# What imaging or Ghosting software do you use? Questions for IT people **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 30, 2008, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239 "2008-07-30T15:55:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/1 "2008-07-30T15:55:31Z")
I know of Norton’s Ghost and Acronis® True Image. I am sure there are a few others. We would like to take and store images of laptops that go out to our remote salespeople. We need the ability to reload the image off CD/DVD and possibly off network. I was wondering how large these images get. How many CD would it take on average for a loaded Win XP machine with Office and other software on it. Does it store on a network drive and if so, how do you recover from a network drive if the laptop/PC is down hard? As I recall, the general concept is Ghost to CDs or a partition and then when the drives fails and you need to reload, you insert a bootable CD from the company that then will prompt for the image location. Is that generally correct? Jim ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/2 "2008-07-30T16:27:57Z")
We use Ghost at all the IT jobs i have had. Acronis makes me have wet dreams at night though. How we do it is we create an image which is usually ~2 gigs. We store it on a network server although you can store it on a USB drive as well. The problem with USB drives are some BIOS systems cannot see them or map to them. I suppose you could use CDs although it would take a few of them to store an image on them. ---
**Author:** ![tetranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@tetranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tetranz)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/3 "2008-07-30T17:03:35Z")
I look after computers at a school as volunteer. I use Acronis True Image. It’s very nice. I only ever use the “Rescue Disk” which means that it’s all on a bootable cd (running Linux I think but looks like Windows). You can image out to another drive or partition, network share, usb drive, ftp or cdrw. You can install and use True Image as a Windows application too but I think it still reboots into it’s own system if imaging the C: drive. Using the bootable cd always seems a cleaner way to me. I’m not installing anything on any machine then and since there is only one cd that I keep and use on various machines from time to time, I think I’m okay with the license. You can get the Home version for about $39.95 if you shop around. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/4 "2008-07-30T17:58:07Z")
I use this free program for home use: > **[DriveImage XML Backup Software — Data Recovery](http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm)** > > DriveImage XML is an easy to use backup and restore program for Windows. Part of Runtime's Data Recovery Software products. I’ve never had any problem with it that I can recall. ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/5 "2008-07-30T18:02:53Z")
[QUOTE=tetranz] I look after computers at a school as volunteer. I use Acronis True Image. It’s very nice. I only ever use the “Rescue Disk” which means that it’s all on a bootable cd (running Linux I think but looks like Windows). You can image out to another drive or partition, network share, usb drive, ftp or cdrw. You can install and use True Image as a Windows application too but I think it still reboots into it’s own system if imaging the C: drive. Using the bootable cd always seems a cleaner way to me. I’m not installing anything on any machine then and since there is only one cd that I keep and use on various machines from time to time, I think I’m okay with the license. You can get the Home version for about $39.95 if you shop around. [/QUOTE] With Acronis you can image a computer while using it. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/6 "2008-07-30T18:07:11Z")
I boot from [SystemRescueCD](http://sysresccd.org/Main_Page) and image with [partimage](http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page). They still list NTFS support as experimental, but I’ve used it plenty and have had no problems. I always defrag before imaging a partition, but I don’t know if that matters. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/7 "2008-07-30T18:19:21Z")
Thank you everyone. The method **ChrisBooth12** mentioned is what I was hoping we could achieve. I like the idea of a 2 gig image, I can store on the server. Do you have any idea how large that 2 gig image would be on the original hard drive? I’m curious about how much compression we could expect to see. Thank you all, Jim ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/8 "2008-07-31T12:22:42Z")
One time bump hoping for some more input. ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/9 "2008-07-31T13:11:48Z")
It depends on what you’re imaging. A fresh install consisting mainly of binary files won’t compress as much, I’d plan on the image being around 60-80% of the original size. When used for backing up a drive that’s been in use for a while, around 50-70% of the original size. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/10 "2008-07-31T13:23:01Z")
We used ghost to capture and deploy images up to the new one. I’m working on getting a Vista image creation and deployment method at this very moment(posting from the lab while a machine is imaging). The image for the XP machines was ~2G The image for the Vista machine is ~12G :eek: we are however putting a hell of a lot more on the base image this time around. ---
**Author:** ![Subway\_Prophet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@Subway\_Prophet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subway_Prophet)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/11 "2008-07-31T14:52:27Z")
'Nother user of Ghost, here. I’ve been using it since before Symantec bought it. When combined with 3Com Boot Services, and utterly ignoring GhostCast Server Console, it’s pretty good. (Repeat: don’t use GhostCast Server Console, it’s the crapware that Symantec tacked onto it. You just use the GhostCast Server app itself.) Ghost works well standalone, copying or restoring one partition onto another. It kicks butt when imaging multiple machines at once over the network. I also really like partimage as mentioned previously, since it works well from a network-booting image kind of like GhostCast, but its inability to browse partition images and extract and/or update files within the image is a deal-breaker for me. I’ve been looking for an excuse to play with Runtime’s DriveImage XML since it does have an image browser, but I don’t know how well it works over a network or how well it plays with Linux. (I really love their GetDataBack software - I know these guys know their stuff.) I haven’t played with Acornis yet. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/12 "2008-07-31T15:26:25Z")
Vista Ultimate actually has an image-based backup system built-in. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/13 "2008-07-31T15:45:25Z")
Does anyone know how the licensing works. We will probably only image about 10 machines in all. Our main concern is when a Salesguy screws up his laptop, he sends it back to use and we can restore it to how we initially sent it out in a quick painless fashion. Currently it takes 4-6 hours to reload a laptop when we need to. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/14 "2008-07-31T16:51:33Z")
HD Clone - Pro I copy the original hard drive to another hard drive and store. No problem with licenses. Just don’t cheat. ( providing you have multi-machine licenses.) For a laptop, use an external hard drive and just copy to the internal. Done and good to go. Counting set up and a coffee break, 14 Gigs of image = about 15 minutes work. Hard drives are cheap and easier to use with big images than CD’s IMO. YMMV ---
**Author:** ![Grave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/71c47a/32.png) [@Grave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grave)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-imaging-or-ghosting-software-do-you-use-questions-for-it-people/458239/15 "2008-07-31T19:58:41Z")
heyo - a topic I am familar with - what I did for a living for a decade or so 😉 Ghost has a huge advantage in a corporate environment, due to their support options and wide usage. Google will generally find a solution to any problem you have rather quickly. Failing that, Symantec’s knowledge base is top notch, and their phone support is good also. Generally Symantec is more aggressive on pricing than Acronis as well. With only 10 users, though, I suspect you are too small to gain much benefit from volume discounts. For the deployment aspect, I developed a custom BartPE boot image, then burned it and the ghost image to a DVD. A full ‘with apps’ load of XP + Bart hovers around 3 gig, and my replacement in that group is exploring dual layer DVDs to have more flexibility. The upside of this was a bootable DVD that served as a launcher for Ghost to re-image, so we didn’t have to always bring the laptops in. For in house use, we went to Western Digital USB drives, also booting Bart. Reimage time was around 3 minutes, plus data could be pulled to the external drive if needed. Symantec’s licenses were pretty straightforward. IIRC there was a 10 or 15 user pack available that would cover you fine. Just remember to sysprep all your images, get friendly with AutoIT to do your configuration for you, and it will be easy.