that would be the most efficient method, both in terms of time to back up, and for recovery, in case i ever needed to do so. lo and behold, i discovered that my version 5 of backupmypc deluxe wouldn't let me do that! i think they released different models of v5, with different features. anyway, i went to their website, and they offer v6 for a free upgrade. i downloaded it, and now i can backup the way i want to. moral of the story? review pcworld's articles of acronis and backupmypc. be aware that acronis 9 won't work (unless they changed their policy from 8) for any server-based os, and that you'll need a far more expensive product. if you're using xp pro, it should work fine. the other advantage of acronis is that it's great for ghosting, according to the reviews. you can trial download it on the web. backupmypc v6 or later should also work well, just make sure you can back up differentially, so you don't do a complete backup every time, which is very time consuming when you want to leave the office. again, if anyone is interested in the enterprise edition of acronis for ghosting and backup, and putting the squeeze in for a special discount, please let me know; when i talked with acronis, they were quite interested. maybe they would be interested in a volume discount for their trueimage 9 also. i want to emphasize that ghosting and backup are two different but related concepts. i think the ability to be able to do both is important. i would also like to make clear that i have backed up, but i've never ghosted. backing up is to preserve data; ghosting is to recover your hard drive settings and programs without reloading everything in case of hard drive failure. i have had to reload a hard drive after a potential hard drive failure. trick or treat! hope that's helpful. LL Max Yarowsky wrote: What do you prefer about the Acronis? Does it give more discrete control over which files are backed up? I'm about to get some kind of backup and am looking at BackUpMyPC. Max lawrence lyon wrote: additionally, although i would prefer acronis true image 9.0, but have not tried it yet, i am using backup my pc v5 just upgraded for free to v6 for the cd and dvd and external hard drive backups. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 26, 2005 Report Share Posted November 26, 2005 I am still trying to understand the backup technicalities, so I can make good decisions about purchases, and so I don’t get caught with lost data because I didn’t understand how it works. I don’t think my continuous back up goes to the tape continuously. My server has two hard drives and I believe that the continuous back up is from one drive to the other, and then the whole shootin’ match goes to tape once every morning, and then I change the tape. I rotate the tapes off site so that at any given moment, there is a tape with everything thru yesterday in my bag, there is a tape with everything thru day before yesterday at my house, and the server has the most up to the minute stuff on both hard drives. If the server dies, once it is replaced and the software reinstalled, I can for sure get back all the data from the last tape, and PROBABLY rescue the most current (that day’s) stuff from the hard drive as well. If not, I can live with losing a little. It’s not like paper records were never lost/stolen/destroyed. If the building burns, and I’m not there to carry the server out, well then I WILL lose whatever didn’t get on to the tape, but like I said, I can live with that; if paper charts burn, you lose everything, so if all I lose is one day’s data, I can live with that. The following is what my IT guy had to say when I asked him about ghosting. I think that means my system is not currently set up with ghosting capabilities. Any comments on his reasoning? It seems sound to me…. “………..We have covered this once before. Here is my thought process in a nutshell. The reason you would restore a machine is that it crashed. After 6 months of us a laptop/desktop is not in optimal form, and a rebuild would make it better than it is after that 6 month period. So if you routinely Ghost your system, and then one day lets say the hard drive dies, you would then put a new drive in it and Ghost the image of the machine back to it.. In effect restoring it to its not so perfect state. I have done this several times in the past, and moved away from it with the thought that the data should be backed up in one of many ways, and that a PC or Laptop is a commodity that can be replaced at any point by simply installing the needed software and pointing to the data. So..while I agree with the ghosting process, I would personally not use it for a backup solution. I don’t want to restore a system that failed….. with a the information from the system the day before. So… if you would like I can get the software you need and set this up for you…(grin). Remember, hire 2 painters to paint your house, they both will do it differently and end the end you will have a painted house. Neither way is right or wrong, just different. So I’m not disagreeing with his approach, I just think it should be done differently for various reasons ………..” This guy has another client in town who