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	Norton Ghost 14 Feb 10^th, 2008 at 5:02pm According to this website, Norton Ghost 14 “will be released on February 20, 2008.” What does the forum community know about this edition of Norton Ghost? http://www.google.com/search?q=norton+ghost+14
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	Re: Norton Ghost 14 Reply #1 - Feb 11^th, 2008 at 1:17pm What happened to Ghost 13? (I would not buy a back-up program with the number 13.) You always find the good stuff. http://www.google.com/search?q=norton+ghost+14
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	Re: Norton Ghost 14 Reply #2 - Feb 14^th, 2008 at 11:18pm Norton Ghost 14 is apparently out; you can download trial version from Softpedia.
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Re: Norton Ghost 14
Reply #3 - Feb 16^th, 2008 at 12:01pm

Some more info:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Back-Up-and-Recovery/Symantec-Norton-Ghost.s...

Review: http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/windows/Norton-Ghost--Review-78775.shtml

I noticed Norton Ghost 14 sits atop Softpedia's long list of "Week's best". Of course, the big question is .. are images ("restore points") created with Ghost 12/10/9 compatible with Ghost 14?

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Re: Norton Ghost 14
Reply #4 - Feb 16^th, 2008 at 12:04pm

Re: http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/windows/Norton-Ghost--Review-78775.shtml

Quote:

now supports NTFS partitions up to 16TB

uh, anything over 1TB seems useless, no? (For now, anyway.)

Quote:

new Offsite Copy feature adds an additional level of protection to your data by copying recovery points to a second hard disk drive.

copying to a 2nd hard drive is not new. I've done it with Ghost 12 .. plenty of times.
Quote:

The latest Symantec release for backing up your data preserves the same ease of use of its previous version but, despite the fact that they skipped a version, there are skimpy improvements and modifications.

Not surprised .. since I saw little need for improvement.

Quote:

the Offsite Copy function has been included in Backup Destinations dialog.

Not sure I follow them. Offsite? How do they know whether a particular destination is sitting beside the source, or truly located "off-site"? Now, if they had their own online storage facility .. that would be a different story.

Quote:

there are slightly more benefits in this version, but very important and useful ones nevertheless

I thought they just said "skimpy".

Here is clarification:

Quote:

Offsite Copy can be enabled at defining a new drive-based backup and is an additionally security measure for the created recovery point. Immediately after the backup job is finished, Offsite Copy kicks in (of course, this has to have been previously activated and a location defined) verifying the availability of the secondary location and starting the copying of the recovery point.

So, it's a *copy* of the imagen sent "off-site" .. uh, their use of the term "off-site" still throws me .. since it is unlikely they know whether (or not) the destination is truly "off-site".

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Re: Norton Ghost 14
Reply #5 - Feb 16^th, 2008 at 12:19pm

Okay, it'sd becoming clearer. See here:

Quote:

As trivial as Offsite Copy may seem, it is completely automatic and makes for a very good precaution, should something happen to the backup files. The great part is that Offsite Copy is completely automatic and, if the secondary location is not available immediately after the backup process finishes creating a recovery point, the procedure will be re-scheduled for the time Offsite destination is available. This time, the operation is also automatic as recovery point process starts unattended and automatically.

They must be reading my guide:

http://nortonghost.radified.com/norton_ghost_image_storage.html

Seems like they're trying to get the image off the source .. which is a good thing. Here's more:

Quote:

With the use of Offsite Copy, you ensure maximum protection of your files and create a safety net in case something happens to the original files and the restore point.

Uh, yeah .. like if the source drive dies. This is starting to sound like a subtle but very cool thing for those unfamilair with how cloning/imaging works. We have been saying to storage images off the source drive for eons.

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Re: Norton Ghost 14
Reply #6 - Feb 16^th, 2008 at 12:25pm

Quote:

ThreatCon response is another new option sported by Norton Ghost 14 in order to automatically start the backup job if a user specific security level is reached or exceeded. It is a kind of malware detecting utility that triggers a backup operation whenever a certain level of threats is reached.

Automatically? Putting theory into practice here seems tricky. UPDATE > here's more from the end of the article. Seems my intuitions were right:

Quote:

ThreatCon integration is not exactly one of the best features sported by the application and its detecting threats caused frequent alerts about threat level being reached and starting backup job on various drives.

