Lately I’ve found one more feedback stream for this blog – gathering statistics on internal search. There is not much (yet) but I have first app that someone (no personal details in data) searched for and was unable to find.
That would be DriveImage XML.
What it does
DriveImage XML is drive imaging program that saves data using XML . Ok, that was kinda obvious. What it can do is following:
- it can save all data from hard drive partition into few files (called image) ;
- it can restore those images back to hard drive ;
- it can make direct copy of partition from one drive to another .
Imaging software is popular and needed in corporate environment. Expensive as well. DriveImage XML became pretty popular as free (for home use) alternative.
It supports basic operations saves to application-independent format (XML part) and has few extras like support for Volume Shadow Services that allow to make images from partitions currently in use.
Personal opinion
I can’t say I am big fan of imaging on home scale. It’s time-consuming operation and hardly justified when usual backup routine will do perfectly and only save stuff needed instead of whole partition (see my post on Cobian Backup ).
Can’t really say anything especially good or bad about DriveImage XML except that it works and using Volume Shadow Services often fails (which may or may not be apps fault).
Overall
Free for home use, all core functions in place. Writes settings to registry but works without installation . If you need to do some imaging definitely try this one, if not – it’s probably not an app you’ll ever need.
Home&download page http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
Nihar #
Rarst #