Paragon Drive Backup
Professional Edition
Paragon Drive Backup
Professional Edition is
intended for just that:
creating an image for
backing up and restoring partitions. A lot of the features of Drive
Backup 8.0, the version I tested, compare with
those of Acronis True Image. Like True Image,
Drive Backup can back up without a reboot
and while other applications are running. It
can schedule backups—including differential
backups—and place them on a hidden partition. It can clone an image to another identical
or nearly identical drive and change the SID. It
allows the user to browse an image and restore
individual files from an image.
Drive Backup lacks the extra features that
make Symantec Ghost and True Image worthwhile applications for IT departments. It has
no remote management tools and no option
for scripting USMT or Sysprep.
The user interface (which Figure 3 shows) is a simple embedded browser but still managed to be somewhat confusing. After I completed the Create an Image wizard, nothing
happened. I repeated the wizard, thinking
that I had missed something. Still nothing.
Finally, I noticed the View Changes, Apply,
and Discard buttons on the toolbar. I had to
click Apply before the task would run. Given
that the only functions are to create a backup,
restore a backup, and copy a disk on the local
workstation, it seems unnecessary and counter-productive to schedule a series of jobs and
perform them. The jobs would conflict with
each other.
A scheduled backup job to create a 4GB
image over a network connection took well
over an hour. Restoring the same image to the
same workstation also took over an hour.
Drive Backup offers no features that would
favor it over Acronis True Image except for
price. Symantec Ghost's many features outweigh Drive Backup's ability to back up without
a reboot and while other applications are running.
Summary
Paragon Drive
Backup
Professional
Edition
PROS: Can create image without booting to
preinstallation environment
CONS: No remote management tools and no
option for scripting USMT or Sysprep; confusing UI; slow backup and restore
RATING: 1 out of 5
PRICE: $49.95 per seat with volume discounts
RECOMMENDATION: I can recommend this product for only very small businesses that can't
handle the feature set of Symantec Ghost or
the price of Acronis True Image.
CONTACT: Paragon Software • 800-240-8993 • http://www.paragon-software.com |
Vista and Microsoft
The deployment scenario that's on everyone's
mind these days is deployment of the new
Windows Vista desktop. Microsoft is releasing
Windows Deployment Services (WDS), the
latest version of Remote Installation Services
(RIS). WDS uses the new Microsoft Windows
Imaging Format (WIM), which is editable and
can handle multiple images within one file.
The WIM file format isn't useable for backups,
but it will change the way that deployment is
managed.
Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.0 wasn't
yet available as of this writing, but it's supposed
to be Vista compatible. Acronis True Image
10.0 Home supports Vista, but the True Image Workstation 9.1 version that I tested wasn't
Vista aware. True Image's and Paragon Drive
Backup's backup and restore features will function on a Vista desktop.
In addition to SMS, Microsoft has another
product which, along with Vista, should be
mentioned in the deployment space. Business
Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 is currently
in beta 2 testing. The previous versions of BDD,
2.0 and 2.5, were a collection of guidance and
best practice documents. BDD 2007 is more of
an "on the ground" tool that includes applications and wizards that package and deploy
WIM files and applications, especially Microsoft Office 2007. BDD isn't a tool for backup,
but SMBs looking to deploy Vista should certainly evaluate this tool for their Vista deployment—particularly at the low price of free.
The Bottom Line
Larger organizations can justify the cost of
SMS and similar enterprise-class management
servers, but small IT departments have generally been priced out of any kind of deployment
tool beyond a technician with a custom image
on a DVD. Symantec Ghost Solution Suite is an
affordable product that offers a set of features
similar to SMS as well as the ability to launch
and manage desktop backup routines.
For organizations not interested in Ghost's
feature set that need only to deploy the occasional new workstation and keep some critical
laptops backed up, Acronis True Image Workstation is a sharp program. It's targeted right
at an SMB's desktop backup and deployment
needs. Although more expensive than Ghost,
the ease of setup and deployment would be
a boon to understaffed, overworked SMB IT
staffs. It does exactly what it should with little
effort or risk. It's appealing for its incredibly
easy deployment path as well as its use of VSS
to create images of a disk while the disk's OS is
in use.