Attack of the Clones
Posted on 2nd Jan 2011 at 10:41 by Paul Goodhead with 42 comments
I recently built myself a new home PC which, as I'm sure most of you know, resulted in a lightning-quick computer. There's a level of snappiness and responsiveness that you get from a newly built PC, which you just can't seem to maintain, no matter how often you de-fragment your hard disk or clean your registry.
As a result, I knew that I wanted to create a disk image of my PC in its freshly installed state. This would essentially act as a time capsule, preserving an exact copy of my PC in its virgin state until I needed it. Then, when my Windows install got bloated and unresponsive in the future, I could simply copy the image back the other way, theoretically restoring my PC to exactly the same state it was in when I built it.
This is what we do with our graphics test rigs every time we benchmark a graphics card, just to ensure that the systems are identical for each card. If you ever want to ruin Harry's day, come round to bit-tech HQ and hide our graphics test rigs' master image drive.
Click to Enlarge
Imaging a drive isn't just a copy-and-paste job, though. You need a dedicated backup program to do the job effectively. We use the excellent Acronis True Image software to create an image of our graphics test rigs, but I wanted to see if there was an equivalent open source (read: free) program that would do much the same job.
After asking around and swiftly finding out that there wasn't (in the words of one colleague, 'Do you really want to trust a free program with your backup?'), I took the plunge with True Image.
I have to say that I'm glad I did, as it was very easy and simple to use. Granted, I had previous experience of the program through my use of it at work, but I was using different tools to those we use when re-imaging the graphics rigs.
Most importantly, the interface was very simple, with full explanations of the function of each button. This may sound silly, but when you're messing around with disk partitions, you really want to know the purpose of each button.
Click to Enlarge
I was even able to create images of more than one drive to my master drive, meaning I was able to back-up all of my drives (I'm a bit of a data hoarder) to the same disk, bringing me much closer to a complete system image than I was expecting.
It's now comforting to know that, if anything goes wrong, I have a pristine backup copy of my computer sitting on my shelf at home, ready to go at a moment's notice.
How do you guys manage your system backups? Do you leave it to Windows and System Restore, or do you have a dedicated program and a disk image on the shelf like me? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
As a result, I knew that I wanted to create a disk image of my PC in its freshly installed state. This would essentially act as a time capsule, preserving an exact copy of my PC in its virgin state until I needed it. Then, when my Windows install got bloated and unresponsive in the future, I could simply copy the image back the other way, theoretically restoring my PC to exactly the same state it was in when I built it.
This is what we do with our graphics test rigs every time we benchmark a graphics card, just to ensure that the systems are identical for each card. If you ever want to ruin Harry's day, come round to bit-tech HQ and hide our graphics test rigs' master image drive.
Click to Enlarge
Imaging a drive isn't just a copy-and-paste job, though. You need a dedicated backup program to do the job effectively. We use the excellent Acronis True Image software to create an image of our graphics test rigs, but I wanted to see if there was an equivalent open source (read: free) program that would do much the same job.
After asking around and swiftly finding out that there wasn't (in the words of one colleague, 'Do you really want to trust a free program with your backup?'), I took the plunge with True Image.
I have to say that I'm glad I did, as it was very easy and simple to use. Granted, I had previous experience of the program through my use of it at work, but I was using different tools to those we use when re-imaging the graphics rigs.
Most importantly, the interface was very simple, with full explanations of the function of each button. This may sound silly, but when you're messing around with disk partitions, you really want to know the purpose of each button.
Click to Enlarge
I was even able to create images of more than one drive to my master drive, meaning I was able to back-up all of my drives (I'm a bit of a data hoarder) to the same disk, bringing me much closer to a complete system image than I was expecting.
It's now comforting to know that, if anything goes wrong, I have a pristine backup copy of my computer sitting on my shelf at home, ready to go at a moment's notice.
How do you guys manage your system backups? Do you leave it to Windows and System Restore, or do you have a dedicated program and a disk image on the shelf like me? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
42 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyWith an old image, by the time you've updated everything, and installed the programs/games you've installed since you took the image it's about the same. (although it's obviously a much easier option if you have multiple PCs. At work I use Microsoft's Windows Deployment Services, which is perfect for a business environment, and is free).
Oh, and for everyone who re-installs a lot of PCs, check out http://ninite.com/ it creates a custom installer with all of the programs you want to install. Much quicker than individually downloading and installing everything separately. Saved my a good hour or two in the few months I've been using it.
$ dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
The 'Great data crash and burn' of 2006 is still a painful memory for me..:((
Messing around with partitions has caused me more grief than any hardware failures, i can tell you that.
Now i just keep a basic 50GB Windows OS install which has enough space for a few games and the apps that i use. Everything else i keep on a seperate 2TB hdrive, and whenever i feel the need for that 'Fresh and clean' install, it takes just an afternoon to re-install the OS....
Which is a hell of alot quicker than trying to re-download hundreds of GB's of stuff on a crappy 3.5mb connection.
