Do I buy Acronis TI or not?

I hope I am not in violation of any forum protocol by asking this question. If I am then just tell me to go away and be quiet . I need a good imaging program and I have pretty much narrowed my search down to Acronis TI and Bootit NG. A few weeks ago I read a bunch of the posts here regarding Acronis and it seemed like the consensus was that they were issuing a lot of new updates in rapid fire fashion and charging users for each of them. I have also read that image reinstallation is extremely slow with Acronis.

Bootit NG is not strictly an imaging program and its user interface is not the best but it seems to be a bargain at the price.

My question is this, is Acronis TI a good quality program and am I going to have to keep a hand on my checkbook to stay up to date with upgrades?

I'm only asking for user opinions not commercial endorsements.

Thanks,
C.Britton

 

If you are looking for a 100% NO or 100% YES to your question then you won't get it. Everything in between are the same answers as in: What's the best AV, AT etc. I also read a lot of the Acronis TI issues. But then I think (maybe I am wrong) those are only a small percentage of TI users. If it works well for users they wouldn't show up here. I am a satisfied user of TI (though have an older version). Besides a one-time update issue nothing went ever wrong.
Regards,

Gerard

 

Hello Dopey Duke,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis products (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/).

Please note that Acronis Support Team is always at your service should you have any question or problem concerning our software. To give our customers more opportunities for problem solution we have organized three Acronis threads on this forum.

Acronis Support Team is constantly in contact with Acronis Development Team including Linux Department (it is not a secret that we widely use Linux in our software). This helps us to solve your problems and answer your questions even faster.

You may see the information concerning Acronis company at our site http://www.acronis.com. Also you may download for free the trial versions of all our products and obtain the full information concerning them from our site.

Please note that we work not only with Windows but with Linux as well. We have highly qualified specialists in our Linux Department.

Our Development Team is constantly broadens the range of the supported hardware. We are trying to keep our software up to date. As soon as a new model of hardware is released it is immidiately taken into account by our Development Team.

If you have any questions concerning our software please feel free to ask here or write to support@acronis.com.

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman

 

you need to post what u will be imaging, if its the latest hardware, raid etc acronis isnt the best because of the lack of support for new devices and slow updates. but if its a simple machine using ide hard drives no raid, its the best there is

 

Hello A|ex,

Could you tell what doesn't work with your computer and what you computer configuration is?

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman

 

Thanks to all who have replied. I don't expect to get %100 of anything unless I'm dealing with our government, then I'm %100 assured of disappointment.

I actually tried the free trial of Acronis TI and was happy with the ease of use. As I said I saw a lot of negatives here when I started doing some background checking on my own.

Yes I'm sure it's true that people are quicker to knock a product than they are to praise one, that's why I posted the question.

Thanks
CBritton

 

If you do not have a SATA hard drive or a RAID array, YES, it's the best thing since sliced bread.

If you have either or both, MAYBE, until you ask in here with your SATA or RAID controller make/model and whether it is supported, and that will give you the YES or NO you desire.

Hope that helps

 

I've been a TI user since version 1.0 and the first time I used it to image AND restore, knew it was a winner. I did not upgrade from 7.0 to 8.0 because the older version is doing all I want it to. Just ask yourself this: "If I were to lose everything on my xxmb hdd, how long would it take me to build it back AFTER I discovered the problem?". TI has saved my old soul a number of times and instead of sitting here trying to figure out what went wrong, just restored the last image (I do one every 2/3 days) reboot, and my machine is back. I think it would be the SAFEST money you'll ever spend for software.

 

I have found Acronis to be a very useful program I have a fairly up to date computer a Pentium IV 3.2 GHz with Sata drives and have been very happy with it after some initial problems because I wasn't using the latest build to make a boot CD (when I made the boot CD using the latest build I found Acronis could see my Sata drives).

You don't have to pay for minor updates e.g. updating from TI 8 build 774 to 785 and 791. It is only when you want to change from a version such as TI 7 to TI 8 that you have to pay and that is the same with just about all software programs including other imaging software. I have in fact found Acronis to be quite reasonably priced and given that it has saved me countless hours of frustration reinstalling Windows and all my programs it was a bargain and I would have been prepared to pay more for it if I had to (NB:this is not an endorsement for raising the price!).

 

Thanks again for the nice replies. I was encouraged by all your comments. I ordered a copy of TI 8 today and should have it by midweek.

I wasn't so much concerned about the program's value but the comments I had seen about rapid fire upgrades did concern me. I don't mind paying for a meaningful upgrade but I also don't want to be taken for someone's cash cow. I ran into a couple of other seemingly good applications that I felt like were using me for a sucker and I don't need to do that again.

Thanks again,
CBritton

 

Hello Dopey Duke,

Thank you for purchasing Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

Please note that the only thing you need to pay for (that concerns Acronis, of course) is the initial software package and the upgrade to later versions (for exaple from 7th to 8th). All updates are free for registered users. You may register at http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/registration/ and after that download the latest build of the software at http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/updates/. Both the registration and update download are free.

As for the upgrade to later versions, they should be pay for but you won't need to pay the whole price. Just purchase the upgrade and you will obtain the fully functional new version of Acronis software!

To upgrade your software you don't need to have all the previous versions. For example, if you have the 6th version of Acronis True Image you may purchase the upgrade to Acronis True Image 8.0 and you won't need to have the 7th version.

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman