Acronis True Image WISH-LIST thread

[SCFROMDC]

The ability to add files to an extracted iso of the boot cd would be nice, and still have the cd boot....it wont boot after adding anything..

My wishlist:

1. Ability to mount image to drive letter that spans several DVDs without copying everything to the harddrive first (this has been promised for a while, but I have not seen it yet) - feature has been already requested

2. Scheduled tasks should be shared with all user accounts. Now, theyy are scheduled tasks windows account basis? If I am logged on as another person on the same computer, I am not able to see the schedules created under another account. This makes no sense since Acronis always makes backup of the whole computer and, and it would not be sane to make different schedules under different accounts. Annoying for me as an admin having to log on/off when needing to modify a task. - feature was implemented

3. feature has been already requested.

[kasommer]

Ditto votes for:

- feature has been already requested.

other ideas:

I have a need (obscure I realize) to have a remvoable hard drive that boots into Acronis. Not Windows running ATI but a bare metal install just like the CD-boot version. Hints would be welcome.

I need an idiot-proof rescue kit. Boots to TI and only allow the user to rescue from the *.tib files on the media or network path. I guess a scriptable boot would enable this.

This program has saved my bacon several times over. Now I want it to be even more easy to use.

[GeeeAus]

Acronis TrueImage is a fantastic product. It’s well and truly keeping Symantec honest.

I run my own business in partnership with another professional. We both use TI every day for catching client data prior to reinstallation. For network admin backups and file server rollouts etc. It is our No. 1 software tool with a bullet. ☺

My Suggestions for the future of TI

1. Mac OS X Support.
I’m one of those network admins that usees a mixed environment. The Macintosh really lacks a decent cloning tool. Considering its’ UNIX underpinnings, Acronis should be able to compile it for OS X. Doing so will almost certainly enable Acrnois to corner the entire Macintosh backup market. A small, but none the less profitable position to hold. Acronis already has begun supporting Linux and uses it as the OS for restore media. Linux PPC could be used for OS X recovery media.

2. MMX / SSE/2/3 3DNow! AltiVec & Hyperthreading Acceleration
Optimisations for improving imaging performance at high
compression levels. I’m not sure if this already is done, but if not, it would be nice to see what could be optimised, well optimised.

3. feature has been already requested.

4. feature has been already requested.

5. feature has been already requested.

6. feature has been already requested.

7. Re-adoption / Simultaneous Support Of XML and INI scripting.
I understand and support the move to XML for scripting, but not at the cost of the .ini support. It is after all primarily a windows application, .ini is a well established windows standard for answer files.

8. MS-DOS / Windows Recovery Environment Support Binary
It would be nice to be able to use TI from DOS / Windows 9x / Windows NT command line environment/ Not a DOS window. This may already exist, but it doesn’t seem to. Please explain how this can be done if I’m incorrect.

9. feature was implemented.

10. One CD For Safe And Full Function Modes.
I own Disk Director 9.0 and it supports this off the CD, it greatly reduces the number of CD’s I have to carry around for support. It’s also less costly and wasteful on CD media.

11. Ability To Select Desired Hardware Compatibility When Making / Booting Recovery CD.
Looking at how TI behaves, and how sometimes older versions work with hardware that new ones don’t. I think it would be useful if I could select what devices I need supported, cutting out deadweight and improving compatibility with uncooperative machinery.

12. Special Restore CD Licensing Options For PC Professionals.
It would be great to permit professional users to give their clients a “Magic CD” set like Compaq and HP do legally. It would allow the user to restore an image only. And even only in a predetermined fashion. It would market Acronis well too, perhaps to users who see it and would like to employ its’ other functions.

13. Ability To Use a Virus Scanner Parser / Plug-In On Image Creation / Restoration.
I realise this would incur quite a CPU overhead, but it would seem to be of use to users like me, and perhaps with SIMD optimisation it would be doable.

14 feature has been already requested.

Er mmm, what else……?

15 feature has been already requested.

16 Better and More Exhaustive Hardware Testing With A FAQ or List Of Hardware Support & Issues.
As most of my wishes this has already been mentioned. - feature has been already requested

You people are just too good ☺

Despite my HUGE list of suggestions / beefs. TI is killer and will be a continued investment for my company for the foreseeable future.

Well done Acronis / SWSoft

Acronis works remarkably well but it isn't quite perfect, in fact, because of this, I'm still forced to continue using Ghost for some operations.

