Backup the whole HD ("ghost" backup)

[narcossintese]

Have you ever done it? Is it reliable? What software do you recommend for this (if possible, freeware)?

I wanna make a copy of my system HD (I leave all my "personal data" on a different HD) with windows, drivers and softwares already installed, so I don´t have to keep setting stuff up everytime I format it. It´s just for one machine.

 

[JayB]

I didn't even know you could do that ! I would definitely like to know as well. I have a ton of external HDDs, and I would like to re-format my c drive soon, but last time it took FOREVER to get all my software etc back on.

 

[JayB]

Actually now that I think of it I think my brother did a backup for me , it made like an image file of the drive , in Windows 7. (it came with Win 7)

 

[ahjteam]

http://mytechquest.com/windows/3-free-alternatives-to-norton-ghost-and-acronis-true-image/

 

[narcossintese]

http://mytechquest.com/windows/3-free-alternatives-to-norton-ghost-and-acronis-true-image/

Thanks. Have you ever used any of them?

I didn't even know you could do that ! I would definitely like to know as well. I have a ton of external HDDs, and I would like to re-format my c drive soon, but last time it took FOREVER to get all my software etc back on.

People use this kind of stuff on offices, as they have to deal with lots of machines. I want to use on my PC mainly because of the little Windows customizations, such as "show the name extension of known files", the way I organize the shortcuts on "start menu", etc. POD Farm is also pretty boring to install.

 

[ahjteam]

Thanks. Have you ever used any of them?

I should've... Lost about 800gb of stuff and 4 installs of windows because I didn't :Smug:

 

[joeymusicguy]

Norton Ghost was good before they made it a Windows APP

it used to be a boot OS, and it ruled.

 

[greyskull]

old ghost is good

 

[Volcane]

Posted this elsewhere, but WHS (Windows Home Server) is really good - if maybe a bit of a sledgehammer solution. OEM can be got for about £80GBP, and it will install on just about any old PC, will run headless, and sit on your network happily imaging up to 10 machines automatically. Couple that with a gigabit network card and it does the biz.

If Windows fries, you just boot with the rescue disk, point it at your server and choose the backup you want to restore. I'm nor a huge microsoft fan, but it takes images on a separate machine, automatically, and you run it through a console icon on your DAW's sytem tray. It also supports media streaming, shared folders, and mirrored drives.

I like Acronis as well. That will image your disk, and then put it on a new motherboard with their 'Universal Restore' option - works a treat on Motherboard upgrades. 'ain't cheap though!

 

[greyskull]

if on a mac deplot studio is great, as is carbon copy cloner.

 

[abigor731]

i have acronis, its great, but not cheap
when i started doing backups i tried out the free stuff and didn't really like any of it, but that was already some time ago so maybe by now there is better freeware around that you can depend on

 

[guitarguru777]

Acronis is king!

I use it myself but as stated its not cheap by any means. My data being safe was well worth the price!

WOW the consumer version is only $50 right now.. DUDE I would fucking grab it!

 

[Volcane]

I do use Acronis, and with the Universal Restore option (in my IT day job), it is really worth it's weight in gold. Let's face it, on a standard PC, if you have a hardware failure, then PSU/RAM/graphics cards/optical drives are all easily replaceable, but if your motherboard goes, it's usually a fresh install of your OS and hours and hours of setting things up how you had it. PITA

Not sure if the UR option is available on the consumer option. If it is, then yeah, grab it!

 

[darthjujuu]

a base image of your system rules if you want to do lots of formats, but imaging isn't really a practical method of protecting your session data. y'all should look into RAID setups. for those of you not IT savvy, a basic RAID set up makes it so that .... well, think of it in super dumbed down terms as a Y cable for two hard drives. You have two identical hard drives in one machine, and the machine just see's them as one, and every single byte transferred is duplicated across both, with no detriment to system performance. And you can control them with software that will notify you if one of them fails, etc. Definitely a very relevant technology for producers.

p.s., RAID stands for redundant array of inexpensive disks. "Redundancy" in the context of IT terms refers to having backups of things. So a studio is a perfect place for data redundancy. We can't afford to have hundreds(thousands?) of hours of work lost in a poof.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

I'm using Time Machine on Mac, is that actually a bad way to back up the whole HD? :O

 

[darthjujuu]

I'm using Time Machine on Mac, is that actually a bad way to back up the whole HD? :O

nope, it's an excellent way. really effective if you want an entire drive back up. you can restore all apps/data to a different model of mac even, it's quite ingenious.

although still not quite as effective as RAID-ing it, if having everything backed up at all times live on the fly is what you're after, for data protection purposes.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

nope, it's an excellent way. really effective if you want an entire drive back up. you can restore all apps/data to a different model of mac even, it's quite ingenious.

although still not quite as effective as RAID-ing it, if having everything backed up at all times live on the fly is what you're after, for data protection purposes.

Cool, that's the impression I had. Thanks for the answer!

I usually just plug in the external backup drive, click Back up now, wait until it's done and disconnect the backup drive at the end of every day I've worked. It's really painless.

 

[narcossintese]

Thanks for all the replies. Just want you guys to know that the "Paragon Backup & Recovery" sugested by the site ahjteam linked worked flawlessly here. It has everything I want:
-Free
-XP/Vista/7 compatible
-Can work as a boot CD (so you don´t need to run it from an OS)
-Has the option to backup directly to CDs or DVDs instead of having to save as an image file first, and the first volume automatically has the boot capability built-in
-When saving directly to CDs/DVDs it automatically separates the volumes, without you having to tell how much space each disk can handle
-Can make a copy of the HD that it is currently installed and running (it´s great for notebooks that only have one HD)
-Ease to use, nice interface
-Pretty fast, I guess. Never used any other software of this type, but it was much faster than I thought it would be.

Hell of a program. Two thumbs up!