Cadalyst - March 2008 - (Page 16)

cadlabsreview By Ron LaFon O ften, data is the most valuable business asset. When you consider how much time, money, and energy is tied up in your company’s design work, keeping a copy of that data in a safe and secure place seems like a reasonable precaution. It’s surprising, however, how few people regularly back up their work and how few computer systems are equipped to do it. If you’ve never had a hard-disk failure or an important design file that has been corrupted beyond recovery, you’ve been lucky. I hope it won’t take a disaster for you to realize the importance of securing your data. This roundup review looks at some of the currently available backup options for small- to mid-sized design firms and examines some popular backup strategies. Although most versions of Microsoft Windows include some sort of backup utility, it’s typically so limited in its functions that users quickly look elsewhere for their security backup needs. In this article, Cadalyst surveyed currently available backup products. The products in this review range from relatively simple to quite complex. For additional information about the features of these products, see www.cadalyst. com/0308backuptable. With the wide range of approaches and the software included in this survey article, you’ll likely find an option that is appropriate to your needs. Acronis True Image Echo Workstation with Universal Restore Acronis offers a range of products, including a single-user home backup, but I checked out Acronis True Image Echo Workstation and the Acronis Universal Restore module for this review. Acronis True Image Echo Workstation includes a management console that can manage other networked PCs that also have Echo Workstation installed, even though it is considered a single-user application. The Workstation version also supports the Acronis Universal Restore Module, a separate product that allows you to restore different hardware and back up to a virtual machine or FTP site. Using the Acronis Universal Restore Module, you can create bootable media with the Universal Restore option selected. After a catastrophic system failure, the repaired system can be booted with the media you created. You can then select the image to restore, and Acronis Universal Restore initiates the restore process, detecting the machine type and installing the appropriate drivers for the hardware abstraction layer (HAL). When restored, the system reboots with the operating system and all files are restored to their status at the time the system was backed up. 877.669.9749 www.acronis.com Price: $79.99, True Image Echo Workstation; $29.99, Universal Restore Acronis Acronis True Image Echo Workstation is a professional system backup and disaster-recovery application for office desktops and laptops. 16 March 2008 | cadalyst | www.cadalyst.com http://www.cadalyst.com/0308backuptable http://www.cadalyst.com/0308backuptable http://www.acronis.com http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - March 2008

Cadalyst - March 2008 Contents Editor's Window CAD Central Thicker than Water Safe Keeping — Backup Software Secures Your Designs AMD’s ATI FireGL Graphics Cards AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008 — Surveying, Civil Engineering, and Land Development Software Cool Software Utilities for Your Job History, Nonhistory, or Both? In the Eye of the Storm Builders’ Information Modeling CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes CAD from the Streets

Cadalyst - March 2008

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