Bare Bones True Image?

Been using ATI version 8 for quite a while. Does almost exactly what I need it to do, although I could do without its built-in scheduler.

Wanted to get a copy for another machine and found out that ATI 8 (20 MB installer, 20 MB footprint on my HD) has grown into a 100 MB monstrosity called ATI 10.

Eighty extra megabytes of bug fixes? Nope. A look at the feature list confirmed that ATI has degenerated into a piece of bloatware just like AOL, Norton, ZoneAlarm, and all those other everything and the kitchen sink suites that I avoid like the plague.

No, I don't want "features" like Outlook Backup (I wiped Outlook from my computers years ago), iTunes settings protection, built-in email notification, Snap Restore, etc. And I definitely don't need Norton backup straight out of the Acronis box!

Question: can I buy an ATI 8-like bare bones version that just images my drives, and nothing else? Or does the ATI 10 installer let me throw away all the bits and pieces that I don't want?

 

The quick answer is NO.

OK, I agree that version 8 did 99.9% of what I wanted, and I liked the fact that it was small. However, version 10 supports a much larger range of new hardware as well as Vista. That's essential for use on new machines.

Of course, when I started using Version 8, a 30 or 40 GB hard drive was top of the line. Now, a 250 GB drive is common. TrueImage has only grown in proportion to the size of the hard drives.

The ability to do both a file and an image backup with one program is a feature that has value, and that's one reason version 10 is larger.

 

Hello 666,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please have a look at this previous post of mine to find the information about the new features of Acronis True Image 10.0 Home and what is now included into the installation package.

Note that if you are concerning about disk space I could offer you to install Acronis True Image 10.0 Home temporarily on your computer and create Acronis True Image Bootable CD. You can then uninstall Acronis True Image from the system.

Using Acronis True Image Bootable CD you can perform backup/restore operations as well as almost all other operations available when using Acronis True Image under Windows (validate backup archive, manage Acronis Secure Zone, Add New Disk tool, Clone Disk tool etc). "My Application Settings backup" (file-level backup of Windows applications settings) and "My E-mail backup" (file-level backup of MS Outlook and MS Outlook Express settings and messages) as well as scheduled tasks can be created and executed under Windows only.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

If I want to make drive images from a bootable CD I'll download one of the many Linux boot disks out there that come with a FREE imaging app.

The only reason why I use True Image instead of DriveImage XML or Clonezilla Live is so I can image and restore my system partition without having to boot from external media. My boot disk is for real disasters only, not for routine repair of my system on a trip full of playing with strange networks, getting intimate with other peoples USB sticks, and installing drivers for all the exotic printers etc. that I meet on the road.

Anyway, I bought TI8 on eBay for 10 euros, so there's no need to hurry with Acronis True Image Lite 1.0: the imager, the whole imager, and nothing but the imager.

 

666~ HDD storage capacities have become huge over the past decade, so why sweat over 80MB?

 

1) Acronis TI is not the only app with an appetite for megabytes.

If I let those extra megabytes from Acronis in, then why not the (mostly unused) extra megabytes from M$, Adobe, Corel, Macromedia, Nero, just to name a few? If you give a euro to one beggar...

All those MBs add up to gigabytes, which become part of my system partition and therefore part of my backup image.

Huge HDDs are no excuse for sloppy programming. Especially since:

2) My backup image doesn't stay on a huge hard drive.

I cut a lot of junk out of XP with nLite and removed all the samples and templates and other useless stuff from bulky apps like M$ Office, CorelDraw, Dreamweaver etc. Result: my 4.5GB system partition (about half of it filled) compresses into a backup image of about 660MB.

For obvious reasons I don't mind adding 6 more megabytes , but add 80MB and the image won't fit on a CD-R anymore. Two disks is more work when making a backup, and more work when restoring it. It will also slow down grabbing a backup image from my ftp server. And Murphy's law clearly says that when I need to restore my system right here right now, my online backup is the only one that works.

But more important than CD-R blues and download speed is the issue of multiple system partition images on a USB stick. With two backup images ("normal" and "safe for work"), TI8 vs. TI10 makes a 160MB difference. A small step for a hard disk, but a giant leap for a thumb drive. Two backup images and the USB stick edition of BartPE on a 2GB USB drive - those 160MB make the difference between will fit and won't fit.

Hard drives may be big, but size still matters.


