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Drive Snapshot?A customer has asked me about Drive Snapshot.
http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/index.htm Has anyone tried it and what was your impression if you did? She has two win2k3 servers, one running sql2k, and an NT4 server. Thanks for any info. "Kerry Brown" <kerry@kdbNOSPAMsys-tems.c*a*m> wrote in message snapshot.exe is a fairly basic product. It requires no installationnews:eeNuFbYsGHA.4784@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl... > A customer has asked me about Drive Snapshot. > > http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/index.htm > > Has anyone tried it and what was your impression if you did? She has two > win2k3 servers, one running sql2k, and an NT4 server. Thanks for any info. > > -- > Kerry > MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User > www.VistaHelp.ca and it will take a snapshot of a live system, expecting you to close all applications so that things don't change while it goes about its business. In case of a server it is necessary to take the server off-line. Image creation is with a GUI or with a command-line interface with lots of optional switches. Restoration is from a DOS prompt with a command line - nothing for the faint-hearted. It actually lets you restore an image to the partition that carries the image - a great method of self-destruction. You must restore the image to a partition of at least the same size as the original partition. If the partition is larger then snapshot will make it appear smaller, with the difference inaccessible and unuseable until you repartition the disk. Your customer should test the product by running it on her servers, then restoring the images to spare disks. This will give her the confidence that it can be done when the crunch comes. Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
Show quoteHide quote > "Kerry Brown" <kerry@kdbNOSPAMsys-tems.c*a*m> wrote in message Thanks for the quick answer. I plan on testing it on my server first but > news:eeNuFbYsGHA.4784@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl... >> A customer has asked me about Drive Snapshot. >> >> http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/index.htm >> >> Has anyone tried it and what was your impression if you did? She has >> two win2k3 servers, one running sql2k, and an NT4 server. Thanks for >> any info. >> >> -- >> Kerry >> MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User >> www.VistaHelp.ca > > snapshot.exe is a fairly basic product. It requires no installation > and it will take a snapshot of a live system, expecting you to close > all applications so that things don't change while it goes about its > business. In case of a server it is necessary to take the server > off-line. > > Image creation is with a GUI or with a command-line interface > with lots of optional switches. > > Restoration is from a DOS prompt with a command line - nothing > for the faint-hearted. It actually lets you restore an image to the > partition that carries the image - a great method of self-destruction. > You must restore the image to a partition of at least the same size > as the original partition. If the partition is larger then snapshot > will make it appear smaller, with the difference inaccessible and > unuseable until you repartition the disk. > > Your customer should test the product by running it on her servers, > then restoring the images to spare disks. This will give her the > confidence that it can be done when the crunch comes. this gives me an idea of what to expect. She currently does daily tape backups. A friend of hers running a similar setup (call center) recommended Drive Snapshot as a cheap secondary backup that was much quicker to restore than from tape. She is not at all technically inclined and neither are any of her employees. It may turn out to be beyond their expertise. > snapshot.exe is a fairly basic product. It requires no installation This is plain wrong.> and it will take a snapshot of a live system, expecting you to close > all applications so that things don't change while it goes about its > business. In case of a server it is necessary to take the server > off-line. Drive Snapshot takes a snapshot of your system state exactly as it is NOW; there's no need to take the server off-line. > If the partition is larger then snapshot will see www.drivesnapshot.de/en/resize.htm> make it appear smaller, with the difference inaccessible and > unuseable until you repartition the disk. wrong, too. Tom Ehlert (author of Drive Snapshot) <t*@tomehlert.de> wrote in message
Show quoteHide quote news:1154073134.880625.232420@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... Nice to hear from the author of Drive Snapshot!> > snapshot.exe is a fairly basic product. It requires no installation > > and it will take a snapshot of a live system, expecting you to close > > all applications so that things don't change while it goes about its > > business. In case of a server it is necessary to take the server > > off-line. > This is plain wrong. > > Drive Snapshot takes a snapshot of your system state exactly as it is > NOW; > there's no need to take the server off-line. > > > If the partition is larger then snapshot will > > make it appear smaller, with the difference inaccessible and > > unuseable until you repartition the disk. > wrong, too. > > see www.drivesnapshot.de/en/resize.htm > > Tom Ehlert (author of Drive Snapshot) > I have seen snapshot in operation when a machine was busy doing things. It then generated the message "Restarting snapshot, Windows is too busy" or words to this effect. About my other point: I restored a snapshot image taken from an 8 GByte partition to an empty disk that was 10 GBytes in size. The resulting partition was still 8 GBytes. Parts of the Windows snap-in diskmgmt.msc said that this was an 8 GByte disk and other parts thought it was a 10 GByte disk. Chkdsk.exe did not report any error or discrepancy. The only way to restore the full disk capacity was by repartitioning if. If you believe that this is not what snapshot should do then I will gladly repeat the test under controlled conditions and send you some screen snapshots, using your te@... mail address. > Parts of the Windows snap-in It's a 10 GB partition ( place reserved on disk) with a 8 GB> diskmgmt.msc said that this was an 8 GByte disk > and other parts thought it was a 10 GByte disk. filesystem it it > Chkdsk.exe did not report any error or discrepancy. in windows, start> The only way to restore the full disk capacity was by > repartitioning if. snapshot, restore, select any image, next right click 'C:' in the lower grafik --> 'grow partition' Tom <t*@tomehlert.de> wrote in message
Show quoteHide quote news:1154175300.712363.100820@s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... I looked for the "Grow partition" option while Snapshot> > > Parts of the Windows snap-in > > diskmgmt.msc said that this was an 8 GByte disk > > and other parts thought it was a 10 GByte disk. > > It's a 10 GB partition ( place reserved on disk) with a 8 GB > filesystem it it > > > Chkdsk.exe did not report any error or discrepancy. > > The only way to restore the full disk capacity was by > > repartitioning if. > in windows, start > snapshot, restore, select any image, next > > right click 'C:' in the lower grafik > --> 'grow partition' > > Tom > was active under Windows and could not find it. I also checked the Restore options on your web page and the FAQs - again no trace of this option. Perhaps you would care to explain where exactly it - your instruction to "right click C: in the lower GUI" is not quite sufficient. The attached file illustrates the issue. Disk 0 is a 7.87 GByte disk yet parts of diskmgmt.msc report its size incorrectly as 6.15 GBytes. Seeing that I have the attention of the author of snapshot, I would like to spell out my wish list for future versions of this product, with the most important items listed first: a) Make the DOS-based restoration more user-friendly. b) Prevent the DOS-based restoration mode from overwriting the partition where the image file resides. c) Make the "Grow partition" option automatic. d) Allow the restoration process to restore into non-partitioned space. e) Allow the restoration process to restore an image into a partition that is smaller than the original partition. [attached file: diskmgmt.pdf]  
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