Shadow, Backup, Ghost etc.

[TraceyHand]

Don't be ashamed - it was the only piece of this thread I understood!

LOL
me too!

and I was very tempted to add "go left" or something too...
oh dear, I really do need to get a life!

[NormanRouxel]

Ahah! Caught copying from an earlier post. At least it was my own post. I'd have replied earlier but I'm stuck in the Maze of twisty passages with no money for the battery vending machine!

[leehack]

Sell your soul Norman, shame on you lol

[Coggy]

Hi,

I have to agree with those people recommending Acronis...It was recommended to me too, and I found the software to be both intuitive and fast. Although I was previously using quite an old version of Ghost, Acronis wins hands down IMO.

HTH

Chris

[NormanRouxel]

Ghost images provide a great level of security. You can also use Ghost Explorer to peek inside these images and extract the odd file if required.

Combine Ghost with VMware and you can simply create a new virtual PC with a blank virtual disk big enough for the image, load said image and have the entire earlier system running in a window.

[jont]

Caught copying from an earlier post. At least it was my own post.

You were only caught as I don't have a life outside Actinic Forum and read all the posts

You can also use Ghost Explorer to peek inside these images and extract the odd file if required.

Used this today to recover a file I had not used in 3 years and deleted last month as the customer wanted a repeat order

[leehack]

I ran a backup for the first time last night using Acronis, i was astonished at how quick it was, it ran the whole thing in about 10 mins, i was expecting a 2 hour process. I had to check the bloody thing to make sure i wasn't doing something stupid, how it actually copies about 15gb so quick is beyond me, but it looks ok. You can also next time, just append the changes to it, although the speed a full one takes, i think i will just do that for convenience.

I'd love to have the bottle to try a restore but i'm too battered and bruised from it all to try. You can restore the image to a virtual drive and take a look inside also, which is great.

[pinbrook]

I must admit Second Copy takes longer, but I choose not to compress anything. I like the fact it doesn't compress as I just go to the backup drive and find the file I want.

It does have an option to automatically FTP if you want webbased backups.

[Duncan Rounding]

I ran a backup for the first time last night using Acronis, i was astonished at how quick it was, it ran the whole thing in about 10 mins, i was expecting a 2 hour process. ...

I presume you only backed up your documents perhap because this sounds much too fast - was this just a few directories or the whole partition?
My differential backup of my (large) partition takes about 15-20 minutes and creates around a 4-6Gb file on high compression. The full partition backup is about 50Gb and IIRC takes about 2.5 hours.

The new version 10 of Acronis can also ftp the backup if you want - I haven't tried it but it's a good idea, for the most inportant data at least.

[RuralWeb]

I use Ghost and not had a problem

I blame myself for my problems with it - I hate PCs and software

[leehack]

I presume you only backed up your documents perhap because this sounds much too fast - was this just a few directories or the whole partition?
My differential backup of my (large) partition takes about 15-20 minutes and creates around a 4-6Gb file on high compression. The full partition backup is about 50Gb and IIRC takes about 2.5 hours.

The new version 10 of Acronis can also ftp the backup if you want - I haven't tried it but it's a good idea, for the most inportant data at least.

This was my concern, to quote actual figures rather than sky plucked ones, this is the scenario:

1. My Hard Drive is 80GB of which i am using 11.4GB.
2. I selected "My Computer" as back up type, as i presume this is a complete image.
3. On my external drive i created a 'backup' folder and after processing it has put two files in there, one is 4GB and one is 3GB. So i effectively have a 7GB backup for 11.4GB of use. With 'normal' compression, this would seem ok to me. Why it split into 2 files though, i do not know.

It may have took a bit more than 10 mins, but i would say 20 mins at max, it is hard to relate to be honest, i've had so little sleep, things are just passing me by.

Even so, it seemed very quick to me, which caused me to check it straight after. Maybe because i have a small hard drive and im only using 11.4GB and the fact that i have dual core processing brings this down somewhat. I was expecting a 2 hour process to be honest, unless i am not using it correctly.

LOL im worried again now.

[Duncan Rounding]

Your file size looks ok - don't know why you have two files though. Schedule if for some other time, let it be, and and check it again after that.

In my case my partition is about 80Gb of data - with high compression so hence the extra time.

[leehack]

I'm not exactly sure what i have done to anybody right now, but i was just processing another backup as im paranoid now and it gets to 98% finished, and we have a 3 second powercut. FFS do i need a UPS now also?

Leave me alone gremlins.

[RuralWeb]

FFS do i need a UPS now also

Been there and bought the UPS last year!!!

[leehack]

Well i have just done another backup as Duncan has me worried and it took 7 minutes to do a 'my computer' backup on normal compression which makes it about a 7gb archive. It has however once again split the file into two. In the settings it says it won't do this if it doesnt have to and the disk it is putting them on is a solitary 250gb external with 200gb free, so im stumped.

Laptop collapse, desktop collapse, powercut... what's next ffs.....shoot...hope its not early labour.