In need of imaging software that takes snapshots of WinXP and able to restore easily?
I have a Dell Optiplex GX270 (IBM Deskstar 60gb hdd, Windows XP, 4gigs of RAM, Intel Pentium 4 processor)running as an application server. This machine is going to crap out one day and I have a similarly built "server" ready to go - same GX270 specs. What is the best software to start taking DAILY snapshots so that when that day finally comes, I can restore the snapshot (from the network) onto the new PC and continue chugging along with minimal downtime?
Symantec Backup Exec
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Or Easus's ToDo Backup is a good free solution if the hardware really is similar and you can manually run the images every day.
Symantec Backup Exec will run them on a schedule as many times as you want, and will restore to different hardware.
Symantec Backup Exec will run them on a schedule as many times as you want, and will restore to different hardware.
You can get DriveImageXML which will create a "hot" image of your workstation (meaning that you can create the image while the system is up and working). Do an initial disk image with that and then if you don't want to do daily full images with it (last time I checked it did not do incrementals) use Windows Backup to do a full and incrementals. This way you can restore the DIXML image to get the partition(s) back and Windows backup to restore your incrementals changes.
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
Paragon Backup works well:
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express/
Clonezilla is free, but not as user friendly:
http://www.clonezilla.org
I would 2nd rbarnhardt's suggestion of Acronis True Image, very easy to use - I would recommend going for the Universal Restore feature as well, that will allow you to restore your backups to dissimilar hardware.
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express/
Clonezilla is free, but not as user friendly:
http://www.clonezilla.org
I would 2nd rbarnhardt's suggestion of Acronis True Image, very easy to use - I would recommend going for the Universal Restore feature as well, that will allow you to restore your backups to dissimilar hardware.
www.acronis.com - true image, creates bootable media, daily snapshots of the disk. I use it all the time when a user messes their system up
Acronis, hands-down.
Paragon is pretty good, but I am switching to Acronis.
Paragon is pretty good, but I am switching to Acronis.
I've used clonezilla and Symantec Ghost successfully. Ghost version 15 has been a personal godsend for a while now.