Why use another recovery / backup utility? 3 questions...

[Optigrab]

Apologies if this topic is plainly covered elsewhere - I've searched the forums a bit and didn't see what I was looking for.

I'm still getting used to the capabilities / limitations of Rescue and Recovery 3 on my T60p. I have previously used Norton Ghost on my other, older Dell. But I don't understand what advantages Ghost, True Image or any other 3rd party recovery / backup utilities provide over RnR. I'd install Ghost (or likely update to Acronis) if I understood what I was gaining for the effort & expense.

Follow-up question: assuming there are real benefits to using, say, Acronis, would I likely not need RnR anymore.

Finally, I have read very good things about FirstDefense-ISR.
http://www.raxco.com/products/fdisr/
I am a bit unclear as to whether this would be compatible with my stock ThinkVantage / RnR setup - in terms of the HPA, MBR, etc. I'll admit I my understanding of the service partition is rudimentary.

Thanks in advance for advice or links to existing threads.

[GomJabbar]

I tried a Rescue and Recovery backup, but I did not like it because it is very slow, and because it did not do a verify operation on the DVD's I backed up to. My other backup software, StompSoft Backup My PC 6, works much better (although it will not back up the service partition - AKA HPA).

Cloning is another good way to do a backup. Depending upon the cloning software used, it will also back up the service partition. At least some versions of Ghost require a command line switch to do this operation properly. Acronis seems very popular here, although I personally have not tried it, so as to give an opinion.

You can use backup software with CD's, DVD's, and hard drives. Cloning requires a hard drive to clone to.