Question for the Techno heads

[tkoepp]

What are you using? Our system is too old and I have to research a better / newer way. I have found Both Symantec and Acronis have imaging solutions that have the ability to restore to dissimilar hardware (which I like) but the cost is WAY out there..

Any advice guys.

Thanks in advance.

Edit to add.. These are PC's not Mac or Linux

 

[junkman_56]

I use Acronis.
It works well and is easy to use.

 

[Wurm]

Acronis. Hands down the best software out there.

 

[alexgtp]

I have to say Acronis is the best to use.
In a bind I have used Norton Ghost.

 

[grateful1]

What are your specs and requirements?

You mention 'server' then state 'PC'.....which is it?

oh - we use Ghost for our IT configs/images....Retrospect to Backup PC's....and Networker for out network/servers.

 

[coolboxers255]

Another nod to Acronis. Been using True Image 11 Home for my home pc's. It has saved my bottom a few times. Excellent software. :thumbs:

 

[Wurm]

What are your specs and requirements?

You mention 'server' then state 'PC'.....which is it?

oh - we use Ghost for our IT configs/images....Retrospect to Backup PC's....and Networker for out network/servers.

Doubt its the PC version he needs, Gary The Acronis home/workstation version can be bought for a song for all it does. The Server version costs around 1200 dollars but its worth every penny if you need it.

 

[grateful1]

What are your specs and requirements?

You mention 'server' then state 'PC'.....which is it?

oh - we use Ghost for our IT configs/images....Retrospect to Backup PC's....and Networker for out network/servers.

Doubt its the PC version he needs, Gary The Acronis home/workstation version can be bought for a song for all it does. The Server version costs around 1200 dollars but its worth every penny if you need it.

To determine what's needed, we must first look at the requirements.

Imaging is one thing...are we really sure that's what we want to have done?
Are these files servers or SQL/Exchange...app. servers?

Without the details....all of the imaging applications have there place.

I've been 'steered' into handling all the backups for out company...servers to desktops....and have tried many products.

Yes - Acronis is a very good product and I would use it...if it met our requirements.

 

[Wurm]

I use Symantec Backup Exec 10d for all the to tape and HDD daily back-ups (with the proper modules for SQL and Exchange depending on the server) and Acronis Server for imaging.

He said in the original post imaging, so thats what I went with.

 

[tkoepp]

Thanks guys, I am trying to find some decent pricing for the Acronis Echo Server.

 

[Turk10mm]

There's always FTK Imager, and its free. Its forensically sound imaging software that's packed with FTK forensic toolkit. You can download the imager software from the site. It will retain an exact image of the drive, including slack space in the event you ever need to go back and recover deleted data from the drive.

But, that's what i do for a living, so that's why its my pick.

Edited to add: I'm not a forensic analyst, however, I am certified in a couple of things. I'm actually a project manager in electronic discovery, but could provide limited assistance on ftk imager if you'd like to look at it.

 

[tkoepp]

There's always FTK Imager, and its free. Its forensically sound imaging software that's packed with FTK forensic toolkit. You can download the imager software from the site. It will retain an exact image of the drive, including slack space in the event you ever need to go back and recover deleted data from the drive.

But, that's what i do for a living, so that's why its my pick.

Edited to add: I'm not a forensic analyst, however, I am certified in a couple of things. I'm actually a project manager in electronic discovery, but could provide limited assistance on ftk imager if you'd like to look at it.

I'm not a forensic analyst

But I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night... LMFAO j/k Turk

Will this allow you to restore to dissimilar hardware?

 

[grateful1]

Ahhh...EMC has a product (I think they bought the company recently) called "HomeBase".


Thanks for bringing up this topic....it's work related!

:laugh:

 

[Strayvector]

Restoring to dissimilar hardware is never recommended. If you have the time and resources, migrating an application to a new server should always be built from from scratch and only the base OS should come from an image. Imaging is old technology and any of the tools can easily do it from Ghost to SMS. There are however, times that migration/restoration cannot be done from ground up because of time, availability of source code, support, etc. Just know that you'll need plenty of time to run the systems in parallel to do remediation on the new servers. I just got done with a couple of projects where we migrated 150+ servers to dissimilar hardware. Where we could, we did fresh installs of the applications and where not possible we used Platespin. Good tool and works nearly pain free. Certainly takes much more time to test and remediate than those built from new installations, but overall, I'm pretty satisfied.

 

[grateful1]

Restoring to dissimilar hardware is never recommended. If you have the time and resources, migrating an application to a new server should always be built from from scratch and only the base OS should come from an image. Imaging is old technology and any of the tools can easily do it from Ghost to SMS. There are however, times that migration/restoration cannot be done from ground up because of time, availability of source code, support, etc. Just know that you'll need plenty of time to run the systems in parallel to do remediation on the new servers. I just got done with a couple of projects where we migrated 150+ servers to dissimilar hardware. Where we could, we did fresh installs of the applications and where not possible we used Platespin. Good tool and works nearly pain free. Certainly takes much more time to test and remediate than those built from new installations, but overall, I'm pretty satisfied.

:thumbs: