To get a sense of how the built-in Windows utility compares to Acronis and Ghost, we performed a series of measurements, which appear in the following charts.

From the system (C:) drive on our test machine, we started with a disk image that was 19.87 GB in size. Norton produced the smallest image file on disk after backup at 7.25 GB (about 63.5% compression) with Acronis not too far behind at 8.37 GB (about 58.9% compression). Windows trailed pretty far behind at 14 GB (a relatively paltry 29.5% compression).

Relative Times for Backup Creation

When it comes to backup creation time, none of the tools was incredibly slow. Acronis came out on top at 8:53, with Norton 50 seconds behind at 9:43 (about 9.6% slower). Again, Windows finished last at 10:56 (2:03 behind Acronis and 1:13 slower than Norton).

Relative Times for Image Restores

Perhaps not surprisingly, when you consider how much less decompression Windows has to do when restoring, Vista finishes first when it comes to bare-metal restore on our C: drive, at 11:23. Ghost finishes second at 13:25, or 2:02 slower than Windows (about 17.9% behind). Acronis comes in a distant third at 20:43 (about 82% behind Windows, and 35% behind Ghost). But if we factor in Acronis’ much faster ready-to-run time when booting from a disc (under 1:00 versus two to three minutes for both Ghost and Windows) that gap narrows somewhat.

Desktop Summary And Conclusions

All three approaches to bare metal backup for Vista work reasonably well. As you’d expect, you get more bells and whistles for the extra money you spend on Ghost or Acronis, than you do with the Windows Vista offering. But as our measurements show, the Vista tool is not completely shabby when it comes to basic backup and restore, even to bare metal. What you have to ask yourself is if the improved features and added capabilities you get with the other two products justify their added cost. We think so - we use Acronis on product equipment, and Ghost on test machines - but that’s something you must decide for yourself.