Question : Problem: Best practice for using image-based backup software

I have had lots of experience with file based backup technology (eg Arcserve) and tapedrives.  We used to use the grandfather, father, son rotation for monthly, weekly and daily tapes.  Tapes were stored in a fire safe or off-site.

I have not had experience with image based backup technology (eg Acronis) and using external HDDs which seems to be todays currently favored backup for small to medium sized servers.

The question - can someone describe how they use their image based backup solution.  Do they do a weekly full backup then daily or hourly incrementals.  How do they rotate the external hard drives - 1 per day or 1 per week?  Do the bare metal restores work as well as the backup s/w websites say? What I am looking for is a structure to work from that balances data security with managability.  

(Note: I have had a quick look through the Acronis website but the instructions I saw where function based rather than task based.)

Thanks,

Answer : Problem: Best practice for using image-based backup software

Solution I have used with multiple customer using Backup Exec System Recovery
Full image on weekends
Incremental every 1-4 hours during the day depending on server.  This is not a problem because it is performing bit level backups and normally there are not that many changes.
Backup images to tape once a week just in case the server and destination location goes down.

Advantages:
1.  Recover in hours vs days, use System Recovery Disk to map to share or usb hard drive where images are, start restore (resize partition if needed)
2.  Restore to dissimilar hardware, no longer have to have exact hardware for restore.  You can have one spare for multiple server and peform restores on a quarterly basis since you don't have to worry about drivers causing issues
3.  Restore files quickly.  Mount image as a drive letter and restore files in minutes
4. GRO option allows you to restore Exchange maillboxes/mail onto pst files you can import back in
5. Restore to virtual machine if needed.  P2V V2V and V2P, compatible with VMWare
6.  Very reliable.  Since you can test restores it is a lot easier to verify a good backup/restore than using tape and trying to find hardware that will match drivers, etc..
7.  Recover @ approx 2GB/m on a gb switch.  100GB server under two hours to do full restore
8.  Can send a copy of the image via ftp to another location or act as a duplicate job

For other customers I use create a one full image every day, backup to tape.  Since the tapes are backing up the images in worst case scenerio they can restore image and then restore to hardware.

My $.02