uses the very same system as mine, and they had a complete crash with loss of all data from their server. The good news is that they were able to reinstall the software, load all the data from the tape, and had the whole system back up in less than 2 hours, so I know it works. (The bad news is that they never could figure out what caused the crash. Most votes are for operator error, but nobody knows for sure.) Annie Re: acronis vs backupmypc backupmypc got very good reviews, and on that basis, i bought it (v5 deluxe). i have been using it for backup on my server, ms 2000 pro os. i then became interested in ghosting my computers in case of hard drive failure, so i looked at acronis and norton. acronis got better reviews than norton, and so i thought that acronis would be good to get; acronis 9 was almost out, so i waited. in the meantime, i called acronis and asked them about their product. i was disappointed to learn that trueimage is only for non-server os's. i have been planning to upgrade my server os from 2000 pro to ms sbs 2003, and in order to ghost and backup with acronis, i would need a far more expensive " enterprise " product from them. that's when i posted here asking if anyone were interested in acronis, for ghosting and backup, with the possibility of a volume discount, based on my discussion with them. i didn't hear any interest here. in the meantime, i got a seagate 200 gb external hard drive to use for backups, and have been using backupmypc to back up to it, and, as i have been doing previously, to continue to back up to cdrw and dvdrw. i wanted to append differential backups to the one original backup made to the external hd, since that would be the most efficient method, both in terms of time to back up, and for recovery, in case i ever needed to do so. lo and behold, i discovered that my version 5 of backupmypc deluxe wouldn't let me do that! i think they released different models of v5, with different features. anyway, i went to their website, and they offer v6 for a free upgrade. i downloaded it, and now i can backup the way i want to. moral of the story? review pcworld's articles of acronis and backupmypc. be aware that acronis 9 won't work (unless they changed their policy from 8) for any server-based os, and that you'll need a far more expensive product. if you're using xp pro, it should work fine. the other advantage of acronis is that it's great for ghosting, according to the reviews. you can trial download it on the web. backupmypc v6 or later should also work well, just make sure you can back up differentially, so you don't do a complete backup every time, which is very time consuming when you want to leave the office. again, if anyone is interested in the enterprise edition of acronis for ghosting and backup, and putting the squeeze in for a special discount, please let me know; when i talked with acronis, they were quite interested. maybe they would be interested in a volume discount for their trueimage 9 also. i want to emphasize that ghosting and backup are two different but related concepts. i think the ability to be able to do both is important. i would also like to make clear that i have backed up, but i've never ghosted. backing up is to preserve data; ghosting is to recover your hard drive settings and programs without reloading everything in case of hard drive failure. i have had to reload a hard drive after a potential hard drive failure. trick or treat! hope that's helpful. LL Max Yarowsky wrote: What do you prefer about the Acronis? Does it give more discrete control over which files are backed up? I'm about to get some kind of backup and am looking at BackUpMyPC. Max lawrence lyon wrote: additionally, although i would prefer acronis true image 9.0, but have not tried it yet, i am using backup my pc v5 just upgraded for free to v6 for the cd and dvd and external hard drive backups. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 26, 2005 Report Share Posted November 26, 2005 As I understand it, the only reason to ghost a machine is to quickly restore the operating systems and programs. You only need to ghost once when the system is set up like you like it. If you need to pop in a new hard drive it decreases the time it takes to minutes. Brent > > additionally, although i would prefer acronis true image 9.0, but have > not tried it yet, i am using backup my pc v5 just upgraded for free to > v6 for the cd and dvd and external hard drive backups. > > _____ > > Yahoo! > <http://pa.yahoo.com/*http:/us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=36035/*http:/music.ya hoo > .com/unlimited/> Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it > free. > > > _____ > > Yahoo! > <http://pa.yahoo.com/*http:/us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=36035/*http:/music.ya hoo > .com/unlimited/> Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it > free. > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 26, 2005 Report Share Posted November 26, 2005 As I understand it, the only reason to ghost a machine is to quickly restore the operating systems and programs. You only need to ghost once when the system is set up like you like it. If you need to pop