Thursday, May 9, 2019

Investigate System Backup and Restore Tools


Title: Lab Activity 3 CSIA 310
Tool Identification: Acronis True Image
Description of the Tool:

Acronis True Image is a tool for backing up and restoring of data -a product produced by Acronis. The tool provides data protection for users such as backup, archive, access as well as recovery for Microsoft, OSX, and Android operating systems (Collins, 2013). True Image is a disk imaging software that is used in restoring the previously captured image to a different disk, replicating the structure together with the contents of the new disk and allowing cloning of the disk and resizing of partitions regardless of the capacity of the new disk. The tool was launched in the year 2003, and by December 2014 it had already attracted over 5 million consumers and approximately 500,000 businesses, users.

Typical Uses for Incident Response:
True Image is used for accomplishing a full backup of the hard drive, for archiving and analyzing large files for staleness, disk imaging, and cloning, restoring data, backing up of social media, and backing up mobile data.  True Image provides a fast full backup of the hard drive regardless of the disk’s capacity. It has a button on its main interface for archiving old and large files.  It analyzes the files for staleness and allows one to push them off to a local or online storage. When using the tool, it gives one an option of encrypting the backup that requires the entering of a password.  One can also specify intervals for the incremental backups as well as sector-by-sector backups that copy the entire drive including the parts containing no data (Acronis Resource Center, 2017). When the backup is complete, other buttons are displayed at the bottom of its entry: Recover PC and Recover Files.  The tool also allows for wireless backing up of the Smartphone to the PC through an application.
Resources (Further Reading):
How to Use This Tool:
Acronis True Image 2017 allows one to configure and run the backups quickly and efficiently. To use the tool, there are a few steps that one will have to follow. One should start by launching the tool on their computer and then click on “Backup” that appears on the program window. One is then to hover the cursor over the monitor image with the label “Entire PC.” The source of the files to be backed up is then selected followed by clicking “Ok.” Once that is done, the next step entails moving the cursor over the image with the label “Acronis Cloud,” once the text changes, click the “Change Destination.” That should be followed by clicking the “Ok” button and finally the “Backup Now.”
Restoring the backup starts with launching the tool on the computer then clicking on the “Backup” button.  The backup name that appears on the left side of the backup window is ten selected before finally selecting the recovery destination drive or folder and clicking “Restore Now” button. By default, the tool selects the original location as the recovery destination. 
Notes / Warnings / Restrictions:
Even though backups can be restored while the system is running, the main purpose of backup is to restore a system when an attempt to start fails (Acronis Resource Center, 2017).  Backups are compatible between various editions of the tool within the same version, for instance, between Linux and Windows versions.
Title: Lab Activity 3 CSIA 310
 Tool Identification: Paragon Backup & Recovery
Description of the Tool:
Paragon Backup and Recovery 16 from Paragon Software Group is back up and safeguarding software that allows users to easily carry out complex backup tasks (Muchmore, 2016). It is one of the leaders in the backup tools’ market, and it offers all the tools required for restoring functionality of the computer after the loss of data, accidental deletion of files and folders or the failure of a system drive. This program enables the creation of the exact copy of the operating system, all the data, applications, and the user settings. It also supports various backup methods and allows one to store them on different media including the local/external drives, USBs, or optical media among others. A brand new disk imaging technology has been included in this tool to allow backing up directly to such virtual containers like pVHD, VHD, and VMDK (Paragon Software GmvH, 2017). It also has complete support for GPT/uEFI configurations, the latest Windows 8.1, and Windows BitLocker.
Typical Uses for Incident Response:
Paragon Backup and Recovery provides the users with three different methods of creating backups – Full (backs up everything in the system), Incremental (that data that changed between the last and current backup) and Differential (only the changes that took place after the last full backup).  Additionally, with this tool, one can backup all the data belonging to the email clients including Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, and Windows Mail –letters, accounts, calendars, tasks, and notes among others (Paragon software GmvH, 2015).The tool offers four different containers for creating the backup images, and these include Paragon Image (PVHD), VMWare Image (VMDK), MS Virtual PC Image (VHD), and Microsoft HYPER-V Image (VHDX). The program also provides for the protection of backups with a password. 
Resources (Further Reading):
How to Use This Tool:
To create a backup, start by entering a name and description. Next, choose what is to be backed up, whether it the whole disk, some partitions, specified files or folders, or kinds of files. Its last option is not offered by Acronis True Image, but this program includes a tool for finding large as well as unused files for archiving. Back in the tool’s Main view, there are two round buttons on the left that allow the user to create a single backup and a backup job. After a backup source has been chosen, it is time to tell the tool the destination media where the data will be stored. Next, there are some Advanced Settings such as the degree of compression –None, Fast, Normal, and Maximum.
The tool has several benefits based on its features. It's easy backup, and flexible restoration helps in the backing up of the system or even an entire hard disk –followed by the restoration of the entire disk, separate partitions or particular files.  The user can set up the backup scheduler once the backup is complete to manage backups automatically.  There is also an Embedded Recovery Media Builder that creates a bootable rescue media that in turn helps in the booting up to the system in the event of an emergency (Paragon Software GmvH, 2015).
Notes / Warnings / Restrictions:
Unlike many backup tools, Paragon Backup and Recovery 16 does not tie in with an online backup or cloud storage as the destination for the backup, though one can send backups over FTP.

References
Acronis Resource Center (2017). How to backup a hard drive and restore your computer. 
Collins, B. (2013). Windows 8 Secure Boot snags Acronis True Image. Dennis Publishing
Muchmore, M. (2016). Acronis True Image. 
Muchmore, M. (2016). Paragon Backup and Recovery 16. 
Paragon Software GmvH (2015). Backup and Recovery 15 Home. 
Paragon software GmvH (2017). Paragon hard disk manager –backup and recovery compact. 

Carolyn Morgan is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in Online Paper
Writing Service. If you need a similar paper you can place your order from Professional Custom Writing

No comments:

Post a Comment