FlyerTalk Forums - Third party XP/Visa Backup software

Quote:

Originally Posted by Non-NonRev (Post 11308047)

Bringing up an older thread -

My need is to back up a 100mb laptop hard drive.

I just purchased an external drive (WD Passport), but the included software doesn't seem to offer a quick and easy way to make a full image backup - only to set up folders to be synchronized.

Because this is a personal, not business, machine, my only real interest is to be able to do full image backups, in order to be able to restore onto a replacement HDD in case the laptop HDD has a catastrophic failure. I would envision keeping three full images (overwriting the oldest when a new image is taken, etc).

Is Acronis the best tool for this kind of basic protection, or ar there alternatives?

I've bought Acronis for several clients & friends and think it's probably the best out there. On my home computers I use something that hasn't been available for 4 or 5 years, but still works great - PowerQuest's Drive Image 7 - saved my system from catastrophe several times.

Acronis True Image Home at $50 (often discounted) is fine for most users. Acronis True Image Echo Workstation at $80 has a $20 add-in that is incredible - Universal Restore. I've used this twice to replace old early Pentium WinXP computers with brand new machines. Normally you couldn't restore an old image onto new hardware, but the Universal Restore slipstreams all the drivers into the image and comes out working perfectly on the new system. Both times this was done because there was critical software on the old system for which we had no media to reinstall.

BTW, when planning for backup drives, add enough for 1 extra image, e.g., to make 4 image backups of a 100 Gb drive, get at least a 500 Gb drive. This is because the newest image is made before the oldest is rolled off.