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› Finally got sick of Ghost
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Finally got sick of Ghost (Read 9749 times)
serpico
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Finally got sick of Ghost
Aug 14
th
, 2011 at 12:34pm
I've found Ghost to be too resource intensive to run as a background process. And even in 'manual' mode, where I manually start up Ghost, it slows my system (XP laptop, several years old) to a crawl. I also have run into errors in 'manual' mode that prevented me from even running backups this way.
I started using Macrium Reflect to back up my data (file and folder backup). I've found it to be quick and responsive.
I'm still using Ghost from a boot UFD to cold image my OS partition. But I'm glad to be rid of installed Ghost.
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Dan Goodell
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Re: Finally got sick of Ghost
Reply #1 -
Aug 14
th
, 2011 at 5:49pm
serpico wrote
on Aug 14
th
, 2011 at 12:34pm:
I started using Macrium Reflect to back up my data (file and folder backup). I've found it to be quick and responsive.
I'm still using Ghost from a boot UFD to cold image my OS partition. But I'm glad to be rid of installed Ghost.
Macrium Reflect
is a good program. In this day and age when there are a half dozen *free* programs that are as good or better than Ghost, there's no reason to have to buy something.
I did some testing awhile ago and found that, unlike a lot of programs, Macrium was versatile enough to let you adjust the size of image splits, restore to a smaller partition than the original source, and restore a primary to a logical partition. It can only restore an in-use system partition from a rescue CD, but it lets you create an iso of that CD in your choice of linux or WinPE.
I still maintain that imaging utilities are the wrong tool for data backups, but I'm curious why you use Macrium for your data but not for your OS. Macrium does a good job for OS imaging, so is there a compelling reason you're still using Ghost for your OS?
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serpico
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Re: Finally got sick of Ghost
Reply #2 -
Aug 14
th
, 2011 at 7:21pm
Dan Goodell wrote
on Aug 14
th
, 2011 at 5:49pm:
Macrium Reflect
is a good program. In this day and age when there are a half dozen *free* programs that are as good or better than Ghost, there's no reason to have to buy something.
To be fair to Ghost, the full featured version of Reflect is not freeware. But you're right, there are a number of free backup utilities.
Dan Goodell wrote
on Aug 14
th
, 2011 at 5:49pm:
I still maintain that imaging utilities are the wrong tool for data backups, but I'm curious why you use Macrium for your data but not for your OS. Macrium does a good job for OS imaging, so is there a compelling reason you're still using Ghost for your OS?
No compelling reason. I have Ghost on my multi-boot usb stick, and it works well for cold imaging, and I'm not inclined to spend the time to figure out how to put Reflect on the stick.
You point about imaging utilities and data backups - I assume you prefer file and folder backup to imaging for data?
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Dan Goodell
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Re: Finally got sick of Ghost
Reply #3 -
Aug 15
th
, 2011 at 5:09pm
serpico wrote
on Aug 14
th
, 2011 at 7:21pm:
No compelling reason. I have Ghost on my multi-boot usb stick, and it works well for cold imaging, and I'm not inclined to spend the time to figure out how to put Reflect on the stick.
Oh, I overlooked the part about cold-imaging. Now it makes more sense to me what you're doing. I guess I zeroed in on the part where you were talking about having Ghost installed on the hard drive, and jumped to the conclusion that you had been hot-imaging your OS.
Quote:
You point about imaging utilities and data backups - I assume you prefer file and folder backup to imaging for data?
Essentially, yes. More to the point, I don't like committing backups to a proprietary format unless there's a reason to do so, and there's just no reason for it with your data.
Does Macrium store your backed up data in their own Macrium format? If so, that's what I'm talking about. Let's say you store those backups on a portable USB drive and later want to retrieve one of your data documents on a different computer. Would you have to install Macrium on the other computer in order to retrieve your document?
Straight file and folder copying is the simplest way to store and retrieve data files. Free utilities like SyncBack and Karen's Replicator facilitate straightforward copying, and no software is needed to recover your files. You can recover them using any Windows computer. The downside of straight copying, though, is it doesn't save generational backups--IOW, saving multiple versions of a document that has gradually changed over multiple backups.
Personally, I use ordinary .zip files to store data. I have a Windows Task Scheduler job set to run an old DOS batch file once a day, which backs up any data files that have changed into a standard .zip file named with the backup date (for generational backup purposes). They're not straight copies but at least it's not a proprietary format, and .zip files let me keep generational backups.
Windows can read .zip files, so no special software is needed to retrieve a file from the backup. With this method, I can retrieve any particular data document as it existed on any given day going back to 1996 (when I started using this method)--even though I've used many different computers and operating systems over the years.
I don't expect everyone to write their own program or roll their own batch file, but there's real value in avoiding proprietary formats. I've run into many people who have needed to retrieve something from an old backup and couldn't, because the backup was made on an old computer with a program they no longer had or which wouldn't work on their new computer.
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serpico
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Re: Finally got sick of Ghost
Reply #4 -
Aug 16
th
, 2011 at 12:34am
Dan Goodell wrote
on Aug 15
th
, 2011 at 5:09pm:
Essentially, yes. More to the point, I don't like committing backups to a proprietary format unless there's a reason to do so, and there's just no reason for it with your data.
Does Macrium store your backed up data in their own Macrium format? If so, that's what I'm talking about. Let's say you store those backups on a portable USB drive and later want to retrieve one of your data documents on a different computer. Would you have to install Macrium on the other computer in order to retrieve your document?
Yes, Macrium's file and folder backup uses a proprietary format.
In your scenario, I think I can avoid having to install Macrium on the other computer by running Macrium off a bootable UFD. I haven't tried this out yet, but I suspect this will be the case. Of course, it's still not as convenient as using a universal format like zip because I'd have to reboot the computer off the UFD, retrieve the document and then reboot back into the computer OS.
Dan Goodell wrote
on Aug 15
th
, 2011 at 5:09pm:
Straight file and folder copying is the simplest way to store and retrieve data files. Free utilities like SyncBack and Karen's Replicator facilitate straightforward copying, and no software is needed to recover your files. You can recover them using any Windows computer. The downside of straight copying, though, is it doesn't save generational backups--IOW, saving multiple versions of a document that has gradually changed over multiple backups.
Personally, I use ordinary .zip files to store data. I have a Windows Task Scheduler job set to run an old DOS batch file once a day, which backs up any data files that have changed into a standard .zip file named with the backup date (for generational backup purposes). They're not straight copies but at least it's not a proprietary format, and .zip files let me keep generational backups.
Windows can read .zip files, so no special software is needed to retrieve a file from the backup. With this method, I can retrieve any particular data document as it existed on any given day going back to 1996 (when I started using this method)--even though I've used many different computers and operating systems over the years.
I don't expect everyone to write their own program or roll their own batch file, but there's real value in avoiding proprietary formats. I've run into many people who have needed to retrieve something from an old backup and couldn't, because the backup was made on an old computer with a program they no longer had or which wouldn't work on their new computer.
Good point about not stranding data in a proprietary format. This is especially a concern for those who have to maintain quarterly or annual snapshots of data going back years. But for most, it's probably not such a big deal because disk space is expanding so quickly that we can keep data in native form on our current machine and not rely on backup programs for archival purposes.
I certainly agree that if one wants to archive data onto a drive or optical media, that it should be in native form or a universal compressed package like zip. Archiving data in proprietary format is asking for trouble. Even the latest Norton Ghost is incompatible with some older version NG backups, nevermind issues if one switches to a different program.
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