Subscribe to our Review: Acronis True Image vs Symantec Ghost
A regular Ghost user tries out True Image V9 and concludes that Ghost V10 has met its match
Foreword from Gizmo
A drive imaging program is a utility that creates a backup snapshot or image of your disk drives, most commonly your system drive.
Imaging programs differ from data backup programs in that they can backup the Windows Operating system itself.
You can use that backup image to recover from system failures, spyware infections, installations gone wrong or any of the dozens of other things that can seriously mess up your PC.
Imaging programs can be used to backup data as well as your operating system but are not ideal for that task. Recent versions of imaging programs have improved in this area but many folks, myself included, prefer to use imaging programs to back up Windows and data backup programs like Genie, to backup regularly changing data.
Every PC I own has a drive imaging utility installed and I use these regularly to make image backups of the C: drives. I simply can't tell you just how many times I've been able to use these backup images to restore a non-working PC to perfect health. Restoring from an image only takes me minutes while a full Windows re-install can take many hours or even days when you take into account re-installing application programs. That's why I recommend the system drive of every PC should be imaged regularly using a reliable imaging program.
Now let me tell you the harsh truth: when it comes to the best imaging program it's a two horse race between the commercial products Acronis True Image and Norton Ghost with the freeware contenders trailing by a couple of miles. Not that there aren't some usable freeware products; it's just they aren't in the same league when it comes to function, features and reliability.
Choosing between True Image and Ghost is tough because they are both quality programs. That's why I asked regular Support Alert contributor J.W. to review the latest versions of these products.
Acronis True Image vs. Norton Ghost
When Gizmo asked me to review Acronis True Image V9, I was delighted. I had been using Norton Ghost V9 and wasn't happy with the product due to on-going problems with corrupted images. Additionally I had never used True Image so the review provided me with an opportunity to look at the how Ghost compared to its main competitor in a live system, doing real work. Installation Woes Right from the start I had problems with both Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image on my PC. The problems as it turned out were partly caused by Process Guard, a security application that runs on my PC. However this problem proved to be a blessing in disguise as it allowed me to test out the support provided by Symantec and Acronis. Symantec support for Ghost was abysmal; an odyssey of condescending replies, canned responses and the apparent inability of the Indian support staff to understand the English language. Eventually, I wrote a personal letter to the Chairman & CEO of Symantec, John W. Thompson, asking for his help and assistance. My plea worked and I was put in contact with an “Executive Support” group. They seemed much more anxious to help and started off well by sending me the latest version of Ghost 10. I was optimistic that with the receipt this new version that the problems I had been experiencing with corrupted Ghost image backups would disappear. Sadly, that was not to be. Even with the latest V10 release I had more invalid backup’s, completely baffling the “Executive Support” group. After a number of emails back and forth, they adamantly pronounce that not one but BOTH of my U320 SCSI hard drives were broken and needed to be immediately replaced! After expressing my incredulity with this diagnosis, they decided to try blaming the problem on my CPU processor. Anything it seemed other than their product. Their last email to me was pure bathos: “Do not bother responding to this email as there is nothing else I can help you with and it will not be responded to.” So much for Symantec "executive" level support. I was clearly on my own. The experience with Acronis support was much better. Their support team was also baffled, but at least they maintained their composure, didn’t make any nonsensical recommendations such as replacing my hard drives and were civil. Eventually I solved the problem myself; another application, Process Guard, was interfering with the operation of the programs. Once Process Guard was uninstalled, the immediate difficulties were resolved allowing me to move forward with my comparative review. But a vital lesson about support was learned and not to be forgotten. Furthermore some serious problems with Ghost remained. Even after removing Process Guard from my PC, I continued to have on-going problems with Ghost V10 with corrupted image files. Not all images had the problem, only some. I only discovered this when I attempted to recover from an image file only to find the image was unusable. Subsequently I started studying the image creation log files only to find that corrupt images were not uncommon. Worse still you get no warning or notification of the problem other than entries in the log files. Here's a typical entry. EVENT # : 5108 This problem may be unique to my PC but I suspect not. I suggest all Ghost users start monitoring their log files and test the integrity of existing, high value backups. And of you are experiencing problems, don't expect too much help from Symantec. 1) True Image will run on any Windows version from Windows 98 forward. Ghost 9/10 requires Win2000 SP4 minimum and Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1. True Image does not require .Net Framework. 2) Both products offer the ability to do full or incremental backups. Since I have plenty of free hard drive storage, I always do a full backup for all drives. I feel more comfortable with full backups abstractly rather than having to deal with partial backups if I should need to do a restore. 3) Ghost has changed the nomenclature for their backups in Ghost 10 to “Recovery Points”. Additionally, it appears that Ghost 9 backups are not compatible with Ghost 10. At least, I was unable to find a way to access my old Ghost 9 backups using Ghost 10. Furthermore, Ghost 9 & Ghost 10 cannot exist on the same machine. If accurate, this would be a serious deficiency in Ghost. Perhaps I could access the Ghost 9 backups using Ghost 2003 from DOS but I haven’t had time to try this. Why is this important? The Ghost backups I have kept are early stage Windows backups with the basic OS build and about 50% of my regular software installed. If I have to or choose to rebuild my OS, then starting from one of these backups significantly shortens the time to get a fully configured system up and running. 4) True Image can backup individual files or folders. Ghost does not offer this level of granularity and can only backup full drives or partitions. 