Acronis True Image 9.0 and unsupported OS disk cloning

Hello,

I have read on the description of Acronis True Image 9.0 features that :

(emphasis is mine)

Does that mean that now, I am able to clone an HDD to another external HDD drive (via USB) for BSD OSs such as OpenBSD ?

Can we virtually clone any OS now ?
If so, what are the downsides of sector-by-sector cloning, compared to supported file system cloning ?

If I can clone my OpenBSD system to have a backup HDD, in case of hardware disk crash, I will update my product shortly.

Regards,
gkweb.

 

Why use a backup program for the indicated purpose?
A drive copying program would be more efficient, and there are likely free versions out there.

 

Why I want to know if TrueImage can do it, is that first I already own it, so I would just have to pay an upgrade, and secondly because if it can clone the entire drive of an OpenBSD OS, it can also (and you say it) "backup" the HDD to a removable media, to restore it later in case this time of a configuration error/mistake. I need both.

My question is mainly about TI supporting (or not) foreign file systems, no matter it is for entire HDD cloning or for backup/restore a partition

But of course if you know a product better for me which can do both, from a bootable CD, able to backup to an external USB drive, then I will take a look at it.

Regards,
gkweb.

EDIT : from http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/faq.html#16 :

It sounds like it would work... an official acknowledgement would be appreciated

EDIT : I have tried with TrueImage 8.0 (build 800) boot CD. For the image backup feature, given the fact that TI cannot recognize the BSD partitions, I can only select the whole disk, not single partitions. For the disk cloning feature, which interests me most, TI sees well both current disk and destination (empty) disk, I can select that I want to keep data on the current disk, but when either I select "proportional" option or "manual" for the final transfer, TI display an error window, saying that either the partition has errors, or that the destination size was too small.
Indeed the destination disk is 37GB while the source disk is 38GB, but with either the two aformentioned option, it shouldn't be a problem, and the source disk is clean. So does TI 9 has improved and allow me to do it ?

 

Just a little bump

 

Hello gkweb,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please be aware that Acronis True Image is not able to recognize your UFS partition, and it copies its content in sector-by-sector mode during the cloning process. So if your data does not use all the entire partition space Acronis True Image will copy its free space too (actually it is not able to regonize where its used or non-used space). That is why you receive the error message. Actually, Acronis True Image 9.0 uses the same approach for cloning as it was in earlier versions.

The only possible way to clone such a hard drive is to use destination hard drive with bigger or with the same size.

However, we can offer you to download and install the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0 to see how the software works on your computer.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko

 

Thanks you very much for your explanation, it is well appreciated

Regards,
gkweb.