Disk Imaging Software for SMBs

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.

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.