5) Both products offer the ability to list and restore individual files or folders from an image backup. From the user viewpoint, Ghost is a bit more straightforward on this process. You just find the image archive you want and click the Explore button. Ghost mounts the image on a spare drive letter. True Image does the same but uses separate Wizards labeled PLUG & UNPLUG (mount & unmount a virtual drive). 6) Ghost has a useful feature that allows you to run a backup when one of these events occurs: a) Any application is installed b) Any user logs on to the computer c) Any user logs off from the computer d) The data added to a drive exceeds an amount (in megabytes) you specify e) The Maxtor OneTouch (an external hard drive) button has been pushed. 7) While True Image does not offer the ability to start a backup on the pre-configured events like Ghost does, it does offer a feature called Pre/Post Commands that allows you to do just about any task before and/or after a particular backup runs. Ghost does not offer a similar feature. I’d like to see the functionality in point #5 implemented in True Image. 8) Examining the UI’s for both applications, they are reasonably similar Windows driven interfaces both designed to show pretty “eye candy”. 9) There was a significant change in the UI from Ghost 9 to Ghost 10. Ghost 10 seems to me to have “dumbed” down the interface, which I did not appreciate. While all the functionality that was previously in Ghost 9 appears to be in Ghost 10, individual functions are spread out across multiple screens and are harder to get to. To me, True Image’s UI is clearer, more robust and I like it better. 10) This is the main UI for Norton Ghost 10: This is the main UI for Acronis True Image:
11) True Image has extra functions such as being able to turn off Windows System Restore and preparing and adding a new hard disk to your system, which Norton Ghost 10 does not offer. 12) True Image allows you to setup a secure and private partition called the Acronis Secure Zone to store backups in. Norton Ghost does not offer similar functionality. Used in conjunction with the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager, you can boot into a Linux version of True Image directly without using a boot CD. This functionality is useful where you might have totally hosed your boot partition. Note that when the Startup Recovery Manager is activated, the normal MBR record will be overwritten. 13) Norton Ghost 10’s help file is more robust and easier to locate information in than the True Image implementation: a) Clicking on the help button in True Image always takes you to the main help window, not to the section applicable to the area that you were in and are looking for help with. So you then have to waste time wandering through help file looking for the right item. The help file is non-standard and there aren’t any functions for searching or printing. b) Norton Ghost 10’s help file is standard Windows fare and includes index and search functionality. It is easy to use. 14) Unlike Ghost, True Image doesn’t include a menu drop down link to check for new updates (Live Update). a) Both products require activation/registration of the product first. b) The True Image update check is a manual process. You have to click Help-Web Support, which takes you to http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/. Then you have to click the "Get a product update" link. This takes you to a page with a list of the latest builds for ALL Acronis products. Then go back to the Help menu and check the About entry for what build you have. Return to the product update page and check your build against what is the latest build. This is a waste of clicks and user time. 15) True Image does not have the ability to limit the number of backups for a specific drive/partition as Ghost does. a) With Ghost, you can set a limit of say two backups for whatever backup job you have defined. Ghost appends a sequential number to each backup so that the file name is different from the previous backup. When the number of backups (for a particular job) is exceeded, Ghost automatically deletes the oldest one. b) True Image cannot do this and you would have to create a script or manually rename the backups if you want to maintain more than one version. Be aware that if you do not rename the previous backup that you want to save, True Image will overwrite it without issuing a confirmation message or warning. I have been told that duplicating this Ghost functionality to let the user set a backup job limit and adding a sequential number to the file name is near the top of the to-do list for True Image and will be implemented soon. I hope so! 16) I run a freeware program called Spy-The-Spy, which lets me monitor changes to files in certain folders on my C: drive in real time. Unlike Ghost 9, at periodic points throughout the day, Ghost 10 regularly updates a file called SYMLCRST.DLL (below). There are as many as 10 updates daily and they come at odd and varying intervals. I was unable to determine what triggers an update. Symantec Executive Support was also unable to provide an explanation as to WHY this file was bring regularly updated. Mr. Levi Smith claimed this was “proprietary” information!
17) Doing a comparison of the backups of Ghost vs. True Image, I found that on equal backups, True Image had an 8-10% smaller backup footprint size. Performance wise, both products took nearly the same amount of time to backup selected logical hard drives. 18) Looking at the image restore capabilities of both products a) The Ghost DOS interface is driven by the original install CD. Just insert the product CD and reboot. You do not have to create a separate boot CD, as you must do with True Image if you are not using their Startup Recovery Manager. True Image’s primary restore environment is Linux but there is also a more limited DOS environment if the Linux version doesn’t work. b) The Ghost 9 & 10 DOS interfaces are much slower to boot up than the True Image version and all Ghost operations were slower than with True Image on my system. 19) Both programs can backup to a hard disk. a) True Image also installs their own ASPI layer, allowing them to backup an image directly to a CD (or DVD if you have packet-writing software installed). b) Ghost can backup to a hard drive and other device types. But note that backing up to removable media is a manual operation and cannot be scheduled, as additional media may have to be inserted to contain the full backup. 20) Ghost 9 & 10 provides the user the ability to select destinations for error messages from the system event log, the Ghost internal log or SMTP email. I prefer the event log option since I run a program called Event Sentry that emails event errors to my POP3 email account. This eliminates me having to remember to look at the event log or the programs internal log to see if everything ran successfully.
