|
Softpanorama
(slightly skeptical)
Open Source Software Educational Society |
May the
source be with you,
but remember the KISS principle ;-)
|
Alternatives to Norton Ghost
Initially there is not that much competition to Ghost but as times
goes some worthwhile competitors emerged. Among DOS/Windows analogs there
are two prominent alternatives:
Acronis True Image (Windows; PC Magazine Editors' Choice Award) and
Partition Saving (DOS):
Acronis true Image is more or less complete Ghost analog. $30 for download.
Main advantage that this is Windows program like with Ghost 2005 or later
you can use your PC during the image creation. Unlike ghost 2003 foes not
work on windows server -- you need to buy server version.
- Backup only the necessary server disk sector contents
- User-defined compression levels
- Multivolume archives
- Password protection
- Reduce your disk backup time and storage by excluding paging and hibernate
files from the disk backup image
- Manage a PC performance by changing the disk imaging process priority
- Supports hard disks of all sizes
- Create full images (everything on your PC), incremental images (changes
since last backup), and differential images (changes since last full backup)
- Use your PC during image creation with our no reboot feature
- Verify disk backup image before a restore
- Change partition type, file system, size, and disk location during restore*
- Check the file system after a restore
- Acronis Secure Zone
- Acronis Startup Recovery Manager
Partition Saving is a DOS program that is used to save, restore
and copy hard-drive, partitions, floppy disk and DOS devices.
http://www.partition-saving.com/
is one such program:
A new version of Partition Saving (V3.30) was released on December, 1st.
Changes are:
- Add of an option to explore backup files. So you can see what they contain
and extract some of their files. For this, an explorer similar to the one
for partitions is used. Backup files can only be viewed (not modified).
- Add of possibility to copy only a part of backup files when copying
them. This allows extracting a partition or only its occupied sectors such
as destination files are smaller or such as it could be restored to a partition
different from source one.
- Remaining time computation is based on what is saved instead of always
being on all sectors. When restoring, remaining time computation is always
computed as if all sectors were saved.
- Some others modifications than can be found
here.
Once again official website of Partition Saving is now
http://www.partition-saving.com,
previous address is no more available. If you put link on some web pages, please
use only this address, not the one this one is redirected to.
To download Partition Saving click
here.
To read the documentation, click
here.
On Linux you can try
- g4u - Harddisk Image
Cloning for PCs this is bit by bit copying without understanding of underling
filesystem so the ability to shrink, enlarge partitions is lost.
- Partimage
Description: Partition Image is a Linux/UNIX utility which saves partitions
in many formats (see below) to an image file. The image file can be compressed
in the GZIP/BZIP2 formats to save disk space, and split into multiple files
to be copied on removable floppies (ZIP for example), ... Partitions can be
saved across the network since version 0.6.0. NTFS support is experimental.
-
| Name |
Description |
State |
|
ext2fs/ext3fs |
the linux standard |
stable |
|
Reiser3 |
a journalized and powerful file system |
stable |
| FAT16/32 |
DOS and Windows file systems |
stable |
| HPFS |
IBM OS/2 File System |
stable |
| JFS |
Journalised File System, from IBM, used on Aix |
stable |
|
XFS |
another jounalized and efficient File System, from sgi, used on
Irix |
stable |
| UFS |
Unix File System |
beta |
| HFS |
MacOS File System |
beta |
| NTFS |
Windows NT, 2000 and XP |
experimental |
Notes:
- Those pages are written by people for whom English is not a
native language. Some amount of grammar and spelling errors
should be expected.
- This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site. It
cannot replace the best teachers and
the
best books.
- The site contain some obsolete pages as it develops like a
living tree... Some links on older pages
are broken. Please
try to use Google, Open directory, etc. to find a replacement link
(see
HOWTO search the WEB for details).
We would appreciate if you can
mail us a correct link.
|
|
Clonezilla 1.0.9-1 (Live testing)
by
Steven - Sun, Jan 6th 2008 06:54 PDT
About: Clonezilla is a partition or disk cloning tool similar to Symantec
Ghost. It saves and restores only blocks in use on the hard drive if the file
system is supported. For unsupported file systems, dd is used instead. It has
been used to clone a 5 GB system to 40 clients in about 10 minutes.
