Hiya!
 
I just completed setting up new brand new DAW. Needless to say that took several evenings...
 
What's the best way to backup the entire system to be able to restore the DAW as quickly as possible in case of e.g. hardware failure?
 
Acronis? Windows backup feature? Other options?

I've been using the free Clonezilla since last year. It's quite fast, and I was doing a full backup before installing a major software into my new DAW last year. It works best to have a separate HDD for backup.

But there is a bit of learning curve to do (it's menu driven, perhaps at some point you need to enter option number). The iso image burns into a bootable CD. I've got acquaintance with Linux before.. so I'm ok with this.

The technicians at work use Acronis at work for cloning some Windows systems to ensure each has an identical setup.

So with that in mind I chose Acronis. I create an image on an external hard drive for each drive. I also do a very regular file back up of specific folders where data is stored.

It all seems pretty straight forward, fortunately I have not had to do a recovery yet.

I use Acronis True Image 2012.

I have a clean Windows 7 install image and another with Sonar X2 included.

I also take weekly backups of my whole system and data - data daily if I'm working on something really important. All kept on an external drive.

Acronis is being bashed badly on amazon for their newer versions, supposedly the product got quite buggy in recent version ...?

Is there anyone out there who can confirm a successful restore of an entire DAW using Acronis or alternatives?

Clonezilla restores just fine. Tested it few times.

Acronis True Image. But haven't tried the latest version.

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://digifreq.com/?DigiFreq
* Publisher of the NewTechReview free consumer technology newsletter: http://newtechreview.com/?NewTechReview

FreeFlyBertl


Acronis is being bashed badly on amazon for their newer versions, supposedly the product got quite buggy in recent version ...?

Is there anyone out there who can confirm a successful restore of an entire DAW using Acronis or alternatives?

I've restored a system from Acronis although not in the last few months. I've also cloned hard drives with it etc. and restored the odd on or two files from an image, I've done that recently.

I've seen some poor reviews for it but it has never failed me. Let's face it, you can find users moaning about anything, anywhere. I tend not to take any notice and find out for myself, but FWIW my experience with Acronis has always been good.

Thanks, guys. Nothing beats hands-on advice from real users.

I use Norton Ghost but that's probably getting a little old hat nowadays, plus Norton hasn't released any updates for ages. Still it works. Windows backup might be good enough nowadays.... no idea haven't used it for ages.