Ghost, Acronis for backup/restore of drive/partition images

Hi

I'm exploring options to do a full and incremental backup/restore of a drive
or partition on the development PC - W2K, a couple of HDs ( ie burn to DVD
as the backup media). ie, I'd like to be able to backup and restore just
(say) the partition on E:\ drive without reinstalling everything on the
various C:\, D:\ and E:\ partitions of the physical hard drive.

Does anyone have any experience / comment on the relative merits of

Ghost http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/ (US$69.95 or the
full version)

vs.

Acronis True Image http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/
(US$49.95)

for this task, making drive/partition images.

As far as I can determine, they are copying each other feature for feature
(the latest Ghost has incremental backup), but currently Acronis allows a
greater level of granularity ie restoring specific files and folders as well
as whole drives/partitions, while Ghost might have better support for the
latest USB2, Wireless, etc.

Any comments by users of either product appreciated.

I'm interested in

- features and functionality (do they do the job)
- ease of use
- any gotchas to watch out for
- any strong recommendations one way or the other
- how easy it is to do a full or partial restore

Without experience in either, Acronis appeals because it sounds like you can
easily pull out individual files or folders from the backup images and
restore them without restoring the whole drive/partition.

Thanks in advance

Lauchlan Mackinnon


.

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