in a new hard drive it decreases the time it takes to minutes. Brent > > additionally, although i would prefer acronis true image 9.0, but have > not tried it yet, i am using backup my pc v5 just upgraded for free to > v6 for the cd and dvd and external hard drive backups. > > _____ > > Yahoo! > <http://pa.yahoo.com/*http:/us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=36035/*http:/music.ya hoo > .com/unlimited/> Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it > free. > > > _____ > > Yahoo! > <http://pa.yahoo.com/*http:/us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=36035/*http:/music.ya hoo > .com/unlimited/> Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it > free. > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 26, 2005 Report Share Posted November 26, 2005 You can ghost incrementally, using points in time. So, if there is a problem you can pick a ghost for a point in time when there was no problem and restore that. If you have your EMR software then you can load that and use a backup of your day to day data to restore completely. If you don’t have the EMR software, then that has to be loaded and hence the loss of time. LK From: [mailto: ] On Behalf Of Annie Skaggs Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2005 5:14 AM To: Subject: RE: acronis vs backupmypc I am still trying to understand the backup technicalities, so I can make good decisions about purchases, and so I don’t get caught with lost data because I didn’t understand how it works. I don’t think my continuous back up goes to the tape continuously. My server has two hard drives and I believe that the continuous back up is from one drive to the other, and then the whole shootin’ match goes to tape once every morning, and then I change the tape. I rotate the tapes off site so that at any given moment, there is a tape with everything thru yesterday in my bag, there is a tape with everything thru day before yesterday at my house, and the server has the most up to the minute stuff on both hard drives. If the server dies, once it is replaced and the software reinstalled, I can for sure get back all the data from the last tape, and PROBABLY rescue the most current (that day’s) stuff from the hard drive as well. If not, I can live with losing a little. It’s not like paper records were never lost/stolen/destroyed. If the building burns, and I’m not there to carry the server out, well then I WILL lose whatever didn’t get on to the tape, but like I said, I can live with that; if paper charts burn, you lose everything, so if all I lose is one day’s data, I can live with that. The following is what my IT guy had to say when I asked him about ghosting. I think that means my system is not currently set up with ghosting capabilities. Any comments on his reasoning? It seems sound to me…. “………..We have covered this once before. Here is my thought process in a nutshell. The reason you would restore a machine is that it crashed. After 6 months of us a laptop/desktop is not in optimal form, and a rebuild would make it better than it is after that 6 month period. So if you routinely Ghost your system, and then one day lets say the hard drive dies, you would then put a new drive in it and Ghost the image of the machine back to it.. In effect restoring it to its not so perfect state. I have done this several times in the past, and moved away from it with the thought that the data should be backed up in one of many ways, and that a PC or Laptop is a commodity that can be replaced at any point by simply installing the needed software and pointing to the data. So..while I agree with the ghosting process, I would personally not use it for a backup solution. I don’t want to restore a system that failed….. with a the information from the system the day before. So… if you would like I can get the software you need and set this up for you…(grin). Remember, hire 2 painters to paint your house, they both will do it differently and end the end you will have a painted house. Neither way is right or wrong, just different. So I’m not disagreeing with his approach, I just think it should be done differently for various reasons ………..” This guy has another client in town who uses the very same system as mine, and they had a complete crash with loss of all data from their server. The good news is that they were able to reinstall the software, load all the data from the tape, and had the whole system back up in less than 2 hours, so I know it works. (The bad news is that they never could figure out what caused the crash. Most votes are for operator error, but nobody knows for sure.) Annie Re: acronis vs backupmypc backupmypc got very good reviews, and on that basis, i bought it (v5 deluxe). i have been using it for backup on my server, ms 2000 pro os. i then became interested in ghosting my computers in case of hard drive failure, so i looked at acronis and norton. acronis got better reviews than norton, and so i thought that acronis would be good to get; acronis 9 was almost out, so i waited. in the meantime, i called acronis and asked them about their product. i was disappointed to learn that trueimage is only for non-server os's. i have been