backup - Best way to capture a disk state

I'm more of a developer, but I have a Dev Environment I'm creating at home for a personal project.

I want to install Server 2008 R2, SharePoint 2010, VS2010, and then take a snapshot of the hard drive, so if I ever nuke the machine I can restore it to this state without having to install OS, Server, VS2010, and then patch the whole thing.

Is there a free software suite that does this? Is it worth it? Or should I get some kind of professional suite?

I don't think this is backup/restore necessarily. What should I do?

Answer

Go virtual. Vmware, for example, will offer all the features you want and some nice extra's. 2 possible scenarios here.

1. Vmware Workstation, Virtualize on top of a full fletched OS. For more info, look here: Link.


2. Vmware ESX(i), so you can run VM's on top of a bare metal virtualization platform. More info: Link (free version I think)

Virtualization is however only an option if your machine can handle the load of an extra OS. If not, the only option is to ghost your disk. Clonezilla can clone your whole disk if you want. If you like some more advanced features, have a look at Norton Ghost.