Changes: An option to use Partclone was added (experimental). Partclone
supports ext2, ext3, Reiserfs, Reiser4, XFS, and HFS+. Therefore by using "-q2"
in Clonezilla, the HFS+ filesystem of Intel Macs can be saved efficiently. A
new option was added: -q1|--force-to-use-dd, which forces dd to be used to save
any filesystem. An option was added to remove page and hibernation files of
MS Windows before saving an image.
Partimage Is Not Ghost 2.01.10
About: Partimage Is Not Ghost (PING) is a live Linux ISO based on
LFS (Linux From Scratch). It can be burnt on a CD and booted, or integrated
in a PXE/RIS environment. Several tools that make it the perfect choice for
easily backing up and restoring whole partitions are included. It supports backups
to and from SMB shares, backup of BIOS data, the ability to blank the local
admin's password, creation of bootable restoration DVDs, the ability to partition
and format a disk before installing Windows, and more.
Changes: Users have the option to have PING reduce NTFS partitions
to the maximum before backing them up. That way, such images can be restored
to smaller partitions. OS upgrades: Linux kernel 2.6.23.12, Samba 3.0.28, dhcpcd
3.1.8, NTFS-3G 1.1120, and FUSE 2.7.2.
GNU ddrescue 1.6 (Stable)
by
Antonio Diaz Diaz - Fri, Nov 16th 2007 07:08 PDT
|
About: GNU ddrescue is a data recovery tool. It copies data from one
file or block device (hard disc, cdrom, etc) to another, trying hard to rescue
data in case of read errors. GNU ddrescue does not truncate the output file
if not asked to. So, every time you run it on the same output file, it tries
to fill in the gaps. The basic operation of GNU ddrescue is fully automatic.
That is, you don't have to wait for an error, stop the program, read the log,
run it in reverse mode, etc. If you use the logfile feature of GNU ddrescue,
the data is rescued very efficiently (only the needed blocks are read). Also
you can interrupt the rescue at any time and resume it later at the same point.
Changes: This release skips faster over damaged areas. A new pass
has been added that trims error areas backward before splitting. Support for
sparse output files has been added. Blocks are now split at sector boundaries.
The new option "--fill" has been added. This release can resume an interrupted
retry pass instead of reinitiating it. It achieves perfect resumability if interrupted
during trimming or splitting and handles SIGHUP and SIGTERM. The "--quiet" option
quiets error messages. Consistency checks have been added to detect bugs.
Clonezilla 1.0.2-1 (Live testing)
by
Steven - Fri, Apr 13th 2007 02:03 PDT
|
About: Clonezilla is a partition or disk cloning tool similar to Symantec
Ghost. Unlike other open source clone tools such as G4U or G4L,
Clonezilla saves and restores only blocks in use on the hard drive if the file
system is supported. For unsupported file systems, dd is used instead. It has
been used to clone a 5 GB system to 40 clients in about 10 minutes.
Changes: A helper program was added to make it easier to mount a device
or resource as an image home. Clonezilla is run only in the first console (tty1)
when logging in as casper instead of running /etc/rc2.d/S99ocs-live-run. This
allows other consoles (2-6) to be available when clonezilla is running. Some
modifications were done to increase security.
$30 for download. Main advantage that this is Windows program like with Ghost
2005 or later you can use your PC during the image creation. Unlike
ghost 2003 foes not work on windows server -- you need to buy server version.
- Backup only the necessary server disk sector contents
- User-defined compression levels
- Multivolume archives
- Password protection
- Reduce your disk backup time and storage by excluding paging and hibernate
files from the disk backup image
- Manage a PC performance by changing the disk imaging process priority
- Supports hard disks of all sizes
- Create full images (everything on your PC), incremental images (changes
since last backup), and differential images (changes since last full backup)
- Use your PC during image creation with our no reboot feature
- Verify disk backup image before a restore
- Change partition type, file system, size, and disk location during restore*
- Check the file system after a restore
- Acronis Secure Zone
- Acronis Startup Recovery Manager
PCWorld.com - Acronis Revs True Image In my
informal tests, Ghost 9 imaged a 3.2GB partition in 1 minute, 25 seconds, generating
a 1.4GB image file. My shipping copy of True Image 8 completed an image of the same
file in 2 minutes, 42 seconds, but it produced a smaller, 1.2GB file. (True Image
7 took 5 minutes, 34 seconds, making a 2.5GB file.)