Quote:

Using more external drives for storing recovery points or as Offsite Copy destinations may become confusing at some point and you may lose track of the labels and drive letters assigned whenever they are connected to a system. Norton Ghost solves the problem by assigning aliases to any external drive you plug in.

Shows they're thinking ahead, but this feature is simply a local (Ghost-only internal) naming scheme ("alias") and I doubt it will be used by very many .. cuz few have more than 1 external drive (if that).

Quote:

This way, you can keep track of all recovery points and Offset Copies located on your external drives.

Again, cool. But unlikely to receive much use. "Offsite Copies" is capitalized? My, how imaging has come to embrace our fundamental tenets.

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Re: Norton Ghost 14
Reply #7 - Feb 16^th, 2008 at 12:44pm

Quote:

Norton Ghost automatically detects the external drive the moment you plug it in and will launch the appropriate screen for making the necessary settings.

Ghost 12 does this now.

Quote:

Testing the application's response when backing up data either on an external drive or on one of the fix drives resulted only in success. However, on the downside, backing up a folder to a DVD showed all sorts of failure. This issue is a reminiscence of the previous version and it seems it has not been fixed in this edition.

Never heard of this problem .. but why would anybody use Ghost to back up a folder?

Quote:

Also, the application still cannot store recovery points on multiple CD/DVD media, and at one point or another chokes irremediably.

Can anybody confirm? Admittedly, I don't burn my images (preferring to go straight to external USB drive).

Quote:

However, recovering files and folders from hard disk turned out to be a pleasant surprise as the process was completed accurately and speedily. There were no glitches and everything worked just fine on both Vista and XP systems.

Seems they're saying backing-up folders/files to hard drive is cool, but problematic when going to optical drives.

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Re: Norton Ghost 14
Reply #8 - Feb 16^th, 2008 at 12:55pm

Quote:

It turns out that Symantec's 14th Ghost does a very good job at backing up your data on various drives and recovery is also successful.

Here's the heart of any imagine/cloning program, and the reason why anybody would buy one.

Quote:

The application provides the safety net for creating an automatic backup to the created recovery point and everything is rolled in the background. In case your system feels a bit bloated and loses in speed, you can always adjust performance slider to improve on the overall responsiveness of the system. In this case, the backup will take longer to finish but you can do your work as well.

I would suggest running Ghost only after a fresh reboot, and after the disk activity light calms down, while doing nothing else. Multitasking adds to possibility that something else you're doing could generate a conflict.

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Re: Norton Ghost 14
Reply #9 - Feb 16^th, 2008 at 1:00pm

Quote:

Bottom line is that version 14 of Norton Ghost did a pretty good job, although the changes are not too visible

Always nice to read the bottom line.

Quote:

The Good

The application preserves the user friendly factor of the previous versions (even Casper is not as friendly as Norton Ghost) ..

I will admit I found Ghost 12 to be very user-friendly, well laid out. Intuitive.

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Re: Norton Ghost 14
Reply #10 - Feb 16^th, 2008 at 1:08pm

Final words:

Quote:

The Truth

All in all, the new Norton Ghost experience proved to be quite pleasant with minor exceptions. The latest version is not exactly revolutionary with regards to the features and options it introduces, but there are plenty of unseen fixes that may have been felt in anterior versions.

Unseen fixes? Like what? Seems like they're saying it shoulda been called Ghost v12.x

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Re: Norton Ghost 14
Reply #11 - Feb 17^th, 2008 at 4:36pm

A few things I noticed in the Softpedia review about Norton Ghost 14 (NG14) . . .

NG14 appears to now support differential backups, although it is not clear whether that is in reference to the image or to the file/folder backup functionality.
The “Offsite Copy” feature, I suspect, is intended to be used for creating a second copy of the files/folders backed up by NG14 rather than images. As described on Amazon, this feature “Copies recovery points to a FTP site for easier offsite backup management.” Maybe NG14 includes a basic 2GB subscription to Symantec’s off-site storage capability, as is present in Norton 360?
Although I hope a user could disable it, the “ThreatCon response” feature seems to launch a backup automatically whenever Symantec raises its ThreatCon level. Personally, I wouldn’t want Symantec starting a backup on my PC, but would prefer to control it myself.