21) True Image only provides a Windows log with an option to export this log to a file. Support for True Image has informed me that writing to the Windows Event Log is on their list of future enhancements for TI 9.x. 22) The Ghost log viewer for a completed backup provides only minimal information that the backup succeeded or failed. No information is provided on the start time in the viewer. You’d have to go look up the scheduled start time to determine that information, making computing the total time for a backup a manual and annoying two-step process. 23) The True Image log provides more information but gets a bit messy because of including distracting prep messages related to analyzing all drives before getting started on the backup job. TI support was not able to explain why they need to analyze other drives during a backup for a specific drive. Furthermore, in the message column of the viewer, even though the column is “stretchable”, they end those “Analyzing partition” messages with a “...” which usually means that there is too much information to fit in the space provided. However, according to support - not in this case. They could not explain WHY they use the “...” or what this was supposed to represent.
24) True Image can export status to a text log file, which Ghost can’t do. However, even though the export is in text format with a default “.log” extension, for some reason, it is littered with HTML tags (like below) making it very difficult to read. Acronis support did not know why this was occurring. Additionally, it is impossible to easily interpret the time stamps. Editor's note: This report is actually in XML and can be easily read in an XML viewer or editor. a) <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> <log build="2337" product="Acronis True Image" uuid="C23BC3C1-D098-4828-8C6F-37DE1B2813CB" version="9.0"> i) <event code="2" id="1" message="The "I_Backup" operation started" module="100" time="1140241688" type="2" /> ii) <event code="503" id="2" message="Analyzing partition 0-0..." module="1" time="1140241688" type="2" /> xix) <event code="504" id="19" message="Pending operation 116 started: "Creating partition image"" module="1" time="1140241692" type="2" /> xx) <event code="504" id="20" message="Pending operation 3 started: "Verifying backup archive"" module="1" time="1140241983" type="2" /> xxi) <event code="6" id="21" message="Operation has succeeded." module="100" time="1140242176" type="2" /> </log> b) However, True Image’s log detail is substantially better than Ghost. You see all the detail from start to finish of the operation and at least in the standard display window, it is easy to see the total amount of time consumed for the backup operation. Finally, it has been my experience over the years that few people verify their image backups or experimentally try to boot up the image restore DOS program before they need it. This is a serious mistake! I cannot stress strongly enough that it is CRITICAL that you VERIFY image backups. Being caught with a backup that you think is good but really isn’t, is a recipe for disaster. Second, you MUST test that you can boot into the DOS recovery program BEFORE you actually need it. Third, if you want to go the full mile, then you should also create a copy of your hard drive (or a logical disk) first using a process that you have confidence in and know works. Then try to do a test restore from an image backup outside of Windows, checking that everything works and becoming familiar with the process before a real error occurs (and rest assured, one eventually will occur). It’s far too easy to make serious mistakes while frustrated and under the stress of trying to restore a bad drive from DOS/Linux if you haven’t had any prior experience doing so or working with the driving program. While each program has certain unique features, the core functionality of both programs is essentially equal. However, True Image’s overall functionality, reliability and UI are more robust and more understandable than Symantec Norton Ghost versions 9 or 10. Most importantly, in my experience, Symantec’s Ghost versions 9 & 10 have proven to be unreliable and my experience with Ghost (really, all of Symantec) technical support has consistently been dreadful. I would still choose Acronis True Image over Ghost on functionality and presentation alone; however, on quality of support alone, I cannot and will not recommend any Symantec program. Furthermore, Symantec has a long & sordid history of acquiring products or complete companies and then discontinuing the products. I would not be surprised if Ghost were treated similarly in the not-distant future. Partition Magic, which they also acquired from PowerQuest a couple of years back in release 8 has yet to be updated by Symantec. The fact that Symantec tech support/development has been unable to isolate the regular random corruption problems I have been experiencing across two releases of the product does not bode well for the future of the Ghost product, in my mind. I have removed Symantec Ghost from my system. My recommendation and personal choice going forward for a disk-imaging program is Acronis True Image. (1) Norton Ghost V10, $69.99 No trial available, Windows XP Home Edition/Professional, Windows 2000 Professional ONLY http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/backup_recovery/ghost10/index.html (2) Acronis True Image V11, $49.99 14 day trial, Windows XP/Vista, 87MB Download Trial Version True Image Home V11 Support this site: If you buy from either of the sites listed above then this site will receive a small contribution from the vendor as a result of your purchase. This doesn't add to your cost but it helps with the running expenses of our site. If you don't feel comfortable with this then go directly to the vendor's site.
EVENT LOG : Application
EVENT TYPE : Error
SOURCE : Norton Ghost
CATEGORY : High Priority
EVENT ID : 100
COMPUTER : MYCOMP1
TIME : 2/10/2006 7:40:33 AM
MESSAGE : Description: Error EC8F17B7: Cannot create recovery points for job: Recovery point of I:\. Error EA39070A: The internal structure of the image file is invalid or unsupported.