I also use Carbonite to remotely back up my main documents, photo's etc. For the videos, that I keep on my server, I back them up to an external hard drive.
EDIT: It appears the latest DriveImage XML can image a drive in use as long as you have the Windows Volume Shadow service running (or Volume Shadow Copy as it was named in XP IIRC).
I keep all my documents backed up separately.
The main thing I like about this way of back-up and recovery is not having to reconfigure Outlook and reset all the rules which can be a real pain.
All my data: Docs, MP3s, Vids... etc are on a seperate HDD.
The main thing I hate has nothing to do with the back-up itself, more to do with certain games. For example: Any Codemasters game is almost impossible to reload game save files forcing you to restart every time.
Oh... I use Acronis True Image Home 2011... :-p
Well not unless you delve deep into the hidden folders on your OS root directory and save a couple of folders that contain the save data...
Doing this i've been able to backup my save games for GRID and Dirt2 and continue where i left off after a fresh OS install...
I've got a mirror partition (Raid 1) where I store a system image and files backup. Also I do make regular full and differential backups.
Please elaborate then... as every article I have read has been unsuccessful. I have previously found game save info in two different locations and some people have also suggested that it is tied to the 'Windows Live' details... all attempts have returned the result of 'Game Save Data Corrupted'.
Now navigate to C:\Users\YourUsernmameHere\Documents\My Games\DiRT2\savegame
Instead of copying your entire savegame folder which will be named something like PB0171440, just move the save game files contained with you old folder of similar name into PB0171440 or whatever your savegame folder may be.
I had the same problem only this morning, just on F1 2010 I think they work in the same way (GTAIV is the same way also)
btw, just because a program is free it doesn't mean it isn't credible or reliable. again, linux is a good example of this. its used in almost every server - computers that MUST have a reliable OS.
It's free, fast and I never had a problem with it.
Incredible. I wish i'd found ninite before. I reinstall all the time, and install fresh systems for friends. This will save me hours.
Of course, screwing around with unattend.xml will take a while at first.
Restore, drag the Steam folder to where it will be, run installer, done. Also, simply drag my entire music folder into WMP once I have it booted for the first time, and wait for it to add to library. Done.
Although, to be fair, the only reason I do this is for the sake of my SSD. If I was on a traditional HDD for my boot device, I wouldn't bother. Updating the programs from your month, 2 month, 3 month or older clone is about as time consuming as installing them in the first place.
And making an updated clone is pointless, because you just end up formatting the old fashioned way everytime anyway, and then cloning it never to be used.
This guy needs to learn a few things about open source tbqh
Final step is an external, that would round off the backup routine, three physical backups is enough if kept in different places.
You didn't look very far did you?
PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost) http://ping.windowsdream.com is an excellent, quick and very reliable system. Network or local backups, saves BIOS settings, will work from any media, doesn't need installing and is lightning fast.
But I suppose if your afraid of the command line then your going to pay for the nice pictures.
I will more than happily dispute that fact, as a sysadmin with over 75 servers all of them are Windows and I can tell you they are reliable, they do not fall over, and we have a mix of 2000, 2003, 2003R2, 2008, 2008R2.
We also have several IBM AS/400 machines and they are pretty reliable.
You don't need to reboot them after updates (because the application data is assumed to be inviolable on the harddisks), the partitions don't suffer from NTFS fragmentation, the OS isn't just a desktop OS with server 'bolt-ons', the OS supports non-native file systems, etc.
Have to endure using Windows XP networked (over the internet) to Windows 2008 at work - and it's a bad joke.
Love Windows on the desktop, but as a server it is too flawed... Visa-versa for Linux...
Really if Clonezilla was updated, with a decent UI, it would be a viable alternative to Macrum Reflect, Paragon and Acronis (especially since it is free and OSS). It is especially flexible about partition filesystems and the backup target (which can be CIFS shares and over FTP). Just now it feels very clunky since mostly it's just chaining together GNU command shell applications (like dd).
...bit oldschool maybe? :D
To be honest, really the only reasons I use Clonezilla are because I wanted something that was free, and before I even knew I wanted a cloning utility, I came across an article on OC3D which talked about cloning a HDD to a SSD, and it had all the instructions I could need.
Just kind of fell on to my lap really.
a) the motivation of its drivers ( coders producing something THEY want )
b) the bug-eradication system called "many eyes find bugs faster than few do", and
c) for the core stuff that the core coders HAVE to be able to trust, competence is their "badge".
-shrug-
it's a cultural thing: believers believe everyone else is foolish, and that is that.
Knowers are more likely to test & try & discover objectively, but that requires a culture-shift.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
Linux has saved my Windows system SO many times I can't count... ( what was that program called... gpart or something, that could discover where a partition SHOULD be, after some MS-land stupidity had killed my partition table...? I live in Linux, now, so it's been years since Linux had to save me from Windows's screwups, though Windows's destruction of my multiboot is .. routine, thanks to MS's devotion to preventing OTHER OSs... you may remember when WinServer wiped multiboot from everyone's servers, to DRM/control the machine... news from /.
typical... )