Read IntroAnalytic’s press release at http://www.introanalytic.com/BackupResearchMediaRelease.pdf

The DM Review editorial staff reprises the press release: http://www.dmreview.com/article_sub.cfm?articleId=1049420

Comments on the study from Chris Mellor at TechWorld: http://www.techworld.com/storage/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=3&entryID=152

After three attempts to repair the power-connector problem with my laptop (and then-only computer), I realized that I would need not one but two computers to replace her. New computers come with warranties, which is good—but to have repairs done under warranty usually means sending the computer back to the manufacturer, which takes a week to ten days, and is NOT good. So I needed not just to back up the data on my machine, but to get a backup machine to use in case something went wrong with the first one.

With a little research and the help of Craigslist and eBay, I was able to purchase two computers with my new-computer budget: a brand-new 15.4″ widescreen Gateway, and a used Dell Latitude PIII with a year still remaining on the on-site service contract. The Gateway is still being assembled and shipped, but I picked up the Dell last week and have been busily installing and configuring it.

One thing about new laptops which I don’t much like is that they don’t have floppy disk drives. True, almost no one uses floppies these days, but a floppy drive is a requirement for using Symantec Ghost 8 Corporate, my preferred drive-mirroring program. You create the floppies from within Windows using Ghost Boot Disk and then use them when making or restoring from backups. They run an operating system called PC-DOS and can thus create an image of your drive when Windows is at rest. When Windows is running, something is always changing, so the chance of an error when creating an image is much too high for my comfort. I’d used Ghost 8 with great success on Keramat (the dying computer) and would prefer to go on using it.

Last year, however, Symantec bought PowerQuest, the makers of DriveImage. The good news is that Ghost 9 does not require a floppy drive. The bad news is that it makes its backups from within Windows. This made me nervous. And while PC Magazine and other reviewers gave Ghost 9 good marks, the Ur-Guru panned it—primarily because it couldn’t recognize his RAID controllers and was therefore totally useless to him.

So I was happy to discover that Astarte came with a floppy drive, the kind you swap with the CD drive. I figured I was all set to go on making backups with Ghost 8, at least on my backup machine.

But for some reason Ghost 8 can’t see my external hard drive when I connect it to Astarte’s USB port. (Astarte doesn’t have a FireWire port, one of her few drawbacks.) It can’t see my CD/DVD-writer, either. It seems to be blind to USB, despite the fact that I had it install USB drivers when I made the floppies, and despite the fact that Astarte can see and use both external drives just fine from within Windows.

This meant I had to use Ghost 9. Since I didn’t want to put a full installation, much less my own data, at risk, I decided to test it on the bare system as I’d bought it. (And I was annoyed to discover that while you can restore from the Ghost 9 CD without starting Windows, you can’t back up directly from the CD. What were they thinking?)

To my relief, it worked just fine, but I still don’t feel entirely satisfied, and I’m going to want to test out some alternatives once the Gateway (whose name, incidentally, is Enheduanna) arrives. It may be that I’ll prefer Retrospect, TrueImage, or another program to Ghost now that I’m entering the floppy-free zone.

Dear FileSlinger™ clients, colleagues, and friends:

It’s Friday again and time to back up your data.

I’ve made more backups than usual this week because of reinstalling my computer to put Windows XP Service Pack 2 on. I’ve saved copies of my drive at various states of installation, in case something goes wrong, so I don’t have to go all the way back to the beginning and start over. These interim backups can save hours. If you have someone reinstall your operating system, or you do it yourself, make sure you, or the consultant, makes some of these on the way. That will mean less consultant time you have to pay for, or less of your own valuable time that you have to lose, the next time something goes wrong with your drive.

It’s true, having even a very new computer is much like having a very old car—things just keep going wrong. This is in part because many software manufacturers (Micro$oft is not the only guilty party) charge us good money for products that aren’t really finished and which interact with each other in unpredictable ways. This is very frustrating, but short of the entire planet refusing to use computers until they are more reliable, there is probably not much to be done about it.

Today I wanted to talk a bit about one of those unfinished programs. Symantec/Norton (makers of an antivirus program which can be worse for your computer than most viruses) has just released Norton Ghost 9.

I use Norton Ghost 8 for making my full-system backups, and I love it. Its only drawback is that it really isn’t designed for computers without floppy drives, and the workarounds for that are a trifle clumsy.

Last year Symantec bought PowerQuest, makers of DriveImage, a highly-rated competitor of Ghost’s and one which uses a CD rather than a floppy disk for recovery.

This year it appears Symantec has combined the worst of both programs to produce Ghost 9. The Ur-Guru tested it out and found huge problems. For one thing, it won’t work on anything with less than 256 MB of RAM. For another, it’s in such an unfinished state that Norton is shipping Ghost 8 along with it.

So if you use Ghost 8 and get an upgrade offer—DON’T.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a backup system in place and do have a floppy drive, now would be a good time to buy Ghost 8, while you still can. It’s likely to be moved to the discount remainder bin soon, so you’ll get a good deal on a much better product.

Once again, if you’re a Mac user, this information won’t have been very useful to you. I need your help to provide Mac-friendly reviews, until I can get a Mac of my own and be a two-platform family again.

But whatever kind of computer you have and whatever kind of backup system you have—make frequent backups of your data. Replacing hard drives and software only takes time and money. Replacing your data can be impossible.

And remember—if you’ve got your backups automated or for some other reason don’t want to receive these reminders, just e-mail me and let me know, and I’ll take you off the list.

If someone you care about needs a backup system—don’t wait. Send them to me right away.

More backup news next week,

Sallie