Imaging Question on Multiple Industrial PC's

Found this....

http://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/td/6000-td001_-en-p.pdf

http://www.ab.com/industrialcomputers/faq.html

yea..yea..yea..I was trying to avoid that. I have the software and do realize it's the proper approach! lol You sure do know how to keep it real! heh thx

Here is a link to some good free imaging software:

http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml

Take your pick according to your needs.

nice link brother!

I would suggest not putting all of your eggs in one basket.Make multiple copies,stored off site,in case one gets corrupted, or the building gets destroyed,etc.

What if someone steals your hard drive,or it gets corrupted or lost?

If you have frequent changes to configuration files or parameters,an incremental backup,limited to files that have changed, will give you an up-to-date copy to enable a valid re install.There are imaging and backup utilities that enable this by looking at the Archive bit of the files.

Backing up to the cloud is also an option.

My primary concern is if the pc crashes to reduce downtime in production. The backup pc's do come preloaded with programs, licensing and such but I have encountered programming issues from the OEM out of the box. I want a snapshot of the working pc. It interfaces with AB PLC's and Ormec motion Controllers designed specifically for our equipment.

Incrementals are not necessary, we do no updates and add no software once the machine is up and running.

As you said redundancy and off-site storage is a must in the event of a catastrophe. I come from an IT background so I'm feeling you!

Thanks!

Here is a link to a good cloud backup site that has security and virus scanning of all input data before it is stored.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/securebackup/

Try Symantec Ghost (used to be called Norton Ghost). This is the most popular software used in the IT industry for imaging PCs.

I agree, Symantec Ghost is a very good piece of software. Allen Bradley actually incorporates Ghost into their cloning utility.

I was trying to clone multiple devices onto a single storage media which seems to be presenting an issue.

I'm still in the hunt tho! heh

Thx

You could try partitioning the drive and treating each partition as a virtual drive,one for each PLC.

This should give you what you want.

Only problem with that is if the disk crashes.

I use CloneZilla; which is freeware; that runs off a CD, so doesn't need to be installed on the PC your trying to Clone/Image. It allows you to Clone a complete HDD to HDD, to take an image of the complete HDD or just image partions of your HDD. I've found no problems Cloning/Imaging your standard PC's, but I don't know if you'll encounter any problems with your Allen Bradley Industrial computers. You know what Bradley are like, they've probably put something in there to through a spanner in the works, so that they can extract some more cash from you.

Hope this helps.

I'll let you know my results :)

Thx

CloneZilla allows you too type in the name of the image as you're creating it. So this will allow you to store all your images on the one external HDD.

I think should consult someone belonging to software selling e-commerce websites that have multiple options for you.