Imaging Software vs. Backup Software - Which Is Best?

By: Steven Ross

If 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.

The difference with imaging software is that you take an image of exactly how your hard drive is laid out. This way if you have to do a complete system restore, or major data recovery, it will keep things intact, content and layout-wise. Also, you can enjoy the fact that you won't have to reinstall all of your programs, if you use a disk image to restore your data. This is an advantageous feature of imaging software.

Also, there are imaging software available that offers incremental backups to your disk image. This means that since updates to your disk image are occurring daily, you can go back and retrieve a file even if you have made drastic changes, and saved over it they lot. With backup software, you can only go back to the point where you last backed it up. With imaging software, you have the capabilities of having many different restoration points to choose from, for different files or partitions or even your whole hard drive.

Imaging software does take a little bit more time to figure out how to make it work. However, there are a lot of good imaging software programs today that take you step-by-step through the process, and have you creating a disk image of your hard drive in as little as a few minutes. The time you save by just using simple backup software may not even be worth it, considering you don't have all the other options available that disk imaging software provides.

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.

Niche Article Directory: http://www.thatsmyniche.com

About the author: Steven Ross is a huge Disk Imaging Software fan and can help you with all your Disk Imaging questions. For Disk Imaging Software advice visit his new site at BestDiskImagingSoftware.com

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated