New user who wants reliability - TI11 Home or 9.1 Workstation?

I've never personally used TI, but have a few friends using TI9 and 10. They seems to like it, but tell me that every new TI release requries patching before its relatively reliable. After reading this board, it sure seems that TI11 is not ready for public consumption.

That said, I'm weaning off of an old copy of Ghost and don't want to buy Ghost 12 because it looks very feature limited compared to TI. Anyway, since TI11 is being so problematic am I better off with 9.1 Workstation? I don't seem to see anyone complaining about that version..... I don't mind spending the extra $20 or so if its reliable and is easy to use, etc...

Thoughts?

 

True Image Workstation 9.1 will be more reliable than ATI 10 or 11 Home.

In my opinion, the corporate range is always more reliable. Acronis seems to test new features in their home version before integrating the feature in their corporate edition if it turns out to be stable enough.

 

I have and use 9.1, 10 and now 11 without problems. I would agree that the one most likely to be reliable on any given system would be 9.1. As you are concerned about stability I'm assuming that you are still using XP and not that work in progress called Vista ?

 

Well, I have both XP and Vista (running Vista for testing only). Want something that will run reliably on both OS since I may switch a couple systems to Vista on or before release of SP1.

I acutally got a phone call tonight from an IT friend of mine who recommended I use Ghost 12. He claims to have used both Ghost 12 and TI10 (on employee personal machines) and he tells me that he sees more weird things happen and unreadable images from TI. He hasn't tried TI 9.1. He tells me they use Veritas Backup Exec System Recovery 7 a their work which he says is nearly identical to Ghost 12 and very reliable.

Now I don't know what to do!

 

Ghost still doesn't have the automated naming of new and deleting of old files -- the automated backup management that ATI has, does it?

 

Hello all,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software


We'd like to inform you that the basis of the whole Acronis True Image product line is the cutting-edge Acronis Snapshot technology, which is one of the most reliable algorithms that currently present on the market. What is more the technology allows users to make images of system partitions while still running the operating system, so you wouldn't have to interrupt all your work for creating a backup. Acronis True Image 11 Home has several unique features including Try&Decide feature that allows you to download/install potentially dangerous programs/letters without making any harm to your operating system. More information about the product and its features can be found here

The main advantage of Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation is the ability to perform images of disks/partitions remotely. This can be useful for users that have several computers and want to centralize the backup management of all the computers in small Home/Office network. However, the product doesn't have some features included designed especially for home users (e-mail backup and application settings backup, etc.) and therefore included only in Acronis True Image 11 Home. The detailed information about this product can be found here

If you would like to purchase either product, please visit the home or corporate section of Acronis Online Store.

--
Best regards,
Eugene Bogdanov

 

Dear Acronis Support,

Thank you for the following information:

I am a new user of Acronis True Image Home. Trusting your marketing slogans and after having read a couple of good reviews of Acronis TI v10 I have bought 6 copies of your TI v11 to replace Norton Ghost. Now I realize that in TI v11 basic RAID support (existant in v10) is missing and there are other problems with the software (just have a look at this forum). I don't think the software is stable enough at the moment and I simply cannot afford to install it on 6 PCs. So I have the following simple question:

Does Acronis offer a downgrade to TI v10 for users like me who just need reliable backup software?

I am looking forward to your answer.

Regards,
Anguel

 

There is a precedent for this. I understand that Microsoft is offering a downgrade from Vista to XP. This is available for certain business customers.

Xpilot

 

I am also a new user who wants reliability. I bought TI 10 just a little bit too early to get a free upgrade to TI 11, and I would have to pay $30 for the upgrade. I don't know what I'd have done if I knew that version 11 was even that close to coming out...
If I have to pay $30, I'm going to wait until the bugs I've been reading about are fixed. I also have question marks in my mind about the new Windows processes TI 11 must be running to implement the new features. Is there a way of turning them off if you're not using them?
Maybe I'm lucky I bought version 10, since it's worked well for me in the month+ that I've had it. Claykin, if you look, you can probably still find a copy of TI 10 available for sale...

 

Well True Image 11 Home hasn't been released for us over here in Australia. So worst case you should be able to get a copy from an Australian site.

 

I don't want to wish to sound overly critical and this is a comment in general.

Reliability and New programs or new builds do NOT normally go together. If Reliability is a requirement then an old version or build is the choice. If new features are required then either live with the issues or wait for the fix. The ever increasing complexity of hardware combinations means that fixes, patches, new builds will be the norm.

Whilst testing 11 beta I found that when mounted the virtual drive icon did not have the yellow band. Not crucial but a bug nontheless. The cause was daemon tools. Without daemon tools on a machine no problem. With Daemon tools no yellow back. So there you have the problem. Multiple the number of possible softwares and hardwares that have to be considered and fixes are the norm.

Eventually I will use Vista. I have 2 copies that I have used for testing and for me they are not yet ready to real use. Some will cry foul and say that for them Vista works great out of the box - great but others will just have to wait and/or continue to use older more stable versions.

 

Hi Long View!

That's not true if a company does enough beta-testing. It looks like no beta-tester had a mainboard with Intel's RAID or what? That just can't be true...

Regards,
Anguel

 

define enough. if it works for you then enough testing was done ? If it doesn't work for you then enough testing was not done ? Are you saying that no one has been able to use TI 11 with raid ? or just that you can't use it with your config ? or that you have heard that someone can't use it ?

Just can't be true... Look at any discussion site for any product and you will find people ranting and raving and stamping their feet ... often claiming that some other product is bloody wonderful.

