Ghost Solution Suite

Hello Guys,

We have just installed Symantec Ghost Suite 2.5 trialware to backup one of our server. Unfortunately, this is the first time that we will be using this program so I would just like to confirm the step by step procedure that we need to do in order to capture an image of a server.

So what we have done so far are the following. Please advise if we are missing something.

1. Installing the Symantec Ghost Suite on another server (different from the one that we are supposed to backup).

2. Remote Ghost client has been installed on the target server.

3. From the tasks, we selected “New Image Create Task”.

4. Then, we browse for the target server on the “Source machine”.

5. For the image, we created a new image that has this attached property (Z: Drive is an external drive attached on the target server).

Now, if we are going to backup the C: drive of the source machine, what will be our option in Source drive and Source partition (see attached)? Just an FYI guys – we have the manual but these options were not clearly explained.

Thank You,

Arnel

Attachment(s)

screenshots.zip   16 KB 1 version

Please indicate what operating system you are trying to image on your server and also what hardware the server is based on.

Do you intend to "hot image" the server, or boot the server to a virtual operating system and image that way?

Hi EdT,

Symantec Ghost Suite was installed on a Windows 2003 R2 and the server that we would like to capture an image is running on Windows SBS 2008.

The target server has these drives (see attached) and C drive has a RAID setup but its currently not mirroring and Windows backup is also not working on the C drive so we are going to try backing it up using Symantec Ghost Suite. Our original issue was posted in here - Just an FYI.

If we do not select the hot imaging option, it will go to the virtual OS and do the imaging in there, correct?

Thanks,

Arnel

Also, what is the estimated time to take a cold image of a 60GB hard disk? This is the C drive of the server that we are trying to backup.

I had a look at the linked thread and there is some concern over whether there may be some hardware issues in your server since the drive cannot be mirrored successfully.

My personal preference for imaging a server hard disk would be to use a local WinPE boot device, either a CD or a USB stick, and image to a locally connected USB hard disk, for example. This is likely to offer better performance than an over-the-network backup in most cases. Either way, you are going to need to build a WinPE boot environment with the appropriate drivers added for the hard disk array, and also the NIC if imaging over the network. Here are some article links that may help:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH110134&profileURL=https%3A%2F%2Fsymaccount-profile.symantec.com%2FSSO%2Findex.jsp%3FssoID%3D1379325844236H648XIOBo89QYnlyyqy8JBXy4XpzTOpCi8Nmu

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/do-i-have-correct-driver-winpe

If you want to build your own WinPE environment for testing, you can follow the instructions here:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/readyadventures-winpe

This is a more hands-on solution but can still be used with the Ghost executables and you can make a USB hard disk bootable so that it can act as boot device and imaging store.

The time to image a 60Gb hard disk is hard to predict, and also depends on whether you take a hard disk image or a partition image (the latter is faster unless the partition is nearly full).  I hace seen user figures ranging from 400 Mb/min to 1800Mb/min, but I would expect around an hour.