Clonezilla vs. Symantec Ghost Solution Suite

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.

Incentivized

Symantec Ghost Solution Suite is well suited to standard images of company approved software and standard configurations for all users. When every user has the same computer configuration, it is easily managed with a standard image across the board. It is less effective if you need to have multiple configurations for different groups. It becomes cumbersome to manage all the various images. When you add to the complexity by having to address the different drivers for the different hardware model computers, this only adds to the overall number of images you will have to manage, create and keep updated. I find Ghost most helpful with standard hardware model computers and one or two images company wide.

Incentivized

• The ability to quickly setup imaging servers to rapidly increase the number of systems imaged.
• Handling large numbers of device imaging off a single live server instance
• Ability to run the server side of things on low end hardware

Incentivized

• Pushing out scripts and jobs to computers
• Remote imaging and pushing out Windows OS Images
• Helping to track who pushed out what jobs

Incentivized

• The interface is not easy to navigate or understand by non technical staff
• Many many key presses before an actual image starts processing
• Does not feel "clean" - in that it feels very batch driven rather than having a more simpler way of managing the process end to end.

Incentivized

• Initial install could be easier. Had to call support to assist.
• Joining domains had a few kinks that had to be figured out.

Incentivized

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!

Incentivized

The Symantec Ghost Solutions Suite learning curve isn't that steep.

• CloneZilla provides us a very cheap solution for imaging of systems in our business
• It has allowed us to rapidly increase our ability to image more systems across multiple locations
• CloneZilla has allowed us to adapt and evolve our imaging environment to handle lots of different scenarios with little issues

Incentivized

• A positive impact of Ghost would be time. To deploy computers form scratch is very time consuming and labor intensive for the IT Department. Ghost clearly saves the time of the IT departments staff to quickly get a new computer out to user so they can spend their time on addressing other issues and being more productive.
• Time is money. If the IT department is spending hours preparing computers and employees are out of a computer for an extended period of time waiting for one to be loaded, this is money lost to the company in paying employees to sit around and wait for a computer to be configured.

Incentivized