Symantec has just announced the worldwide release of Norton Ghost 15.

Symantec, which develop and produce the renowned Norton security suite, claim that the Norton Ghost 15 is one of the industry’s most advanced PC backup and recovery solutions. It is also compatible with Windows 7 and offers 25G and 50G Blu-ray Disc support. What’s more, this latest version introduces a new cold imaging feature that images computers without installing the product. Furthermore, Norton Ghost uses Symantec’s ThreatCon indicator to automatically back up PCs in the event of a severe security threat.

Norton Ghost 15 is pitched as a professional-grade backup solution for both home users and small businesses. Amongst it’s many attributes, lost, or damaged files can be recovered and restored in the event of a system failure, even if the computer’s operating system does not start. Additionally, it provides a backup of an entire system, or specific files, and folders, whilst saving recovery points to offsite locations using FTP.

Dave Cole, senior director of consumer products, Symantec, said:
“Norton Ghost has been the essential imaging and recovery product since 1996. Consumers PCs have never been more central to people’s lives, or more at risk due to cybercrime and critical failures. Ghost 15 not only is a powerful disaster recovery tool, but also it adds important features such as Windows 7 compatibility and Blu-ray Disc support to keep current with the way people are using their computers today.”

Symantec highlights the fact that their Norton Ghost 15 is also supported by Windows 7 Bitlocker. This provides enhanced data protection through drive encryption and integrity checking, keeping stored data safe and protected. They also point out that it works with both 25G and 50G Blu-ray Discs and most storage drives. This includes external hard drives, networked drives and recordable, and rewritable, CDs and DVDs. And the hot backups feature allows users to back up their computers without having to shut it down first.

The cold imaging technology employed by Norton Ghost 15 effectively backs up files without installing the product which, says Symantec, saves time and money. A handy feature is that after purchasing a new computer, users can image the PC immediately before any software is loaded which means that factory settings remain intact. It also allows easy back up of a system by simply booting to the recovery environment (which is a light version of the Windows operating system) from the Norton Ghost CD, and then initiating a backup.

Guest Article by Neil Camp 

June in the U.S. is known as Backup Awareness Month, although how many people know such a thing is debatable.

But even though summer obviously coincides with the time for protecting one’s digital data, recent research reports have shown that over 90% of people still risk loss by not backing-up properly.

They also show that despite campaigns trying to get people to be aware of basic backup techniques, nearly half of computers lose all manner of digital data in a given year, including music files, pictures, hard drive failures and theft.

And for those wondering how often they should back-up their data, the best practice is at least once a day.

It seems there has been an improvement in the amount of people backing up once a week (around 13% to 14%) and people doing the same task monthly (around 26% to 27%), and computer experts are at least gratified that more people are beginning to see the point of backing-up, even though on such an infrequent basis.

And this is especially true when it comes to laptops which have recently outsold desktops as the computer of choice for many people. But experts point out that laptops are inherently more vulnerable than desktops, not least because they are often mobile and susceptible to a higher chance of damage and theft, making regular back-ups a necessity.

Also, computer users should bear in mind an average modern computer can hold a vast amount of data which could be impossible to replace if not regularly backed up. A hard drive of some 300 GB is able to store nearly 100 full-length films, a staggering 30,000 photographs and over 20,000 music files.

Yet many users, with such amounts of data on their systems (not forgetting their handheld devices and mobile telephones), seem oblivious to the risks involved. It is hoped that Backup Awareness Month will make some inroads into the lethargy.

Guest Article by Neil Camp