yep noob wants to do imaging on home nas

[sparks]

I was going to buy a nas for all kinds of things but one thing I really wanted to do was drive imaging for disaster recovery. I thought I read in some articles that there were small nas being sold that did this, something like ghost or true image type of stuff. When I started to look I could not find any. I have true image single user on one of my computers(I have 5 at home) but this does me no good on the others.
What should I do to get images of all of them on the cheap, I do not want to spend $300 for imaging software.

Thank you for any info you could share about doing something like this.

 

[zedpol]

I really like this idea...do you mind posting whatever you find?

thanks,
z

 

[scotty]

All you need is an imaging program that can image to a share on the network. Many will do this. I do this a fair bit at home and at work. Here's an article with some decent programs.

I used to use a BartPE CD with ghost v8 on it, as ghost will image to a mapped network drive which you can create in the PE environment. Currently I use Acronis' products. If you wanted to get fancy, Windows Server 08 has some neat PXE imaging capabilities, too. Ghost has been a little finicky for me as of late so I haven't bothered with it for a couple years, but the old v8 is still awesome. But acronis is pretty solid, and it's home product which would work fine is only $50, or easily available through 'other' methods, although I use it a lot so I have no issue paying for it.

 

[sparks]

acronis is $50 a machine so that was out of the question. I have talked to people who installed one copy on all their systems. It worked fine, one guy got all backups done and then the machines refused to work saying the software was already in use or something like that. I just don't fell like paying them for each system so I am still looking.

I have noticed in several reviews the term disaster backup was used and this unit does not have it. DOES that mean it exist or not ?

It would be great to just click on a menu item in the nas software hit backup A B D machines and it would happen. WOW
and if A did die...put in a new drive, go to machine B hit restore A and BAM

 

[scotty]

It would be great to just click on a menu item in the nas software hit backup A B D machines and it would happen. WOW
and if A did die...put in a new drive, go to machine B hit restore A and BAM

I don't use Acronis or virtually any imaging app for hot imaging. I use the offline boot-disk versions which don't run into licensing issues. I've never had terribly reliable hot-imaging from any program.

And there's lots of enterprise level imaging platforms that are just about as easy to use as you describe, but this is typically enterprise level stuff found on servers, not the kind of thing you're going to see with NASs. Either way, imaging is typically pretty quick and dirty with decent software.

And for sake of argument, you usually need interaction on the machine that's going to be imaged, at least to a minimal extent. Like you say, if the machine's hard drive were to die, with a new drive there would be no OS so at minimum you'd need a boot disk or set it to boot from PXE. And if the machine were dead, it wouldn't be communicating with the NAS anyway.

PXE is what we use at my office. Power on the system, press F12 for PXE, select the machine type from a simple menu (or create a new image), and bang, you're imaging. That's about as simple as it gets, but does require the right software amongst other things.

In other words, just use acronis' boot CD.

 

[BriComp]

DriveImage XML is FREE for home use. http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

Having just had a look at their web site I see that they also have a product called RAID Reconstructor. http://www.runtime.org/raid.htm

"Recover Data from a broken RAID Level 5 or 0 Array
Runtime's RAID Reconstructor will help you recover data from broken

RAID Level 5 Array consisting of 3 to 14 drives
RAID Level 0 Array (Striping) consisting of 2 to 14 drives"

The latter might be something worth investigating Tim. I am sure that if it works it will be of interest to a number of readers in time to come.

Bob Bridges

 

[bliko]

I'm not aware of any decent, free imaging software. I use acronis, the price is well worth it when you consider the cost of losing your data. Ive loaded the acronis utility onto a pxe server so in the event a drive needs to have it's image restored I can just boot to pxe from the pc in question and restore e everything in a flash... Don't need the physical boot cd.

As others have mentioned; there are also less ethical ways of aquiring software if you don't have the cash.

 

[bigclaw]

Also, Windows Vista Business/Enterprise/Ultimate has its own drive imaging program. You access it via Control Panel/Backup and Restore Center. I used it just last week to migrate my system to a larger hard drive. It worked flawlessly.

I'm not sure it can save to a NAS directly, but it supports at least DVD-Rs and external HDDs.

 

[sparks]

yep acronis is the one I use..like I said i have 1 copy and will not buy 4 more. They should make it so you could buy licenses at reduced rates but NOPE its full price 1-5

anyway this is what I was talking about

Linksys Media Hub First Look
Tim Higgins
January 07, 2009

Speaking of copying files, the Media Hub can also be used for client backup via the bundled NTI Shadow application, if you're a Windows client. Files and folders can be selectively backed up, but "bare metal" backup for disaster recovery isn't provided.

I can not think of why he mentions this unless he has seen it on some systems. Unless like was posted earlier he is thinking of enterprise software and like me wishes it was on these units.....maybe it just doesn't exist


I agree that you would need a boot disk of some kind. I have no problem using something like acronis boot cd to boot and get the image back from the network. I have been reading and some of the free software are very limited to local and usb drives only for backup so I am assuming to restore also.

Also the acronis disk offers some tools to get you up and running, partition etc.

 

[thiggins]

"Bare metal" / disaster recovery backup is all a function of the client software that is bundled with some NASes. For the Cisco/Linksys Media Hub, the bundled software doesn't do "bare metal".

 

[valentin]

Have a look at Clonezilla, http://clonezilla.org/
seems very good, full featured, open-source, freeware, well documented.

I personally do not use imaging software, as I reinstall OS at home usually once in a year, or even less. During that time some of my favorite applications change, or there are new versions, new drivers, and so on.
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[sparks]

thiggins I see that you say it doesn't.
Can you tell us which ones do?
Do they allow network backup and recovery?

Can a working person afford it LOL

 

[thiggins]

Unfortunately, not very easily. I have only recently begun documenting backup features more carefully in the NAS Charts.

Doing a search for "bare metal" on the SNB main site turned up the HP mv5150 (via NTI Drive Backup). There may be others.

 

[cevster]

NDCB00 2000 GB NAS - 4 S-ATA II Hard disk - BBMR Tech PXE Boot
(backup and bare metal recovery

http://france.cometlabs.com/front/index.php?mio=produit&idl=3&id_produit=497


freeStor 4020
N0042000

http://www.freedom9.com/products/product.php?p=17