Details: 0xEA39070A
Source: Norton Ghost 
Includes Norton Ghost 2003 for Windows Me & 98 users
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Oh and just a note, the Universal Restore option allows you to install drivers and "try" to get the image to run on a different hardware platform. It is NOT a "magic bullet" that makes things work behind the scenes. Its just a driver install tool. If your not VERY proficient with restoring images to dissimilar hardware and if your not VERY familiar with both sets of hardware your likely success with Universal Restore is questionable.
I disagree... for us Universal restore is a magic bullet.
We can migrate 4 servers in the time it takes to do 1 with our old method.
We don't need to install third party drivers during the process at all. Once the migration is complete we intall our driver pack and the server is good to go.
Your experience may be different in your environment, but for us it definitely is a magic bullet.
I used Ghost since they bought the Drive Image software and moved to that. Ghost 2003 worked well but was buggy. I have now bought Acronis True Image Home 2010 and used it on 6 different pc's and did backup images and restores and it works. There was one time when it would not start the restore in Windows and I had to boot from the rescue disk.
Now I see all the complaints above and its really simple, those people had a bad experience. Then there are people like me that had great experiences with Acronis. You just have to buy it and try it. Its like someone getting a Dell and its a lemon and swearing all Dells are lemons and swearing not to buy another one. Thats silly. If the product does not work in your environment thats fine but to say "its suck" or "stay away" at all costs is unreasonable. Just like it would be unreasonable for me to say because I had good results so should you or your "doing it wrong". That would be unreasonable as well. Try it and if it works and fits your needs great, if not move on and test another product.
Got Acronis Server latest version on HPML150G6 with HW RAID1 on W2008R2.
Not working at all:
1) Acronis does not install in W2K8.... lot of tries with Acronis support , no results
2) Booting S/A disk see my 2 disks in RAID1 as TWO differents disks ... and broke the MBR and BOOT.... without any task started...
3) Support says it is a driver problem from us... Waiting now for quite a month for a solution... Not yet arrived!!!
Michel from France
I had Norton Ghost 10 running on my home PC (using Windows XP) for years, which seemed to work as advertised creating daily backups to an external hard drive (a Westrn Digital My Book). A month ago I had a system crash and tried using the Norton Ghost to restore the PC. Here's a couple of interesting things I found. First, the Norton recovery disk will not access or recognize the external hard drive. So the image files on the WD could not be used to restore the PC from the system recovery disk (major problem). Second, after we got Windows functioning again from the internal hard drive (which involved a reinstallation and wiping out the data on the drive), we were then able to access the Ghost image files on the external drive. I then tried restoring the PC from the image files. No luck--the PC just hung every time I tried this. Finally, I laboriously reinstalled all of the programs on the PC manually, and was then able to copy individual data files from the Norton ghost image files. So in the end at least one thing worked. Unfortunately, this bit of good news was sullied by the following: after reinstalling the programs (including Norton) manually, Norton began a daily back up which, instead of being an incremental backup to the existing image files, wiped them out entirely, thereby losing all of the data that had been saved. This last part probably constitutes user error (mine), but illustrates the need to have multiple back up options, and is at least partially the fault of Norton in not saving the prior image file before beginning a new back up.
Nice review, I like the way it's laid out and broken down into specific points/topics. I currently use Ghost, not sure the version number, but have been hearing good things about Acronis from various technical people I work with so I went looking for more information and found this review.
Outstanding review, dude!
I knew all of this already, learned it the hard way, as did you.
But you took the trouble to write all this information in a very coherent manner.
Thank you, thank you!
I am quite fascinated by this review, not least because I have had a lot of trouble with both Ghost and Acronis.
Now I use Paragon 9.0 express. I have used this ( and previous versions) on many machines and configurations and never had a problem.
It is fast, reliable and FREE! I have never had a restore fail. I am so confident with it that I don't even bother verifying images any more.
There are no bells ans whilsles, but these are mostly useless anyway, all I want to do is back up my ( and other people's ) system partition reliably, and restore it as required.
The Paragon software does this.
It backs up my current system partition in less than four minutes, and the restore doesn't take much longer.
I am new to Acronis, raised on Norton, but disappointed with it.
I think it's because Norton and M$ are too close for comfort.
It is wishful thinking to expect any tool to provide a solution
given that Windows is a nightmare, of obfuscation, so bad that it took
a small Australian company, LitePC.com to prove to the Courts that
IE could indeed be unbundled from Windows.
So This is where I will begin my journey i.e. from Order rather than Chaos.
I'm working on the the n270 32bit notebooks, because small is always better.
I have the Aldi, the Dell, the Asus, .....beginning with the 16gb up to the 130gb.
Why the 16gb? I'm radical.
Already the 4gb is taken up for the Factory install, so 12gb is all I have left to play with.
The recommendation is 70% for turning space.
Straight after install I run Xplite and check everything. From that point on
LitePC.com take responsibility for the integrity of the M$ess. I trust them.
The old maxim: "if you have a dog why do your own barking".
I am now using PC Mechanic to deal with the Registry stuff.
Ok. Now it's time to get rid of the B''ll..t, "Protection" Stoff, i.e.
No Firewall, No Antivirus, No protectioon at all. BUT
I call in the guys from Javacool.com . Magnificent!!
I install SpywarewareBlaster, SpywareGuard, MRU Blaster.
The only things I leave are the Factory choices. They all have some
similarity between the badges.
Now that didn't take very long at all.
For a while I used a copy of Ghost on a Wince Thumbdrive, backing up to an
external HD, and about an hour for the C: partition.
When I hear the word "Drive" I cringe.
It's impossible to restore and make any sense of a drive.
So Small Mirroring is the go, and so far the Acronis does it in 8 minutes flat.
So if all goes belly up, what have I lost. Just a few hours at the most.
I have a 10 gb E drive which holds my "öther". Here I rely on PortableApps,
regular $AppData%.
In short I have a Controlled Environment upon which I can try many
different techniques.
Hope that helps.
Happy 2010 Folks
I have used a lot of cloning and imaging products and the reality is simple: There is no single product (solution) that does it all. I use a wide variety. Acronis True Home Image 2009 is one of them.
I started out years ago with Acronis True Image 9 and I restored a number of times without problem. ( all serial numbers were restored)
After building a new computer this backup failed miserably and Acronis suggested Acronis True Image Workstation with Universal Restore. they worked with me for several months, but I never had a satisfactory backup from the Universal Restore. I finally gave up on The Universal Restore. Serial numbers were not restored for programs and programs were not complete
John
I have tried every version of Acronis starting with version 8.
this is the last and final time I will ever use it again.
Every effort i made to "recover" from crashes ended up with
TrueImage saying: "the File is Corrupt". and i mean
every damn one. And this from files backed up to an external drive.
early on, i learned if you defrag the hard drive, you can
kiss your files goodbye. But, even NOT defragging a clean
hard drive , i got "file is corrupt" even after validating as soon as i backed up.
anyway, I just went back to Syncback which has never failed me. It's just a little more time consuming.
NevertooOldtolearn
I just had my computer crash...musta lost some file in the operating system. Couldn't repair it. So I used my acronis backup to restore...and 30 minutes later...I got my computer back!! all files there, all software... perfect..80 something gigs' worth.. This was on my laptop and my first time using it...I think so far..I'll keep using this..easy interface..unlike Ghost..which I still have and use at work..but tried Acronis 9 and like it.
My computer had a problem with IE8 lost the Icons, restored with Acronis, did not fix it. The only true image that I am aware of this side of server software is Ghost, any version.
So was the best imaging program for windows 7?
I have been using Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 on two Windows and Linux
servers, and four Windows workstations, for about two months now. The
experience has been awful and we're seeking another vendor for backup
solutions now. Avoid Acronis at all costs, if you value your time.
In a nut shell the problem is that the products fail in lots of little ways, so
you avoid using those features. But then one day your backups stop working,
with cryptic error messages that make no sense. So you contact tech support,
feeling pretty good that you've purchased their "24x7" support. This is a real
joke (on you, the customer) -- our two critical support cases were not answered
for about five weeks, and then the first-level techs seemed to have not even read
the cases. We went round and round and never got anywhere. We're writing
off the whole thing and going with another vendor.
The Acronis sales reps will be completely disingenuous with you and tell you
that their support is good, when they know how bad it is. Our rep has made promise
after promise but never follows through. We truly got suckered by not Googling before
hand for experiences like those listed above. As far as I can tell, NO ONE has ever
gotten good support from Acronis.
Acronis -- you are losing customers due to your lack of support. I know we are
never coming back. We're not the biggest customer, but the total sales lost is
probably close to $10k from us.
We've recently moved to Acronis at work for server and workstation
backups. The product looks amazing on paper but lots of little
things don't work, or start out working and then fail with cryptic
error messages.
My point in posting is to corroborate some of the above posters'
comments about Acronis tech support -- it is awful. They took over
a month to respond to two of our issues, and two weeks for another,
with no resolutions yet after over five weeks so far. Their first-level
support is not very knowledgeable and is a waste of time.
Telephone wait times are long. No one responds to their on-line
support chat.
If you value your time, stay away.
I use Sandboxie with Firefox and Noscript on my XP and the Acronis True Image Try & Decide mode on another partition when I surf the net. So by clearing Sandboxie and Try & Decide and quitting Try & Decide and not saving anything keeps my system pretty clean. The only thing that worries me is that the Used Area in Try & Decide does tend to grow slightly over time...which I would have hoped there would be nothing at all in the Used Area..especially after I clean it. I usually periodically also remove the Try & Decide, then recreate it for a new slate....nothing in the user area. Sandboxie is also great...it shows how much stuff is trying to work it's way into your box that you would not normally be aware of.
i have used both, i think acronis is best.
you don't even need to install the software to create or restore images. you just need the bootable rescue disk, which can even be created while program runs in windows.
I used Drive Image 7 for many years - althought it was flaky and generated cryptic messages - overall it saved my bacon a few times. It also allowed migration to new hard drives. I believe DI was bought by Norton and subsequently disappeared from the market! Recently I purchased a WD hard drive and used the free WD Acronis software to clone the old hard drive - no problems. This software is available at the WD site and only works works with wd drives (naturally). Another imaging software that appears to work is included as part of the opearting system of Windows Vista Business - used it several times and appeared to work fine.
I wonder how Nortons Ghost v14 and Acronis True Image 2010 would compare.
I have had just as much bad luck with Acronis's tech support.
I guess in the end its just who you get a roll of the dice. Ghost v14 seems to have allot of nice features and Nortons Ghost v14 does have a trial version to dl its a 30-day and can be gotten at http://nct.symantecstore.com/fulfill/0184.074
Acronis True Image 2010 trial is 30 days as well and can be gotten at
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/trueimage/
The only other thing I like about Ghost over True Image is that even though Symantec is cheap but Symantec gives you a 90 day upgrade path. So if you buy Ghost 14 now and in 90 days Ghost v15 comes out you get it free. Acronis wants to charge $29.99 (really $30) for the update.
Ghost is $69.99 and upgrade is $49.99 with free 90 day full version update*
True Image is $49.99 and upgrade is $29.99 with free 30 day full version update*
*free full version update is going from one full version to another with in so much time after purchace.
I just read through the comments on this article and you guys have scared me to death. I never realized how lucky I've been. I've been using Norton Ghost 2002 once a week or more to clone and restore partitions, with 100% success. It doesn't recognize external drives though, which is an ability I want. I'm about to get a Western Digital 750 GB My Book Essential Edition USB drive. I found this article in researching the newest Ghost versus the newest Acronis. Now I'm not sure I want either one.
I've been an avid computer user since the late eighties, and I built the computer I'm using now. I've always been frustrated by available backup options. It seems to me the number one requirement of a backup process is that it be reliable, and the second requirement is that it be simple. To me, compression, images, proprietary formats, trying to back up Windows from within Windows, and process complexity all lessen reliability. I just want to copy all the files so that they can be copied back and work just like they did before.
I have two internal disks, each with multiple partitions. I use Ghost (from a boot diskette) to clone single partitions from disk 1 to disk 2. That's also how I restore a partition, by cloning it from disk 2 to disk 1, which I've done dozens of times. I have never had a cloning backup or restore fail. If I ever need to restore individual files I just copy them manually using Windows explorer. It's all very simple and so far 100% reliable. My only problem was originally writing the command lines to put in the batch files on the backup and restore diskettes. Ghost 2002 has a horrible user interface that confuses me every time I use it. You don't want to be confused when you're about to overwrite a disk partition. That's why I figured out the proper command lines, put them on the boot diskettes, and never had to worry about it again.
Last year I got a free copy of Acronis True Image 10 during a promotion. I've been using that to back up to an external USB disk about once a month, but now Acronis refuses to recognize the external drive. It gives me an error that says something about the disk not accepting a new address. I researched the error and found other people with the same problem. Acronis support posted a workaround which involved pressing a hot key and entering a Linux command. The workaround did not solve my problem.
Like many posters here, I've gotten fed up with Symantec. I loved Norton Utilities way back when, then Norton Antivirus, SystemWorks, and even CleanSweep, but over the last several years I've lost faith in Symantec. Ghost 2002 is the last Symantec program I trust, and from the comments here it sounds like I don't want a newer version of Ghost. I'm excited about getting a 750 GB external drive, but I need a simple reliable backup program. Ghost 2002 doesn't recognize USB drives. I'll probably experiment with Acronis 10 for awhile. I just hope it recognizes the external drive.
Sorry to ramble so long. Perhaps some readers will find my comments helpful.
Jon
Try Bacula
Ghost 2003 can access external usb hard drives. Check your bios for a legacy usb support option. Be sure you have the usb drive powered on when the machine boots. Sometimes DOS fails to see the usb drive so it helps to boot to a DOS command prompt and check that the usb drive was recognized by DOS prior to running ghost. I use the included Gdisk replacement for Fdisk for this task as it makes it easier to be sure I'm acting on the correct drive or partition once I run the ghostpe.exe program.
I have also been using ghost 2002 for years to backup my OS and application partitions separately. I am currently looking for a replacement due to Ghost 2003's lack of support for ext 3 partitions. A recent restore of such failed. I was one of the few people who purchased Digital Research DOS years ago, and the Microsoft free siren's song of Linux is calling my name. But this recent failure of Ghost 2003 is it's only failure. It has never failed me in imaging and restoring my drives and partitions, but this may be because I only use the DOS version and not any of the Windows versions. Backing up from within Windows always seems risky to me for some reason.
Sounds like True Image may be the way to go in the future. Does anyone have experience using True Image on Linux partitions?
My limited understanding thus far is that the imaging tools available in Linux seem to only do sector by sector imaging. This results in free space being imaged as well as the used space and yields much larger images even when using high compression.
Ghost 2004 has been a reliable product for me, imaging partitions and restoring successfully. But there has always been a very low rate of currupted files, maybe one in fifty, so I learned early on to make multiple backup images, three or four commonly, including a DVD hardcopy.
Booting from DOS has worked.
Never could backup to an external hard drive.
The interface sequence for this version, as others have mentioned for other versions, is NOT user friendly -- but once learned, it has worked for me every time.