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Re: Norton Ghost 14
Reply #12 - Feb 17^th, 2008 at 6:38pm

Hi Pleo.

What is a "differential" back-up? How does it differ from "incremental"? The dictionary seems to be of little help here.

Did you see this part (regarding ThreatCon):

Quote:

There are four levels you can choose from, depending on how sensitive you want it to be. ... while the last level will disable ThreatCon Response altogether.

Why do you say this:

Quote:

The “Offsite Copy” feature, I suspect, is intended to be used for creating a second copy of the files/folders backed up by NG14 rather than images.

... when a "Rocovery point" is another name for a back-up image? .. and Amazon says this:

Quote:

As described on Amazon, this feature “Copies recovery points to a FTP site for easier offsite backup management.”

What am I missing?

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Re: Norton Ghost 14
Reply #13 - Feb 18^th, 2008 at 11:48am

Quote:

… the last level will disable ThreatCon Response altogether

That’s good! Others might disagree, but I certainly wouldn’t want to relinquish control of when an image is created to Symantec or any other firm.

Quote:

What is a "differential" back-up? How does it differ from "incremental"?

Wikipedia offers a nice explanation of the terms . . .

Quote:

Incremental
A "normal" incremental backup will only back up files that have been changed since the last backup of any type. This provides the quickest means of backup, since it only makes copies of files that have not yet been backed up. For instance, following our full backup on Friday, Monday’s tape will contain only those files changed since Friday. Tuesday’s tape contains only those files changed since Monday, and so on. The downside to this is obviously that in order to perform a full restore, you need to restore the last full backup first, followed by each of the subsequent incremental backups to the present day in the correct order. Should any one of these backup copies be damaged (particularly the full backup), the restore will be incomplete.

Differential
A cumulative backup of all changes made after the last full backup. The advantage to this is the quicker recovery time, requiring only a full backup and the latest differential backup to restore the system. The disadvantage is that for each day elapsed since the last full backup, more data needs to be backed up, especially if a majority of the data has been changed.

Quote:

Why do you say this … when a "Recovery point" is another name for a back-up image?

Only because it makes no sense whatsoever to call a copy of a Recovery Point (aka .V2I file) an “offsite backup,” as you previously noted. So, if the conclusion is suspect, then maybe too is the premise? The only way I can see a justification for using the phrase “offsite backup” with Norton Ghost 14 is if the term is intended to be used in reference to the files/folders backup capability rather than the image backup functionality. Also, remember that Norton 360 does have a true offsite backup capability, and so I am guessing that maybe that feature was ported into Norton Ghost 14.

Of course, Norton Ghost 14 hasn’t even been officially released yet, so it’s too early to say for sure, but based upon the Softpedia review, I don’t see (unfortunately) anything in version 14 that would provide a compelling reason to upgrade from version 12, other than perhaps the “plenty of unseen fixes” that have been implemented.

And, finally, one item from the Softpedia review that caused a chuckle or two . . .

Quote:

Total size of installation file {for Norton Ghost 14} does not exceed 90MB (so you can count bloatware out on this one)

“Bloat” is the eye of the beholder. Some readers may be interested to note that, as a point of comparison, the installation file for ShadowProtect Desktop 3.1 is 13MB.

P.S.: Anybody seen a download link for the Norton Ghost 14 User's Guide yet?

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Re: Norton Ghost 14
Reply #14 - Feb 20^th, 2008 at 3:50pm

Rad, it appears that my guess about the “Offsite Backup” feature of Norton Ghost 14 is incorrect, based upon the description of the same feature within the new version of its ‘corporate’ equivalent: Backup Exec System Recovery 8.

Quote:

Offsite Backup Copy

Automatically copy recovery points (backups) to a remote server using FTP or to an external hard drive or network share to enhance your disaster recovery efforts.

Apparently, this feature is "offsite" within a corporate environment in the sense that the destination server may be located in a different building (or city). Nonetheless, for a home user, it seems odd to refer to a simply copy of an image file (.V2I) as an "offsite backup."

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