What I like: The ability to backup/restore "trouble" IBM Thinkpads that Ghost always failed on; backing up to a network server is super easy and fast (better than ghost); recovery CD is very well done and having both a full version and a basic version is a great idea!

But there are still a few requirements....

I wish I had a copy of the wish list I've already sent to Acronis but in a nutshell, I certainly wish it had features such as:

- feature has been already requested.
- feature has been already requested.
- feature has been already requested.
- feature has been already requested.
- Speaking of comments... When appending an image, the prior comments are not available. I wish I could see and append to these comments; - feature has been already requested

- Burn CD or DVD mountable images but this would have limited value until file filtering is added because many images might span an impractical 8-10 DVDs;
- Make Acronis network administrator friendly - that is, a centrally managed version where backup/restores can be automated or initiated remotely (with only a small footprint agent installed at the desktop);
- feature has been already requested.
- Provide a product matrix chart on your website detailing all your products. Your product selection is growing and it might become difficult for us common folk to determine what product(s) best suite our requirements;
- Oh lastly.... PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE add to the software or your website better support documentation on error numbers! I seeing an error number on several images and I cannot find out what the error means. - feature has been already requested

Thank you for your consideration.
Shawn

[Jbmoar]

My Wish List for true Image:

When starting the true image installer,Give choice to create bootable cd Before True image is installed rather than after for people than only require to backup/restore only from CD - Not windows + When creating the bootable CD,Create A CD That creates the full version & Basic version Of the boot CD On One disk so when you boot, you see 2 modes from the cd to choose from,I Think this would be useful so you don't have to create 2 cd's

Thanks

[bilofsky]

1. feature was implemented.
   
2. Ability to clear all file archive bits after creating the image. Yes, I know it's a drive image program, but a lot of us use it for backup and need the ability to do incremental backups in between full archive images.
   
3. feature has been already requested.

[mark7]

Perhaps this has been expressed in the forum before, but how about offering a time-limited, FULLY FUNCTIONAL TRIAL? Or limit it to 'x' number of uses before you must buy. - feature was implemented

I'll bet a lot of the complaints from those for whom the software just doesn't perform as they expected could be avoided if Acronis had a time limited trial version with full functionality, instead of the "cripple-ware" trial that was offered when I downloaded TI 8.

After trying out the crippled trialware version, I bought TI with my fingers crossed. I then performed extensive recovery testing against my previous imaging software. In hindsight, I would have loved to have had the opportunity to more fully test the functionality of this program on my system BEFORE buying it.

I create images to my HD first, then burn to CD or DVD, so I have not run into some of the issues others have had when trying to burn images in TI directly to removable media. I imagine I too would be quite dissatisfied if I bought the program expecting it would be able to do something it was advertised to do, only to find out that my system and/or hardware configuration had an issue with an advertised functionality.

[RTShaw]

Originally Posted by Skeeter

Sata Raid 0 support.
I currently use acronis for 85% of the computers and shrinking because of lack of raid support.

lost most control of my fingers so pleaqe bear with me, it hurts like hell 2 type.

May i ask what kind of raid problems u have with TI? Im not affliiated with Acronis but i do use ti and am a electronics/computer nut, i'm bedridden now but have 1 gigabit netwok(lots faster then A 10/100 Network and cheaper seems to me) runnin at any given time i have 3 P4 machines, a p3 machine(at least one) and a notebook plus my main machine next to my bed- the one im on now. i run raid a lot and for a hell of a lon time. i run raid0 cause its FASt....
Currently on my main machine (well i just removed it to make way for my 2 300 gi drives) a promise Tx4000 raid controller - running that because it has 4 raid ports. i stuck 4 -160 gig 8 jmb cache WD drives on the controller and it blew away justabout every thing. that was after testing raid contr9ollers with 2 ports (ei slave/master)
i have never had a problem with it and i've backup my raid stuff numberous times..
i've had 4 - 160 gig drives on the tx4000 raid controller both as one and 2 arrays. i had 2 SATA 160's and 2 PATA 160s on my Asus P4C800E and the P4C800 non E Deluze motherboards. as one & 2 arrays and even as 1 drive arrays acronis True Image 7 backed em all up and you should see my configuration. the 4 160 gigers is not all i have (main machine = 2 - 300 gig SATA Raid0, 4 160 gig PATA Raid0,2 Raptor, 2 - 120 gig SATA wd drive, 1- 80 gig Maxtor) and my only problem with acronis. seemed like some time Acronis trueimage 7 would not restore some of my backups because it got confused about my partitioning arrangements..
i had my raid arrays along with non raid drives, on this machine i use a raptor as my main boot drive because im always experimenting i may boot from a sd memory card, raid array or usb memory stick u never know depend how much my meds kick in (just teasing), point is i have never had anything it couldnt work with to get me recovered. and it looks like this only problem which doesnt occur much maybe related to legacy usb.. if acronis techs work reply (dammitt) i could probably solve that. and it has stopped me from upgrading from ti7 to ti8(i use that as an excuse but im just lazy)..
Acronis ti is a great product i hope they incorporate some of the suggestions. being able to backup and restore from any of my other machines thru my net is great and faster then hell. and the acronis zone too - i do it all laying right here in bed with a click of the mouse (at times i have been 2 weak to do anythin more).
comeon guys a little more and you could have everyones business.. geat product.. guess it is time for me 2 kick in for 8x

