What is Ghost?

You often hear about computer ghost, ghost win. So what is ghost? How does Ghost work? Let's find out in this article.

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What is Ghost?

Ghost is often referred to as cloning, is a software-based process of copying data, copying the contents of a computer's hard drive into a compressed file or collection of files called images. Ghost copies all content to another server or hard drive for storage, including configuration and application information. The software also converts an image back to its original form when needed. On a personal computer, ghost is used to back up everything on the hard disk, usually while reinstalling the operating system.

The purpose of ghost is to allow this system to be copied to another system or to allow rapid system recovery. Ghost is often used to quickly set up notebooks, laptops or servers. It allows to move from one drive or computer to another drive or computer such as from a HDD to an SSD.

How the ghost works

Ghost often creates a disk image of software on a computer, including settings and system information. This image allows quick installation of a new copy, usually compressed to save space and speed up the transfer to the target system and it can be encrypted for security. Typical cloning settings have some alternative images in the library.

Ghost tools can create hundreds of computers exactly like copies. When the main machine is built, its hard disk gets image into a file. This image file will then be used on all other computers, following the custom process on each machine to install the operating system.

Pros and cons of ghost

Ghost is much faster than installing individual machines, especially if multiple applications are installed.

There are many different types of ghosts depending on the intended use. For example, a data center that supports multiple mobile devices and desktops will need a tool that focuses on updating the phone in bulk and its own recovery. Cloud clusters can only use image tools that are part of cloud software. Setting up high-performance computing using ghost to create images for hundreds or thousands of servers.

Ghost can save you hours of setup compared to program loading from the beginning and help reduce errors in this process.

However, the ghost does not help in the update process. When the new image replaces the operating system on the destination computer, local user data and custom settings will be lost.

Image is tied to a hardware platform. If there are many different target systems, creating and managing images will be difficult.

Support is also a problem. For example, Microsoft does not support image-based replication for installed Windows systems.

The history of ghost

New Zealand businessman Murray Haszard developed ghost, an acronym for General Hardware-Oriented System Transfer in the mid-1990s. Symantec Corp bought the drive copying technology. This disc and backup in 1998 and integrated it into their Norton product line, today called Symantec Ghost Solution Suite.

At that time, ghost is the only easy product that can create an image of the entire hard drive. Ghost can save the image as a file on another drive or transfer the image to another hard drive, making the new drive the exact copy of the old drive.

Examples of ghost software and alternatives

Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 3.2, released in 2017, has the ability to create and deploy drive images; Support Windows, Apple and Linux; a reasonable, free database option for small environments; and support XFS file system.

Alternatives to Symantec Ghost software include:

1. Acronis True Image, targeting the Windows market;
2. Open source tools like Clonezilla, dd and Partimage;
3. EaseUS Todo Backup;
4. StorageCraft storage drive image tool; and
5. NetApp for fast image distribution.

In addition, OpenStack cloud software and large cloud service providers maintain image replication tools and libraries. Cloud image tools perform a similar function in the cloud cluster, but are limited to specific cloud types.

Microsoft and Apple provide tools for creating copies that blend the image manager and the ghost tool.

SmartDeploy takes a different approach, cloning to a virtual machine that it creates on the target system, allowing the ghost process to be platform independent.

Ghost and disaster recovery solution (disaster recovery)

Using images can be downloaded for all or part of the relevant data making data recovery after disaster easier. For example, restoring a failed PC to a new PC usually involves downloading an image containing an operating system with settings and images containing a user application. The same is true for the server, but the network and security settings will be added.

The ghost utility determines how often data is added to the image. Proper use of networked storage as a replication point for current data can limit data loss.

Compared to ghost and disk cloning

Disk cloning is the process of copying the contents of a computer hard drive. These contents are usually saved as disk image files and transferred to storage media such as other computer hard drives.

Disk cloning is used to restore the system such as booting and refreshing the public computer and to recreate the system configuration on the new computer. This term can be used instead of ghost.