Ghost 2003 now offers a similar level of features to that of Drive Image 2002 (August 2002, page 72). Along with a new Windows interface, Ghost 2003 includes support for USB and FireWire devices, the ability to write images to NTFS partitions, plus support for mapped network drives and Linux ext3 file systems.

The USB connections gives Ghost 2003 an edge, but there's no guarantee it will work with all devices as we saw in our tests.

The new interface is separated neatly into three areas with the Basic section covering simple backup and restore processes.

Ghost 2003 can use any storage device to which DOS can assign a drive letter, but it's here that one of the biggest differences with the competition surfaces, as Ghost 2003 carries out all imaging operations from DOS and thus always reboots the system. Drive Image 2002 can image and restore non-system partitions from within Windows, allowing you to continue using your PC, which is just as well as it's a lot slower. We backed up a 15GB partition from one hard disk to another, which Ghost 2003 completed in 15 minutes, including reboots before and after the job, whereas Drive Image 2002 took 26 minutes to complete the same task.

If you're not using an internal hard disk as your destination, you'll need to go to the Advanced section. Ghost 2003 supports extensive peer-to-peer connections, so you can image directly to another PC over suitable parallel or USB cables or a TCP/IP network connection. Whichever method you choose, both systems will be booted into DOS and must be designated as master and slave from the simple Ghost interface, however  Symantec doesn't guarantee support for USB 2.0 peer-to-peer connections.

If you want USB, FireWire and extensive peer-to-peer connection support plus higher performance, Ghost 2003 is the best bet. But if imaging from within Windows, a basic version of PartitionMagic and task scheduling are more your cup
of tea, Drive Image 2002 is the one for you.