Imaging Software vs. Backup Software - Which Is Best?
November 12th, 2007If you’re looking to decide between imaging software and backup software, then this article will be of interest to you. In it, I will go over the different features offered by each kind of software, and provide some advantages and disadvantages between the two. Use this as a guide to help you figure out which software is right for you, backup or imaging.
Without a doubt, it is very easy to use most backup software. Simply set up a schedule to backup your computer at certain times, and feel confident that none of your data will be lost on your computer, since your last backup. This is especially a good feeling if you have work projects on your computer, articles or documents written, and your finances saved to your hard drive. Yet, the only thing backup software saves are the files themselves, not the organization and layout of those files on your hard drive.
Imaging software, on the other hand, takes an image of your complete hard drive as it is. This means that all your content will be restored exactly where it was, before you had to restore it. In addition, most disk imaging software on the market today allows you to restore everything, without having to reinstall any of your old programs. This is a major advantage to imaging software.
Incremental backups are another feature that imaging software offers that is outstanding. By continually offering updates on your disk image daily, you have many different options to go back and pick up files before you alter them or saved over them. You can only go back to when you back them up last, with backup software. With all the different restoration points to choose from with imaging software, you have so many different choices to recover lost or altered data.
There is a bit more of a learning curve with imaging software. Yet, that has been minimalized because most software is simple and easy to follow, based on step-by-step guides which take you through the whole process to create a disk image. It may be inconsequential to choose a backup software to save a little bit of time on learning the software, because you don’t have quite as many options at your fingertips.
To sum it up, take these points of both imaging software and backup software, and use them to help make the right decision for your needs.