planning to upgrade my server os from 2000 pro to ms sbs 2003, and in order to ghost and backup with acronis, i would need a far more expensive " enterprise " product from them. that's when i posted here asking if anyone were interested in acronis, for ghosting and backup, with the possibility of a volume discount, based on my discussion with them. i didn't hear any interest here. in the meantime, i got a seagate 200 gb external hard drive to use for backups, and have been using backupmypc to back up to it, and, as i have been doing previously, to continue to back up to cdrw and dvdrw. i wanted to append differential backups to the one original backup made to the external hd, since that would be the most efficient method, both in terms of time to back up, and for recovery, in case i ever needed to do so. lo and behold, i discovered that my version 5 of backupmypc deluxe wouldn't let me do that! i think they released different models of v5, with different features. anyway, i went to their website, and they offer v6 for a free upgrade. i downloaded it, and now i can backup the way i want to. moral of the story? review pcworld's articles of acronis and backupmypc. be aware that acronis 9 won't work (unless they changed their policy from 8) for any server-based os, and that you'll need a far more expensive product. if you're using xp pro, it should work fine. the other advantage of acronis is that it's great for ghosting, according to the reviews. you can trial download it on the web. backupmypc v6 or later should also work well, just make sure you can back up differentially, so you don't do a complete backup every time, which is very time consuming when you want to leave the office. again, if anyone is interested in the enterprise edition of acronis for ghosting and backup, and putting the squeeze in for a special discount, please let me know; when i talked with acronis, they were quite interested. maybe they would be interested in a volume discount for their trueimage 9 also. i want to emphasize that ghosting and backup are two different but related concepts. i think the ability to be able to do both is important. i would also like to make clear that i have backed up, but i've never ghosted. backing up is to preserve data; ghosting is to recover your hard drive settings and programs without reloading everything in case of hard drive failure. i have had to reload a hard drive after a potential hard drive failure. trick or treat! hope that's helpful. LL Max Yarowsky wrote: What do you prefer about the Acronis? Does it give more discrete control over which files are backed up? I'm about to get some kind of backup and am looking at BackUpMyPC. Max lawrence lyon wrote: additionally, although i would prefer acronis true image 9.0, but have not tried it yet, i am using backup my pc v5 just upgraded for free to v6 for the cd and dvd and external hard drive backups. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 26, 2005 Report Share Posted November 26, 2005 You can ghost incrementally, using points in time. So, if there is a problem you can pick a ghost for a point in time when there was no problem and restore that. If you have your EMR software then you can load that and use a backup of your day to day data to restore completely. If you don’t have the EMR software, then that has to be loaded and hence the loss of time. LK From: [mailto: ] On Behalf Of Annie Skaggs Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2005 5:14 AM To: Subject: RE: acronis vs backupmypc I am still trying to understand the backup technicalities, so I can make good decisions about purchases, and so I don’t get caught with lost data because I didn’t understand how it works. I don’t think my continuous back up goes to the tape continuously. My server has two hard drives and I believe that the continuous back up is from one drive to the other, and then the whole shootin’ match goes to tape once every morning, and then I change the tape. I rotate the tapes off site so that at any given moment, there is a tape with everything thru yesterday in my bag, there is a tape with everything thru day before yesterday at my house, and the server has the most up to the minute stuff on both hard drives. If the server dies, once it is replaced and the software reinstalled, I can for sure get back all the data from the last tape, and PROBABLY rescue the most current (that day’s) stuff from the hard drive as well. If not, I can live with losing a little. It’s not like paper records were never lost/stolen/destroyed. If the building burns, and I’m not there to carry the server out, well then I WILL lose whatever didn’t get on to the tape, but like I said, I can live with that; if paper charts burn, you lose everything, so if all I lose is one day’s data, I can live with that. The following is what my IT guy had to say when I asked him about ghosting. I think that means my system is not currently set up with ghosting capabilities. Any comments on his reasoning? It seems sound to me…. “………..We have covered this once before. Here is my thought process in a nutshell. The reason you would restore a machine is that it crashed. After 6 months of us a laptop/desktop is