Hello all again,
Looking at a new imaging software for our 08 servers here since they do not currently have one in place. Ive been toying with the idea of Storagecraft's ShadowProtect which runs about $900 and looking around at others which are in the $350 range. After contacting the cheaper companies, they claim to do almost all of what the more expensive can do with the exception of syncing perfectly with an offsite backup service. Im currently using the Windows Server Backup but not sure how reliable it is or if the server would melt, how good, if at all, it would be to dissimilar hardware.

Anyone't thoughts on the matter or recommendations of tried and true performers?

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

Wow, forgotten post.

I've actually had good luck with Windows Server backup. I've used it quite a bit but (knock wood) fortunately have never had to restore complete system state.

Sorry, I haven't used Storagecraft or other tools. But with Acronis, I find that (even with identical hardware) it's better than nothing, but fails too often.

Thanks for the reply. I assume no one really answered because it is a bit of a "noob" post but I havent had to venture to the "reimage to different hardware" path yet and was hoping for some real world trial and error replies.

WSB has worked so far and I dont think there would be any issue coming back from a multi-drive failure, but its the motherboard failure that Im afraid of. I would like to go with a different server all together if one of our servers dies but the data retention is the greatest issue.

Ive used Paragon, Acronis, Ghost, Easeus and some Linux discs but usually for backups and not reimaging to new hardware either....

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

I have had good luck with Acronis Univeral Restore. If you are running VMware at all look into V-Ranger