StorageCraft Hardware Independent Restore Technology
Restore a computer system volume to a different physical or virtual environment
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What is StorageCraft Hardware Independent Restore technology, and who should use it?
StorageCraft Hardware Independent Restore (HIR) technology is a utility that enables you to restore a computer system volume to a different physical or virtual environment. Hardware Independent Restore detects and automatically loads the drivers necessary to successfully boot the restored system volume in the new environment while removing drivers that are no longer needed.
Hardware Independent Restore is included with StorageCraft ShadowProtect backup and disaster recovery software. If you use ShadowProtect and have either version of the StorageCraft Recovery Environment, then you can take advantage of HIR’s capabilities.
ShadowProtect and HIR are both part of the StorageCraft Recover-Ability solution. This solution provides you with the tools you need to recover your Windows machines every time, everywhere, from any disaster.
When to use HIR
You can use Hardware Independent Restore with your ShadowProtect backups anytime you need to move a computer’s operating system to a different physical or virtual machine. Use HIR to restore:
- From a physical computer to a different physical computer (P2P)
- From a physical computer to a virtual machine (P2V)
- From a virtual machine to a physical computer (V2P)
- From one virtual machine to another (V2V)
IT pros use HIR in these scenarios:
Bare metal recovery
Should a server go up in flames or an employee drive over a laptop, you'll need to restore a backup image of the system volume to different hardware, rapidly and without headaches. HIR allows you to restore to hardware or a virtual environment different from what you’re using now, which gives you options if you don’t have an identical computer or you want to switch over to a virtual machine.
Planned system migration
Perhaps your company wants to consolidate resources or your client wants to upgrade to new servers. You can use HIR to deploy ShadowProtect backup images of the existing servers to new machines, whether they are physical or virtual. (ShadowProtect IT Edition or ShadowProtect IT Edition PRO are especially good at migration tasks.)
Technical Specifications
Hardware Independent Restore lives in the StorageCraft Recovery Environment. If you use StorageCraft ShadowProtect SPX or StorageCraft ShadowProtect, then you can take advantage of HIR's capabilities.
Before you can use HIR, you need to download or create the recovery environment. (The exception is ShadowProtect IT Edition—an instance of the StorageCraft Recovery Environment is integrated into that product.)
Hardware Independent Restore requires a valid, licensed version of SPX or ShadowProtect on the source system volume in order for you to restore that volume to different hardware or to a virtual environment. (Note that ShadowProtect IT Edition doesn’t have this limitation.)