I'm getting a new computer built to specs at a local shop this week, with dual OS boots, XP Pro and 7 (since 7 is just out and dual boots are easy, I'm told). Will see if my old Ghost works -- and then, with those images to backup from if necessary, I plan to test both a new Ghost and Acronis. I'll let you know how it goes.
I love disc imaging. Saved my butt many times. My shop's tech likes Acronis. And I'm not a fan of Symantec any longer -- like everyone -- but if Ghost works then I'll use it. We'll see.
I've rented out the Unibomber's old cabin and it's pretty lonely out here in the woods. Thank goodness for convesations like this and all you fine people.
TJ
> Ghost 2004 has been a reliable product for me, imaging partitions and restoring successfully.
> But there has always been a very low rate of currupted files, maybe one in fifty
1 out of 50 destroyed files is a low rate?!!!!
Get Ghost 2003. It recognizes both USB and firewire drives (with the newest update). I've been using it for many years but no go in Vista.
Rather than put all your eggs in the backup or ghost basket, seems like you could get a lot more mileage out of a mirrored or RAID 5 hard drive array. Not that backups are bad, but better to avoid needing to restore in the first place if possible.
How would RAID 5 or 1 protect a user from a failed or corrupt OS? The answer is - it won't.
RAID also doesn't protect against file deletion, nor does it allow a base image of the OS and a few apps to be used as a clean install instead of manually installing the OS and apps
The other risk of depending on RAID is that both drives are in the same case and subject to the same physical environment. I had a power supply failure that burned both hard drives. I wasn't using RAID, but if I had, both the primary and the mirror would have been lost.
I think all but one of my restores was because the content of the original was messed up by a program and I wanted to get the original back to the way it was. Wouldn't a mirroring or RAID setup simply guarantee that I had another copy of the messed-up original rather a copy of the original prior to the problem? Perhaps I don't understand mirroring or RAID.
Jon
I want an exact copy of my current hard drive on a new computer with all the settings and programs intact. I then plan on deleting everything on my old computer and just using the new one. Will Acronis allow me to do that or will I lose some functionality with the "new" copied computer? I don't want just a backup or snap shot. I want my fully functioning "old" computer on my "new" computer.
Well if you go to Acronis' website and look at their snap deploy..that is exactly what it does, if you pay the additional $12.49 per license you get the Universal Deployment as well, this allows for you to make sure that the correct drivers are installed on the correct box etc etc.
IMHO as a general rule this either can't be done, or is extremely risky. Unless the old and the new computer are practically identical then there will be differences in the driver software needed for the 2 computers - and imaging the old hard disk over the new hard disk will write the wrong drivers in. If you are lucky, and the 2 computers are fairly similar the old drivers might work - but I would not be confident it would ever be a stable computer.
The application for this software is essentially to build a clean version of the computer, then take an image - which means you only have to go through the hours of building once.
Sure, you'd have a problem 5 years ago, but most imaging tools nowadays allow for bare metal recovery to dissimmilar hardware using Universal restore technology. Acronis does this, check it out.
Help ...
I've tried running Acronis True Image. Here is the problem I encountered:
My original is an 80Gb harddisk. I wanted to upgrade to a 320Gb. I ran Full Backup, and then retore to my new 320Gb harddisk.
Problem: The 320Gb now appears to be 80Gb. I can't find the additional 240Gb in any partition (I use Paragon to manage partitions). All the programs appear to be working fine. Even when I check the 320Gb harddisk on another computer, it now appears to be only 80Gb.
Any ideas what I can do?
Use Acronis to create a Secure Zone out of the other 240 GB. Then remove the secure zone, adding the 240GB back to your 80GB partition.
You don't say which version you're using but it's basically the same. When you clone pick the custom option and make sure to choose 'proportional' and it does just what it says. I clone from 160GB drives to a 64GB SSD and don't have any such problem.
I had a similar thing happen to me when I tried upgrading a Dell laptop from a 100GB drive to a 320GB drive. The problem was not with Acronis TI, but rather with the Master Boot Record. The support for the Media Direct functionality is managed from there (along with a hidden FAT partition). I wasn't interested in preserving the Media Direct "feature". I found a utility that wrote the standard info to the MBR. When I restored the Acronis backup I skipped the restoration of the MBR and got the full size of the drive to appear. I did come across postings in forums that describe how to move the Media Direct partition and edit the MBR to recognize it in its new location.
Partition Magic 8 will allow you to see and expand the 80bg to the full 320Gb. Easus also makes a fine tool that works on all our servers to resize the drive partitions.
It sounds like copying the 80 GB Acronis backup to your new drive made one 80 GB partition, leaving the remaining 240 GB unallocated. I would use PartitionMagic or a similar partition-managing program to increase the size of the 80 GB partition without data loss. I'm not familiar with Paragon, but I just looked it up and what I read indicates that Paragon can perform that task. Since the answer seems obvious and since you already use Paragon to manage partitions, perhaps you already tried to do that and ran into a problem.
Hello,
I've recently written a guide on how to use Symantec Ghost Properly:
http://wiki.spectralcoding.com/index.php/Symantec_Ghost
I hope this helps!
Thanks,
Smark
http://www.spectralcoding.com/
Nice summary. Thanks.