The new Acronis True Image 8 feels more
like a maintenance release than a major upgrade over version 7. It does, however,
boost the backup application's performance to levels comparable to those
of Symantec's recently launched (and quite speedy) Norton Ghost 9.
Both programs create sector-by-sector snapshots
of your hard drive for easy recovery after a system crash; but in tests conducted
for our recent review of
Ghost 9, it performed dramatically faster than True Image 7 did, producing
smaller images. Like Ghost 9, True Image 8 skips the re-creatable swap and hibernation
files, yielding similar speeds and even smaller image sizes.
In my informal tests, Ghost 9 imaged a 3.2GB
partition in 1 minute, 25 seconds, generating a 1.4GB image file. My shipping
copy of True Image 8 completed an image of the same file in 2 minutes, 42 seconds,
but it produced a smaller, 1.2GB file. (True Image 7 took 5 minutes, 34 seconds,
making a 2.5GB file.)
Though Ghost 9 is speedier at creating images,
True Image 8 is much faster at booting from the recovery disc. In my tests,
Ghost 9 took a whopping 2 minutes, 25 seconds to launch, while True Image 8
took only around 15 seconds.
New tweaks in True Image 8 enable you to verify
images before restoring them; and like version 7, version 8 can create incremental
backups.
True Image 8 enjoys some clear advantages
over Ghost 9. It works with any version of Windows (Ghost 9 works only with
XP and 2000), it doesn't depend on Microsoft's .Net framework the way its competitor
does, and its full version is $20 less expensive.
I was chatting to people on IRC about my hardware
failure. I mentioned I planned to ghost the disk ("ghost" being a synonym for
clone, derived, I expect from
Norton Ghost, a
well respected disk cloning application).
Cloning an XP disk is not as simple as it sounds.
During my googling, I found a few references to id generation. That is,
XP keeps an ID somewhere on the drive and this ID has to be reset when cloning
the disk. The references indicated that commercial products such as
Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image can reset this ID appropriately. A straight
dd won't do that.
My experience supports that idea, but I have
no proof. I may be encountering some other problem. I found that Acronis True
Image did what I wanted. Using dd failed. Mind you, I'm now unable to boot from
the original system drive. I don't know why. Perhaps it has been corrupted during
the process. I suspect that is why I didn't get dd to work. Read on!
Disk Cloning with Acronis True Image
I expected that installing RAID under XP would
be the most challenging. It was actually straight forward. I installed a 3Ware
card, hooked up the drives, and pressed ALT-3 when presented with that option
during the booting process. I configured the disks for RAID-1 (mirror).
The difficult part was to clone the existing
XP boot drive into the RAID array. A hardware RAID array looks exactly like
a single drive to the operating system. That should simplify things.
The cloning software I chose was recommended
by someone in the Bacula
IRC channel. They mentioned
Acronis
True Image 8.0 by Acronis.
This product has a free trial version which lasts for 15 days. I tried it. It
worked. I cannot tell the difference between the original drive and the RAID
array. Acronis True Image has a nice little Wizard which guides you through
the cloning process. I will not go into detail.
... ... ...
I have great words to say about
Acronis
True Image 8.0. I looked at using Norton Ghost. Actually, I bought Norton
Ghost, but will be returning it unopened. The advantage I see in using Acronis
True Image is price and download. Acronis True Image costs less than Norton
Ghost and you can download it.
In case of broken links
please try to use Google search. If you find the page please notify
us about new location
Backup software for data backup
and disaster recovery - Acronis
Partition Saving
g4u - Harddisk Image Cloning
for PCs this is bit by bit copying without understanding of underling filesystem
so the ability to shrink, enlarge partitions is lost.
Partimage
Last modified:
June 02, 2008
