My friend uses Windows Home server and like everyone knows it makes a complete ISO image of all your workstations and saves them onto the server. Then just saves the changes daily so you have complete backups of everything. Is there anything out there in the world that would do something like this across my network? It doesn't have to specifically use unRAID, but that is where I would want to store the ISO images/data.

 

Thanks-  Michael

 

I asked the same question a while ago and here is my thread. I haven't acted on it as of yet, but I think I will because you more or less reminded me.

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=6744.0

I've seen Acronis but never used it. I don't want to spend money on something that can just make an ISO or restore one over the LAN. I'm going to try that PING program and see if it fits my needs. If not, then I'll even try Acronis. I did install Crashplan but it has been over 10 hours and the initial backup still is at %2. I don't think their servers are quite ready yet.

 

 

I've seen Acronis but never used it. I don't want to spend money on something that can just make an ISO or restore one over the LAN. I'm going to try that PING program and see if it fits my needs. If not, then I'll even try Acronis. I did install Crashplan but it has been over 10 hours and the initial backup still is at %2. I don't think their servers are quite ready yet.

 

 

 

How much are you trying to back up and what is your upload speed?  That will have a huge impact on how long it takes you to back up.

 

The initial backup does take a while, but afterwards it is pretty quick and easy.

Clonezilla vs Acronis

 

I just used Clonezilla last night. Worked pretty good. Backed up 2 laptops and 1 desktop to my unRAID share. Felt kinda weird using it since you have to shut things down to do the backup, but got the backups working via USB stick and CD. USB loads very fast.

 

Even thou its supposed to support wireless I had problems getting it to run over my wifi, but worked perfectly over the wire.

 

Here are a few screens of what it looks like in action.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/free_imaging_software.html

 

Oh yeah just to let you know it took 40minutes to backup my 24gig on a Dual Core 1.6Gighz laptop. It says its a 17Gig backup, but I'm guessing it might do some compressing.

 

Guy here comparing the two.

 

Keep in mind this is an older video and now Clonezilla has a redone interface so its not as confusing as this guy talks.

I do like the way Crashplan works. I don't have to keep booting to a CD to make backups of my workstations. It just runs and does what it has to do behind the scenes. Mozy, was a backup company just like Crashplan is now. Mozy also had 'unlimited' space but now they do not. This could happen to Crashplan also down the road. Who knows, they could even go out of business and we'll lose all our data.

 

 

If your workstations are running Windows 7 then the built-in backup software will do this.  Not a lot of bells and whistles, but it does the job.  If you want more features/options, I'd suggest Acronis.  http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/index.html

 

Both will do image backups while the system is running and incremental backups.

 

Clonezilla doesn't suppose either of those features.

Mozy, was a backup company just like Crashplan is now. Mozy also had 'unlimited' space but now they do not. This could happen to Crashplan also down the road. Who knows, they could even go out of business and we'll lose all our data.

I just got that email today from Mozy.  They've lost me as a customer as soon as my current plan expires, there are other places to park my offsite backup data.

Something else I just noticed about Crashplan over the weekend. I made an image of a 120gig drive with only 4gig of data on it.

 

I tried to restore that image on a 30gig SSD, but since the original image containing the partition information was for 120gig it doesn't appear to want to realocate the partions so I can use my shiny new 30gig SSD.

 

I guess I'm off to option something else. Of course I'm trying to do this on a Linux machine.

I suggest Macrium Reflect (free version) it will do what you are looking to do with many benefits. Best benefit it will backup your computer image level while the machine is running without ever having to boot into a CD. I have been using this for about 2 years now and keeping the images on my unRAID server without issue.

 

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

I suggest Macrium Reflect (free version) it will do what you are looking to do with many benefits. Best benefit it will backup your computer image level while the machine is running without ever having to boot into a CD. I have been using this for about 2 years now and keeping the images on my unRAID server without issue.

 

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

 

Seconded, coming from a long time Acronis customer. 

 

I bought the 4 license version.

 

Macrium solved all the problems I had with Acronis (didn't use windows scheduler, didn't automatically delete old backups correctly, didn't use Win PE boot environment)

Smaller company and better support, but you'll notice you have to be a customer to read the support forums...

 

 

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

 

I use Paragon Backup & Recovery (free)

 

http://www.paragon-software.com/free/