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Topic: USB Backup that is bootable |
Jeff Hyman
From:
West Virginia, USA
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Posted 14 Dec 2008 6:35 pm |
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| Is there any product out there that will do a complete backup to a USB port, and at the same time have technology at the front of the USB device that allows it to be the boot device, to completely recover and rebuild a crashed HD? |
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Wiz Feinberg
From:
Mid-Michigan, USA
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Posted 14 Dec 2008 10:06 pm
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A qualified yes, because it requires two disk drives. If your computer's BIOS allows booting from a connected USB (2.0) device as the first boot device, and you use Acronis True Image to save complete images of your entire boot disk, its partitions and its MBR, and you "burn" the recovery media files to it, you should be able to boot into the USB drive's Acronis Linux recovery environment, locate the last saved image on the USB disk, then restore it to your replacement hard drive.
I haven't tried using a USB drive as the recovery media but I think it will work. I'll check the FAQs and the support forum for more details and post them in a followup reply.
_________________
"Wiz" Feinberg, Moderator SGF Computers Forum
Security Consultant
Twitter: @Wizcrafts
Main web pages: Wiztunes Steel Guitar website | Wiz's Security Blog | My Webmaster Services | Wiz's Security Blog |
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Michael Maddex
From:
Northern New Mexico, USA
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Posted 15 Dec 2008 8:48 am linux journal
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Within the last year, Linux Journal ran a series of articles on creating a small footprint OS and setting it up on a bootable USB flash drive. I don't know why that method couldn't be applied to a larger external USB drive with a directory structure to hold the backups. Jeff, if you're interested and you can't find the articles online, post back here and I'll look through my back issues and see if I can find the articles and get you some more info. I tend to pass magazines on once I'm finished with them, so this could be a hit-or-miss proposition.
HTH.
_________________
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert." -- Arthur C. Clarke |
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Jeff Hyman
From:
West Virginia, USA
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Posted 15 Dec 2008 5:33 pm
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| Big help guys! Acronis True Image website shows no explanation of (bit-level) verification. I critical piece IMHO. Also, usually an image backup is limited to restoring to a HD of equal size, and not having the capability to resize , add, or remove partitions. I'm not complaining, but am just digging into features that many corporations are looking for. With this said, do you guys think there is a market for such a product in the corporate arena? |
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Wiz Feinberg
From:
Mid-Michigan, USA
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Posted 15 Dec 2008 7:40 pm
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Jeff;
Acronis True Image does allow for resizing images to fit larger disks, and to restore all partitions, or only some. You can even drag individual files out of an image and drop them into the source folder to fix a damaged file.
That said, Acronis has two divisions. One is for consumers (Acronis Home) and the other is for businesses. The corporate version of True Image is Acronis True Image Workstation. There is also a server edition for various operating systems, including Linux.
For more information see my Acronis True Image details page
_________________
"Wiz" Feinberg, Moderator SGF Computers Forum
Security Consultant
Twitter: @Wizcrafts
Main web pages: Wiztunes Steel Guitar website | Wiz's Security Blog | My Webmaster Services | Wiz's Security Blog |
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Jeff Hyman
From:
West Virginia, USA
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Posted 16 Dec 2008 4:27 pm
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Wiz,
Thanks for the feedback. I've got one of my Engineers giving it a test drive. On the surface it looks like a really nice product. It's some of the low-level issues I'm going to be looking at in depth. The verification is not clear. I also want to see how symbolic links and regular links are handled, especially when doing a flat file restore. How does it deal with master boot blocks on a new HD, etc. Does it restore a true device file, or just remember the major/minor number and recreate the device node. I always beat the living crap out of my own products. Doing it to other products is a good way for me to prevent investing R&D resources into a problem that has a good solution. I'll keep you posted. You are really a wealth of knowledge, and the Forum is lucky to have you moderate this section. |
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Jeff Hyman
From:
West Virginia, USA
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Posted 16 Dec 2008 4:45 pm
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Michael,
The current problem with USB is its capacity... but they are getting rather beefy now. I think theres a 64Gb out there. Thats alot of freakin' data.... one large enough to handle a 10Mb boot menu up front, and the rest for data. The problem will be solved. I've got the technology to exceed the features list of most products out there. My only concern is, where will USB be in a year from now? There is more disk-to-disk migration going on these days. Bigger data with a smaller window of time to back it up. |
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