Best way to IMAGE a server ? Norton Ghost?

[Daniel Simard]

I have the following server:
COMPAQ PROLIANT 6000
Compaq Ultra-Wide SCSI Controller
Compaq NC3131 Fast Ethernet Nic
Compaq Smart Array 3100ES Controller
4x 256 MB ram.
Has 2 mirrors 9 gigs hard drives but only 1 gig of space is used.

and I'd like to image it once per week.

My idea would be to boot off a diskette, with network drivers, scsi controller drivers, using norton ghost, and image the thing but I was wondering if you can give me some ideas???


Please let me know what you think?

How about breaking the mirror, and putting a new disk and reestablishing the mirror ?

[Ronald Postma · Accepted solution]

Hi Daniel,
Ghost is a good option, version 9 can also ghost a system that is running, if you have the enterprise edition you can also install it on another computer and let it ghost the server and put the image on the system where Ghost is installed, so you do not even have to reboot your server.

You can also install it on the server self, then you have to reboot once. but you have to more partitions and then you can only make a partition image.

I do not know if you can scedule an image, maybe someone else knows.

Have a nice day,
HTH, Ronald

[John Yu_1]

Ghost works and with 1 gig, it's fast enough.
May also want to consider one pf those network hard drives out now.

[Guy Humphreys]

you might also want to look at this product:

http://sea.symantec.com/content/product.cfm?productid=23

Powequest's (now Symantec) new name for it's V2i Set of products.

I think this may be more of a true enterprise product than Ghost. I only use ghost for desktops/laptops - especially as they are now made by the same company. The trial version has worked well for me and doesn't require downtime for the server.

HTH
Guy

[Oguz Kutlu Asik]

Hi,

I'm using Powerquest V2i protector (Symantec Livestate Recovery now) for a while. It successfully takes images of server without any intervention, manually reboot. If you are running db type applications like exchange, sql server etc on server, it allows you to define batch files one to stop services before imaging and one to start services after imaging. You can have incremental images like backup tools, and restore an individual file from an image using its browser. If you have an disaster, you can boot from product cd and restore images.

I was using Ghost before that, and it was free of problems also.

[Ashly A K]

hi!

I vote for Ghost. It is working fine with our enviromnet. And i am very happy with its perfomance.

-Ashly

[Jay Bollyn]

Hi Daniel,

We backup our servers to tape, using Veritas Backup Exec v9.1. This software is not cheap, and there is a learning curve.

You might want to look at Acronis True Image v8. There is a trial version for both the client and server versions. I have not tried the server version, but the client version is some of the easiest software I have ever used.

http://www.acronis.com/

- Jay

[Jeff Wilkins]

Acronis True Image is great. I have True Image to image 200+ manufacturing systems with various hardware and manufacturers. It has not failed use yet. I boot it off USB flash and image over the network. I have also used it to image to a Mator Onetouch external usb drive. You can also install this software and image from within Windows.

I also True Image Server to image the OS mirror of our NAS. The Server version works with dynamic disks. I install this version on the server to image while running within Windows. They also have an enterprise version for databases etc.

On another note, Acronis has a very good forum for getting pointers or helping out with issues.

The different hardware I havee used with Acronis impresses me and I am very pleased with the software.

[iwsec]

Hi,
One to watch out for with Ghost is that Symantec do not support any RAID configurations (hardware or software). From experience sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/docid/1999010613522725?Open&src=sg&docid=2002092510522725&nsf=ghost.nsf&view=8f7dc138830563c888256c2200662ecd/dfb4b017218165c088256c3f00622fae?opendocument∏=norton%20ghost&ver=2003%20for%20windows%202000/nt/me/98&dtype=∏=Norton%20Ghost&ver=2003%20for%20Windows%202000/NT/Me/98/XP&osv=&osv_lvl


Cheers
iwsec
www.iwsec.co.uk