Clonezilla is free and open source software for disk imaging and cloning, under the GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 2. Three types of Clonezilla are available, Clonezilla live, Clonezilla lite server, and Clonezilla SE (server edition). Clonezilla live is suitable for single machine backup and restore, and Clonezilla lite server or SE is for massive deployment, and can clone 40 plus computers simultaneously.
$0
Symantec Ghost Solution Suite
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Symantec's Ghost Solution Suite is an imaging and deployment solution.
CloneZilla has several scenarios where it can be used in business. Firstly the main purpose for us is for imaging of larger number of systems with varying specifications and operating systems in quick succession. However we have also used it for "point of time" imaging of systems for when employees have left the company or have a full metal backup made.
It helps to manage the mass of computers we use. We use GSS to see where and who deployed software to what computers. This can particularly be helpful when dealing with license usage, and tracking how many licenses we have left, and where those licenses have been used. We are able to use it to manage clients.
Even though Ghost Solution Suite saves configurations, software settings and installation within the image, there is still some manual configuration that needs to be done once the image is complete.
Installing Drivers for specific models of computers. With Ghost Solution Suite, it can be difficult to get the drivers for all the hardware of all the different model computers, so you have to create different images for different model computers. It would be nice to have the ability to have a hardware independent image for all model computers
Image Size. Ghost does have compression to reduce the size of the image, but when you have to store all the drivers within the image it increases the total size of the image you need to manage.
Whilst other imaging and deployment suites provide nicer interfaces which suit less technical staff, they do have quite significant price differences in comparison to CloneZilla. CloneZilla not only provides us a significant number of features, it provides a full imaging solution at a price which no one can compete with!
Based on our particular company needs, we selected Ghost primarily for the cost. There are better products out there to deploy new computers. KACE was one of the products tested. I used KACE at a previous company and I can say KACE is a more effective deployment method, but the cost prevented us form going with this product. Also, since we have one single standard image it was very easy to manage Ghost for all our employee computers. We also standardized to one single hardware model computer which also made the decision to use Ghost easier.
