Backup & crash protection

[Anonymous]

Hi!

One branch of our company has only one fine gentleman using CAD, Architecture, Map3D, Structural Detailing, 3ds Max, Showcase, and Revit, all on 1 PC.  Naturally, there is no image backup of his PC, no RAID, and no other PC in the office that can fill the role. 

In an effort to be safe against the inevitable failure of his hard disks, we hope to implement a proper image backup of his PC from which we can restore quickly, and subsequently save some lives from heart attacks. 

Are there any recommendations for the kind of backup/imaging software or technical arrangments for these platforms? 

This is for a Windows PC, btw.  Thanks so much for any help!

[pendean]

What do you all use now to create backup images of harddrives?

[Anonymous]

We use a company named Axcient.  But restoring an image to an HDD off the Axcient device itself has proven time consuming, and given the guy's role that potential for extended downtime is problematic for the company. 

[dgorsman]

We sometimes use Norton Ghost to provide a common base image, but for the most part don't keep full, individual images.  Any critical files are stored on the server (whether live or copied).  Programs are distributed by deployments.  If a users computer "goes down" the new computer comes with a base level of software and anything extra is pushed via SCCM or other tools.

[Anonymous]

We have similar approaches.  Data storage is on the server, individual machines crashes are built back to up the user's spec from a standard point. 

What we were hoping to do is eliminate that last part for this user--keep recent images, if not direct copies, of his HDD's so we can basically fail over to a spare quickly.  I haven't used Ghost for that kind of scenario and am now sure how well it plays with restores nowadays.