Best Hard Drive Backup/Restore Utility?

[ThePunkerGuy]

What is the best hard drive backup/restore utility? And if ya know of a good guide to go with it that would help too! See i need to backup my 40gig drive then format it, set it up on raid with my new 40gig and then restore the backup to my new 80gig raid array since i recently reformated and dont want to have to set it all up over again. Thanks..
- Mike

 

[Zedric]

I'd suggest Norton Ghost.

You know RAID 0 is risky right? If one disk goes, all the data is gone. Just a friendly warning, make backups.

 

[ThePunkerGuy]

Yeah, I know that its risky.. here is what i do not get.. everyone freaks out over thinking a hard drive is going to fail.. maybe if you were using IMBs i could understand, but Western Digitals usually last for like 6 years or more before they have any problems so why does everyone worry so much aboutit. I have built like 10 computers and have never had a drive fail on me!
- Mike

 

[ThePunkerGuy]

Hey, also about Norton Ghost.. i used that last time here is what happened:
I backed up a 40gig hard drive. I had only used about 20 of the 40gigs. But when i restored the image to my bigger newer 60gig drive it took up 40gig (the same size as the drive i backedup) instead of just the 20gig i had used on it.. obviously i chose the wrong way to back up the drive or some wrong options or something. If someone could either give me a link to a good guide, or tell me what i did wrong, or tell me what to do.. that would be great!
thanks
- Mike

 

[Zedric]

Yeah you're right about IBM, I've sent in two disks myself! Never more I say. WD's hopefully better. I just wanted to make sure you knew, that's the point.

 

[ThePunkerGuy]

Yeah, i knew the risk.. but i wasnt really concerned about it because i know Western Digitals usually last quite a few years before they have problems, but everyone is like freaking out about a drive failure.
- Mike

 

[mbunny]

Norton Ghost does a drive image.

It backs up in a sense but what it does is that it takes snapshot of your hard drive EXACTLY the way it was. including the empty space.

Here's my backup method. I save all the programs i use that i have downloaded into a folder and every month i burn a copy of it. I also burn onto the CD the usual stuff like Favourites, my documents etc.

Personal habits are better than any program you just gotta get the right habit =P

 

[Zedric]

That could case problems. Just taking out selected files is not the best way if you run Windows. Sure you can do it if you do it right, but it's pretty easy to miss something.

Are you sure about Ghost? Sounds pretty stupid to save the empty space too. This would mean that no disk larger than 640MB (even if it's nearly empty) could be ghosted into one CD. I just don't think that's true.