not in optimal form, and a rebuild would make it better than it is after that 6 month period. So if you routinely Ghost your system, and then one day lets say the hard drive dies, you would then put a new drive in it and Ghost the image of the machine back to it.. In effect restoring it to its not so perfect state. I have done this several times in the past, and moved away from it with the thought that the data should be backed up in one of many ways, and that a PC or Laptop is a commodity that can be replaced at any point by simply installing the needed software and pointing to the data. So..while I agree with the ghosting process, I would personally not use it for a backup solution. I don’t want to restore a system that failed….. with a the information from the system the day before. So… if you would like I can get the software you need and set this up for you…(grin). Remember, hire 2 painters to paint your house, they both will do it differently and end the end you will have a painted house. Neither way is right or wrong, just different. So I’m not disagreeing with his approach, I just think it should be done differently for various reasons ………..” This guy has another client in town who uses the very same system as mine, and they had a complete crash with loss of all data from their server. The good news is that they were able to reinstall the software, load all the data from the tape, and had the whole system back up in less than 2 hours, so I know it works. (The bad news is that they never could figure out what caused the crash. Most votes are for operator error, but nobody knows for sure.) Annie Re: acronis vs backupmypc backupmypc got very good reviews, and on that basis, i bought it (v5 deluxe). i have been using it for backup on my server, ms 2000 pro os. i then became interested in ghosting my computers in case of hard drive failure, so i looked at acronis and norton. acronis got better reviews than norton, and so i thought that acronis would be good to get; acronis 9 was almost out, so i waited. in the meantime, i called acronis and asked them about their product. i was disappointed to learn that trueimage is only for non-server os's. i have been planning to upgrade my server os from 2000 pro to ms sbs 2003, and in order to ghost and backup with acronis, i would need a far more expensive " enterprise " product from them. that's when i posted here asking if anyone were interested in acronis, for ghosting and backup, with the possibility of a volume discount, based on my discussion with them. i didn't hear any interest here. in the meantime, i got a seagate 200 gb external hard drive to use for backups, and have been using backupmypc to back up to it, and, as i have been doing previously, to continue to back up to cdrw and dvdrw. i wanted to append differential backups to the one original backup made to the external hd, since that would be the most efficient method, both in terms of time to back up, and for recovery, in case i ever needed to do so. lo and behold, i discovered that my version 5 of backupmypc deluxe wouldn't let me do that! i think they released different models of v5, with different features. anyway, i went to their website, and they offer v6 for a free upgrade. i downloaded it, and now i can backup the way i want to. moral of the story? review pcworld's articles of acronis and backupmypc. be aware that acronis 9 won't work (unless they changed their policy from 8) for any server-based os, and that you'll need a far more expensive product. if you're using xp pro, it should work fine. the other advantage of acronis is that it's great for ghosting, according to the reviews. you can trial download it on the web. backupmypc v6 or later should also work well, just make sure you can back up differentially, so you don't do a complete backup every time, which is very time consuming when you want to leave the office. again, if anyone is interested in the enterprise edition of acronis for ghosting and backup, and putting the squeeze in for a special discount, please let me know; when i talked with acronis, they were quite interested. maybe they would be interested in a volume discount for their trueimage 9 also. i want to emphasize that ghosting and backup are two different but related concepts. i think the ability to be able to do both is important. i would also like to make clear that i have backed up, but i've never ghosted. backing up is to preserve data; ghosting is to recover your hard drive settings and programs without reloading everything in case of hard drive failure. i have had to reload a hard drive after a potential hard drive failure. trick or treat! hope that's helpful. LL Max Yarowsky wrote: What do you prefer about the Acronis? Does it give more discrete control over which files are backed up? I'm about to get some kind of backup and am looking at BackUpMyPC. Max lawrence lyon wrote: additionally, although i would prefer acronis true image 9.0, but have not tried it yet, i am using backup my pc v5 just upgraded for free to v6 for the cd and dvd and external hard drive backups. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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