 

I am afraid, Long View, that you are swimming against the tide on this one.
Plain and simple, raid support in TI 11 is not broken, it has just been left out of the program period.
Unless I was dreaming, Acronis has said it will be included in the next build.

I am not going to ask for a refund for TI 11 as it will probably be completed in the fullness of time. I would also like the money to be spent on purchasing the biggest ever wooden spoon to be awarded to whom ever it was who released TI 11.

Xpilot

 

Thanks for the clarification. I don't use Raid - I find that word works faster then my typing even on my old 75 gig IDE machines. So the question is whether it is better to release a product with or without a feature. Looks to me that a better criticism of Acronis here is that they did not make it clear that RAID was not to be initially supported. This is, however, a different issue. My point was and still is that it is naive in the extreme to expect any new product or build to work perfectly out of the box. Anyone believing or expect this will be disappointed more often than not.

 

I think LongView isn't really getting the big picture. ATI 11 (build 8027) is not your run of the mill version-x.0-has-some-bugs-in-the-new-features kind of release. It has fatal faults. It's not like the memory leak problem in Vista when dealing with very large numbers of files, which is finally getting a patch, reportedly this weak. It's much more serious. Acronis says the program works with raid and you can install it and and make backups and everything looks fine. No sign of any fatal flaws (although lots of diff bugs will show up -- hey, it's version x.0 and we expect some bugs). But All through the prior versions 8, 9, and 10, ATI has had raid support and ATI 11 supposedly has it but does not. This doesn't mean merely that the program doesn't work as well as it should; it means that you can make all the backups you want but when you try to restore, if you have raid, you're up a creek. Without restore, a backup program is fatally flawed -- like apencil with no lead.

Acronis is still selling the porduct without any announcement/warning of the raid problem. And Tech Support barely admits there is a problem; they like to suggest that it's something wrong with the user's computer even though ATI 8, 9, 10 all worked on the pcs with raid.

And this is not just a couple of rare configurations that can't be restored; it seems to be pretty widespread for machines with raid.

 

rotflmfao. I'll chip in on that award -- it is really well earned!

 

Again I cannot agree with you. It is not a new product. It is a progress, or at least should be a progress, from the previous versions.
I do agree that there may be the odd glitch when a new version or a new build is launched and these should be fixed in double quick time. However, in the case of TI 11 and I can only speak from my own limited testing, it was nowhere even remotely ready to be launched.


Xpilot

 

Before upgrading to or buying TI v11, better read this:

http://www.tweakhound.com/reviews/trueimage11/index.htm

Dan

 

I'm sure that you are right. It is, however, difficult for me to see the big picture when my copy works and does all that I want it to. As I said I don't have raid.
If I had Acronis 10 ( as most appear to do) and I also had raid and it didn't work
I would simply chill out, uninstall 11, re-install 10 and wait a few weeks. Perhaps we should call this the really Bigger Picture approach ?

 

I have not heard that anyone *can* use RAID with v11. If you look around RAID is found on any new motherboard today. IMHO people buy disk imaging software to protect their data, not just for fun. And if you have important data you don't want to make it go away that easy, so you additionally use RAID to protect it. For people using RAID, quitting RAID support is like Microsoft stopping to support NTFS in their new OS and going back to FAT32. I think you don't understand. Ok, let's forget about the Linux Boot CD, but where is the Acronis BartPE Plugin they talk about in the TI 11 manual and on their web site? Why does v11 ship with v10 video tutorials? Why does the Acronis website talk only about v10. Should I go on?
The answer is simple: They ship an unfinished version and get your money. And wait - here we are talking about a backup program you have to rely on. We are not talking about a text editor or a computer game crashing from time to time. We are talking about protecting the whole data on a computer. First of all the backup and restore should work as expected. Other features like Try&Decide are just addons that probably noone who knows a little bit about the complexity of an OS would dare to use.

 

well just for the record

I have just gotten off the telephone to a colleague - talked him thru the installation of Acronis 11 onto a Dell XPs 710 Raid 0.

Acronis was able to see C: then made an Image, then mounted no problem, then
verified/validated no problem.

Given the concerns raised on this list I advised that he now uninsatall 11 and made a fresh image using 10 but I can see no problem with 11 and RAID 0 on this machine.

 

Again, missing the picture here. The issue isn't being able to make backups or validate -- everyone agrees that part pretty much work as well as in ATI 10. It's being able to restore to RAID. Ha he tried that?

 

Stange - I have been reading about people would complained 11 couldn't see their raid or failed to image or failed to validate. So news to me that "everyone agrees that part pretty much work as well as ATI 10".

Has he tried that ? No not yet. As I wrote he will now make an image with 10 then re-install 11 and try to restore. If it fails he will then go back to 10 and wait for the fix.

Yes I know I'm missing the picture. will report back when the restoration either works or fails

 

That works because the Windows RAID drivers do the job. The question is what happens when Windows fails to boot. This is what a disk imaging software is used for. I don't think it's my job to buy a 3rd party BartPE plugin and build my own Windows Boot CD. That's what I expect to do when I use open-source - no wait - if it were open-source someone would have built a CD already and it would be available for FREE.

Just let your fried boot from the v11 Rescue Boot CD. If TI sees his RAID drives then it really works. But if not, then he has a big problem like most of us.

And the biggest problem is that not only some users in this forum but also Acronis Support seem to "rely" on the fact that everybody using v11 should have a copy of v10. No friends - I am a new customer, I don't have v10 and I have not stolen it from somewhere, I have bought v11. And probably this is where all my problems come from and why I'm so angry. You decide to pay for a software, you buy 6 licenses and that's what you get. So let's hope that my data will survive until Acronis is ready with an update that works...

Anguel