I had a Dell desktop with XP Home and used Ghost from Norton SystemWorks 2003 for six years and it worked fine. I recently got a new computer to handle a 30" monitor. It came with XP Pro. I installed my old Ghost on it but when I tried to run it, it froze my computer so badly that I could not recover and had to reinstall the OS. Seeking a replacement, I tried XXClone, which cloned my C: drive OK but it could not create a workable rescue disc. But after reading this great site, I took the advice from post #9 and DL'd Seagate DiscWizard (66 MB). It has a clear interface and worked quite smoothly. I first used it to create a bootable CD that worked fine. I then cloned my C: drive to my external HD; it did the job perfectly. The program comes from Acronis and might be the same as Acronis True Image that sells for $50. Thank you Seagate!
For anyones info, if you have a Seagate or Maxtor drive they both have an older vcersion of Acronis for free. I forget what it's called with each company but you can google up that answer.
The following is my opinion at the date posted. All software is subject to improvement. The main issue discussed here is related to Acronis doing data backups.
I've just abandoned using Acronis True Image Echo Enterprise for doing data backups. The product was brought in here by an outside consultant (before I arrived). IMO its imaging is its strong point. Its unreliable for data backups.
Let's say we are planning a weekly full backup on Friday's at 11:00pm followed by daily differentials at the same time on Monday-Thurdsay the next week. The backups are made to network attached storage and later FTP'd offsite. All backups are verified at the time they are made.
Each diffential backup is dependent on a Full Backup. Acronis differentials appear to be storing a delta to the original file in the full backup. This dependency causes the differential backups to be invalid or "corrupted" if the Weekly Full backup file is modified, overwritten or moved. The differentials do not stand on their own.
Let's say you have completed a week's cycle and you have the following backups as of Friday morning:
Backup_1.tib (The full from the previous Friday)
Backup_2.itb (Monday Differential)
Backup_3.itb (Tuesday Differential)
Backup_4.itb (Wednesday Differential)
Backup_5.itb (Thursday Differential)
Now it's Friday night and time for the Weekly Full backup. The Job starts. Acronis figures out what it wants to do and starts writing to Backup_1.tib.
The moment Backup_1.tib is modified, the differential backups 2 through 5 are no longer usable.
If your system crashes during the weekly backup (before it completes) you will no longer have any valid backup files in your online storage. Murphy says this will happen. This means hours of extra work to retrieve backup files from remote storage over a WAN.
Pet Peeves:
No concept of backup devices or rotating media.
No effective dates for schedules. You have to leave the task unscheduled until the first day you want it to run. (Who's got time for that)
No Fifth Week in monthly schedules - they have:
First Week
Second Week
Third Week
Fourth Week
Last Week
Some months have 4 weeks some have 5 weeks. A job scheduled for the Last Week runs on the 4th or 5th week depending on how many weeks are in the month. If you have a Fourth week job and a Last week job you will get a "collision" of backup jobs. They need a Fifth Week choice that only runs if there is actually a fifth week.
Backup Jobs Hang or get Stuck - There's no watchdog timer for a job. If you have 3 jobs that run sequentially and the first hangs on an open file, none of the remaining jobs complete. Real backup software flags the error after a number of attempts and then moves on to the next file. I'd rather be missing a single file than complete backups.
The Cancel Task function doesn't work on jobs that are stuck - you have to reboot.
There is no function to put a scheduled task "On Hold". You have to unschedule it.
I basically have found this software to lack essential functionality for backups. I do not recommend this product for doing data backups. I would use this product as a first step in disaster recovery. Make the machine operational and then use other products to backup and restore data.
Well of course, that happens with every single differential backup procedure. The second you modify the original file of which differentials were associated with then the differentials become useless. I don't see how that is difficult to understand. If you want your differentials to work then don't modify the damn original/full backup file. Instead create an entirely new full backup and leave the previous week's alone. So that way you'll have a two week backup rotation cycle.
To put it in your terms do:
Backup_W1.tib (full backup Friday, week 1)
Backup_W1_diff1.itb (Monday Differential)
Backup_W1_diff2.itb (Tuesday Differential)
Backup_W1_diff3.itb (Wednesday Differential)
Backup_W1_diff4.itb (Thursday Differential)
Backup_W2.tib (full backup Friday, week 2)
Backup_W2_diff1.itb (Monday Differential)
Backup_W2_diff2.itb (Tuesday Differential)
Backup_W2_diff3.itb (Wednesday Differential)
Backup_W2_diff4.itb (Thursday Differential)
Return back to Backup_W1.tib on the third Friday and the cycle continues.
Nobody wants to hand-manage their backups.
The question is, can this be configured to happen automatically?
My reading of the original posting on this thread is that it automatically re-uses the same filenames, but I've not used the product yet. *Can* it be configured to automatically do rotation in the way you describe, or are you suggesting a manual procedure?
>> The question is, can this be configured to happen automatically?
Sure. Write a series of scripts to do all these things and save your images in date coded sequential formats.
Or purchase a product that has a scheduler built-in to handle progressive backups: Symantec NetBackup, Backup Exec, CommVault Galaxy, Bakbone NetVault and others.
It sounds like you need some help - these packages are easier than writing it yourself, but none of them are inexpensive. But they ARE reliable. How much is your time and data worth?
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