I Googled for a lean 'n mean drive imaging app and dug up Snapshot.
It can run as a stand-alone 160 kb app. Combined with a dual boot XP/DOS setup this looks like the ultimate close-to-zero footprint imaging method.

I'm gonna try the demo to check if it can compress my system partition backup within CD-R limits. If it compresses just as tight as TI I can burn Snapshot, DOS, and my backup image all together on a single bootable CD. And my USB stick will look so much bigger...

 

About half of the download file is the Bart stuff. You can skip that on the install and delete the download file after installation -- you can always download it again if needed. So what you're really worrying about is about 40 MB versus 20MB. If you have been keeping the download file on your disk, then, by deleting it after install, you'll actually be ahead in terms of diskspace., although the amouts we're talking about, in any event, are relatively miniscule.

We're not in DOS Kansas anymore, Toto. ;-)

 

I guess I just like giving dissenting views today but IMO fooling around for hours trimming, fiddling and possibly debugging the gutted mess is just a waste of good time. I don't do that and with the current standard sizes of HDs these days I have way more space than I need. Sure you can make some dinky backup on a CD or whatever but what's the big deal - the amount of times you need to do such a restore make it impractical to worry about.

I'll restore my larger backup from a HD faster than you will from a compressed CD. Anyway, its your system have fun doing what you want to do.

 

I guess you'd have to define sloppy, but if your beef is that programs aren't made to fit into 4KB of core store these days then I think sloppy is probably a good thing. Technology has moved moved on quite a bit since 1965 ;-). Last time I checked, hard disks were around 15 UK pence per GB. That's cheaper than the equivalent capacity of CDs.

F.

 

Perhaps I've done something wrong but my True Image folder (TI Home 10 build 4,940) is only 17.5 meg. I never use any of the fancy stuff - just make and restore full images. add and remove claims the size is 155 meg -- who knows ?

I do know that my OS and programs only take up 3.5 gig as a full image and I can live with that.

 

then again at least is the case with ATI 9 it has like 4 autostart entries that must be started to make a backup.
TrueImageMonitor.exe
Monitor for Acronis True Image Backup Archive Explorer
Acronis Scheduler Helper
Acronis Scheduler
compare that to other imaging programs which only use one process to do the same job e.g. one lancher.exe
i wont name names.
im trying to make my pc run faster and i think step one is to remove program that are bloated and ATI 9/10 are
i dont know if ati 8 has those 4 running processes always running or not.
plus at least on my pc ati makes to many corropt images.
lodore

 

Long View,
Not to worry, you'll find more at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Acronis\True Image and True Image Home.

shieber,
Living here in XP Kansas, we even have color now.

Regards all, CatFan

 

Small, lightweight storage costs about 100 times more than a hard disk.

I'd rather pack a CD, DVD, or USB stick when I travel with my laptop than drag a spare hard drive around. When you fly with carry-on only, size and weight matter a lot.

When USB sticks are able to hold 100+GB for a reasonable price I don't care how much space my programs and backups take. But we ain't there yet. The largest thumbdrives only hold a handful of GBs.

 

You seem to be shifting your argument around. I thought your problem was with the size of applications consuming too much hard disk space? Now you seem to be worrying about carrying applications around on optical media ??

You seem hell-bent on sqeezeing data onto a CD, yet you are willing to carry around DVDs ??

If you are carrying these media around because they are image backups, ready to restore your system then you would almost be safer using a SZ - optical media are that bad. If you are just talking about carrying around data backups, then I fail to see why space is an issue anyway.

F.

 

10 copies of Version 8 may be available from this Ebay link.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ACRONIS-TRUE-IM...ryZ51331QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

 

When you back up your system partition to external media the size of your hard disk is not important.

The only thing that matters is the size of whatever disk or USB stick you use to hold the backup and the software to boot it.

That doesn't mean that the footprint of a program on my hard drive is irrelevant. When I install a program it becomes part of my system partition, and therefore adds to the size of the backup I carry on CD, DVD, or thumbdrive. Space on media that's small, light, and cheap enough to travel is limited.

Two more copies may be available soon.

I just tested Snapshot. The size of my system partition backup was similar to what TI produced: 663 vs. 660 MB. It would have been a little smaller if I'd have run ccleaner before making the image, as I did last time I used TI.

Bonus feature: Snapshot took less than half the time of TI to make the image. Restoring the image from my thumbdrive was faster too.