Symantec's new Norton Ghost 9 drive-imaging software makes it easier than ever to take a snapshot of your hard drive to prepare for those times when computing disaster strikes. I tested a beta version of the $70 Windows XP/2000--only application, based largely on Drive Image 7 from PowerQuest--a recent Symantec acquisition--and found that it has closed the feature gap with Acronis's competing True Image 7.0.
The most dramatic new feature in Ghost 9 is the recovery environment that appears when you boot from a CD. Gone is the confusing Ghost 2003 interface; its replacement mimics Windows exactly, right down to the Open and Save dialog boxes.
Ghost 9 can now even back up your operating system partition from within Windows (? la True Image)--no reboot required. Plus, Ghost can now create incremental images of your hard drive--a time-saver that backs up only changes (previous versions created a full image every time). Another new feature lets you schedule image backups to run in the background, as you work.
In my tests Ghost 9 proved amazingly fast at creating images, compressing and writing a 3.12GB OS partition to a 1.43GB image in only 1 minute, 21 seconds--3 minutes, 4 seconds quicker than True Image. Ghost 9 restored the same image in 1 minute, 18 seconds--about 4 minutes faster than True Image. However, booting into Ghost 9's recovery environment itself can take up to 3 minutes; the same task took about 13 seconds for True Image. My Ghost 9 beta also lacked integrated support for my Serial ATA hard drive, but Symantec says the final version will support most drives.
My only other complaints with Ghost 9: Installation requires Microsoft's .Net framework, and the package costs about $20 more than the competition. But its usability and speed improvements make it worth spending the extra cash.
Speedy drive imaging app performs well but costs slightly more than the competition.
List: $70
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