[Jonny_G]

1)I would like the restore program to recognise and alter the Boot.ini file automatically/ manually, so that restored images to different partitions will boot.
2) Save and restore to hidden partitions. - feature was implemented

3) Logic built in that recognises the fact you can't restore to the active partition without a reboot, without going through the whole silly process of trying to.
4) feature has been already requested.

[msanto]

Great product, but how about this:

a) feature was implemented
b) Enough w/ the Linux boot CD for Windows users. Use Windows so we don't have all the HW issues. For example, we use TI at work. At home I have no issue. At work we cannot restore using the boot CD from a local USB drive ... it doesn't recognize the drives. At home I do not have this problem.

[BradJ]

I have laptops and really need the ability of scheduled tasks to have the option of not running if on battery power and waking from sleep. Both these options are already in the Windows task scheduler and are CRITICAL to using scheduled backups on notebooks. Right now I have to explicitly leave the notebooks on and turn off any standby features to use - I need "transparent" backups. - feature has been already requested

[wolf]

Originally Posted by di ge ra ti

I can't even use my paid copy of TI-8 because I use a SATA RAID 0 striping configuration with a Promise Technology S150 TX4 Controller and dual matching 10,000 RPM WD Raptor SATA drives!

It seems to works for me on my ASUS P4C800 deLuxe with the on board Promise controller and 2 SATA barracudas - but maybe its too early to tell.
TI did not complain about anything, but then I did not need to do an emergency recovery so far. Where exactly is the problem?

[wilbertnl]

I'm not an Enterprise User, just a home user with Windows XP Professional.
My system has two hard disks with dynamic disk setup and I'm able to span the partitions (I have 2 system partitions and 1 spanned data partition).
I like the idea that I'm able to add another disk and extend the data partition without any hassle.

It is my understanding that dynamic disks and spanned partitions are supported by Acronis True Image 8.0 Enterprise Server.
I would love to see dynamic disk support in True Image 8.0 since I believe that spanning partitions is not just an enterprise solution. - feature has been already requested

Acronis offers great valuable products!
Thank you,
Wilbert

[A|ex]

i wouldnt mind better laptop drive support, at the moment on the latest sony CD/DVD-RW drives TI tends to go crazy saying media isnt good and just sits there!

Exploring images instead of having to mount them would be good, having another drive and letter appear is often VERY annoying!

The ability to AUTO restart after a full restore has been completed.

[kasommer]

oh yeah....


1) feature has been already requested.

2) better file manager so I can create dir's & subdirs - feature was implemented

3) Saving images to ext3, reiser, & NTFS volumes from boot media. -- if it's there it doesn't seem to work for me. - feature was implemented

[jimmytop]

TI should ignore drive letters and instead use partitions. Different drive letters in Windows vs the Linux boot CD, while harmless, is confusing and runs the risk of someone doing the wrong thing, restoring the wrong image or vice versa. If one just focuses on partitions and volume names, instead of getting hung up on drive letters, there would be less confusion.

In the MAIN window, I would like to see different views available IE. Large Icons, Small Icons, List, and Details. There doesnt seem to be any sorting scheme applied either. Cant stand all those big dumb icons.

[MrMikeH]

1. feature has been already requested.

