Hardware safety net

InfoWorld - Are your support people still spending countless hours rebuilding damaged OSes and applications on corporate PCs? Maybe you should try a different approach.

In January, Voom Technologies, a start-up company based in Lakeland, Minn., released a PCI card boldly named ISIR (Instant Save Instant Restore). The card, which works with ATA (advanced technology attachment) disk drives, promises to quickly revive a computer impaired by a virus, damaging update, corrupted configuration file, or other software illness.

The remedy requires reverting the content of the boot volume to a saved copy stored in a hidden area of the disk drive. This description may prompt a feeling of dej? vu because the Voom solution is very similar to the CoreRestore card we reviewed in October (see story).

The Voom ISIR is a half-size card that installs in a desktop PC's or entry level server's spare PCI (2.2) slot and connects to the ATA disk drive. Using standard ATA connectors, you link one of the card's two ATA ports to the disk controller and the other to your disk drive. (Voom ships the ISIR card with a spare cable.) Interestingly, the card uses only the electrical connection of the PCI slot. No data travels to the PCI bus.

Prepping for disaster

Installing the card is time-consuming but easy enough if you follow the clear installation guide. We opened our computers' case, replaced the existing drive with an empty spare, and set the jumpers on the drive to master mode.

Our next step was to power on our PC. The ISIR card has an onboard BIOS that, immediately after the usual POST (Power On Self Test) messages, prompts you to set up the Voom ISIR.

The setup prepares the disk for ISIR protection, essentially splitting the available space into two equally sized areas, one for normal use by the OS and applications, and one, which remains hidden, that is used by ISIR to mirror the area in use. Keep in mind that using ISIR will cost you 50% of your disk space, a price you may not want to pay for the benefit of doing an "instant restore" when your PC goes south. By contrast, the CoreRestore solution allows you to determine the amount of disk space to set aside for the persistent mirror.

Setting up our 40GB drive took less than one minute, after which we turned the computer off, then on again. This time the boot-time prompt had changed, offering the choice to enter the ISIR menu or to continue booting.

We chose Continue Booting and began installing Microsoft Windows Me on the ISIR protected drive. After getting Me to work to our satisfaction, we rebooted our PC and selected Backup from the ISIR menu to create the hidden mirror of our Me environment. We did not notice any slow down after installing ISIR. The PC behaved normally, and the only differences were reduced disk space and the additional message at boot time.