backup - Clonezilla Server Or Other Imageing Software
2014-07
nate
I have many machines on my network, spend more time doing system installations then I should have to. I love Clonezilla client side imaging, but that requires me to go to each machine, and run the disc.
I was considering implementing a Clonezilla server on my network. I have tried FOG in the past, and was not very happy with it. I was wondering if anyone else out there has tried Clonezilla server? If so, could you tell me what the pros or cons are of using it as an imaging server?
Is there other software that is out there, that does the same thing. I am open to suggestions as long as the software is free.
I have a Windows and Linux network environment about 100+ clients.
Triynko
I ran Clonezilla, and for a drive image destination, I chose the "backup" folder at the root of my NTFS drive. The operation completed successfully; however, upon rebooting into Windows, there was no trace of the file(s). I opened Disk Manager, and it showed that the two BIOS-controlled logical drives were being re-synced (since the two logical drives represent a single mirrored drive). It seems that Clonezilla wrote the file to only one of the logical drives (since it allowed me to pick one or the other as the destination for the image), but the drives are normally mirrored.
I'm guessing the drives use a software RAID to mirror them, which Clonezilla wouldn't support, so that's fine. I'm just concerned with what the data looked like originally (i.e. how exactly it was stored in the first of the two NTFS drives), and what happened to the data once Windows got a hold of it upon reboot... because there was NOTHING in the folder.
Surprisingly, I ran Clonezilla again, created the image, restored it right away to a new drive after reboot, and then reentered Windows. This time, the drive image was there! But it's just a 4KB file. And it's icon was a folder when I first saw it, but it promptly turned into a default icon. Huh?
Could re-syncing have deleted the file in the original case, and is it possible that Clonezilla is storing the data in an NTFS alternate/hidden stream?