2. PRIORITY: Have an option to permanently set PRIORITY for all backups and have better control of priority when using high compression. It could also be set in the schedule. Even setting product to low when using high compression, True Image stills takes every bit of available CPU and causes poor response for other applications. (I have a 3ghz Pentium 4 with RAID drives)

Thanks, Mike

Ok, I'll keep this simple. several of my "wishes" have already been mentioned, but the wording isn't necessarily the way I would take it to mean which means I could be misunderstanding what's being said. As a potential OEM customer and a system builder I have 2 requirements that have kept me from using your software for my customers.

1) SATA support is a MUST. - feature was implemented
2) As an OEM, I planned to use this software to create a CD/DVD image for my custom systems. I don't so much care if customers can backup their systems (but it's nice that they can). What I need is SOME way to create a bootable CD/DVD that gives 1 or 2 prompts then repartitions and reloads the disk the way it was when I finished the system. You know, a Restore CD/DVD. I would think allowing me to add a switch somewhere during bootup would be simple enough, like "acronisboot /useimage restore.tib". That being burned directly on the DVD at system completion and given to the customer with the rest of their disks.

If/When these 2 things are added to the OEM version of the software, I will happily jump onboard with Acronis. That is unless I find something else that will do the job first. I am actively looking, and at this point I'm about to resign and roll my own solution using Linux, if I go that far, I'll stick with free. See where I'm going with this?

[gottadoit]

Originally Posted by Ozymandias

....
If/When these 2 things are added to the OEM version of the software, I will happily jump onboard with Acronis. That is unless I find something else that will do the job first. I am actively looking, and at this point I'm about to resign and roll my own solution using Linux, if I go that far, I'll stick with free. See where I'm going with this?

Ozymandias,
If you don't get anywhere with Acronis it would be nice to see your efforts end up on SourceForge, might as well spread it around (assuming there isn't something like this there already, I haven't looked)

For work/enterprise use I'd probably prefer to use a commercially supported solution, and that version is feature rich (as you would expect). There is the added bonus that if something goes wrong during a backup or restore then its "not my fault"(tm) but for home use I don't mind either way.

If the Acronis featureset isn't there or is artificially partitioned for revenue raising then for home use I'll happily use something less productised and free and possibly even contribute back to it (time permitting)

I'm a new user of Acronis True Image 8.0. I've noticed more than one wish post that mentions SATA support or RAID 0 support. Before I purchased True Image I specifically asked Acronis technical support if it worked with SATA RAID 0 arrays. Here is the e-mail response I received on June 1, 2004:

"Hello,

Thank you for taking time to contact us and for your interest in Acronis True Image 7.0.
Yes, our software supports Serial ATA RAID 0 array.
To be sure that it works in a right way with your hardware please try a trial version of Acronis True Image7.0: www.acronis.com/download/trueimage
Please visit our online store to purchase Acronis True Image7.0:
www.acronis.com/sales/online"

Now I have since used True Image 8.0 to create disk images of two separate SATA RAID 0 arrays. These images were sent to an external firewire hard drive. The creation seemed to be successful and I can explore these images just fine. Now I haven't actually tried to restore these images, but I'm counting on the fact that this would work. Do people in this thread know something that I don't know (and that apparently technical support doesn't know?)

As an aside, I originally tried making the images using USB 2.0 connections on both computers, but this failed. Both images started to be created, but then after awhile, both computers would spontaneously reboot. This happened twice on the first computer, once on the second computer, then I switched to the firewire connections.

[AndyM]

Is this software and online backup as good as it seems? Can it really build a HD clone and do incrimental backup then do a complete system restore without loosing the OS,programs or any data? My customers would love me if I can supply them with this service. No more rebuilding everything from scratch, WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO.

[jeremyotten]

Originally Posted by Lord Soth

My wish-list are:
Support for dynamics Disc on Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server
Support for Serial ATA drives, stand alone, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10

WAKE UP THIS ALREADY SUPPORTED!

[jeremyotten]

Originally Posted by Hive

Hi.

My Wish-list would be:

1.) Please, support networks that don't rely on DHCP!
I'm administrating (as a hobby) a small network with WinNT4 and WinXP
and several printer all with fixed IP numbers and it works just fine and
as responsible users we try to make images whenever there's time.
Norton Ghost 9 has it, but i like and trust TI.

2.) Better support for SATA onboard RAID controller.
This is mentioned in quite a number of posts, so let us hope
There's no use buying an Imaging Program if it doesn't support hardware that's around for over a year by now.

So please, make your good product even better!
(And please keep TI's support of such ancient OS like NT4! No one else does)

Thx

Fixed IP is already supported a LONG TIME!