Review: Acronis True Image vs Symantec Ghost

Quote: (debatable)

Now let me tell you the harsh truth: when it comes to the best imaging program it's a two horse race between the commercial products Acronis True Image and Norton Ghost with the freeware contenders trailing by a couple of miles.

Not that there aren't some usable freeware products; it's just they aren't in the same league when it comes to function, features and reliability.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/drive-imaging-reviews.htm

 

Well, it seems I made the right choice and I use ATI correctly as described by the author.
I did alot of testing, before I bought ATI. It never failed on my computer until now. I can't say anything good or bad about Ghost, because I never used it.
I scheduled my backups now and both are done in absolute silence.
Only the ATI-icon in the system tray shows that a backup is executed and usually I don't even notice that animated icon.

 

I agree. But I would include ShadowProtect on your list of products. I think it is a three horse race.

Having tested all three products thoroughly, including mounting images, restoring files, performing bare metal recoveries and the amount of system resources required, etc., I prefer ShadowProtect. Not to mention, I have never had a corrupt image generated by ShadowProtect. My second choice would have to be LiveState Recovery/Ghost. They generate restorable images, but are resource intensive.

 

I have tried ATI and after that mess I got ghost 9 and everything works just fine. Have never had a problem with ghost. Can't say that about TI.

bigc

 

Interesting.

I was a dyed in the wool Ghost 2003 person for some time and then ATI caught my eye. I stuck with ATI until it started changing too quickly and it became too unstable for me. In the meantime, Ghost had turned into something else (probably the Powerquest acquisition and the need to wrest back some market share from ATI).

In disgust, I finally gave up and bought Image for Windows/Image for DOS (Terabyte Unlimited) and haven't looked back. Now THERE is reliability.

I still have hopes for ATI and take some images occasionally just to be redundant but am still a little bit disillusioned with how less than reliable it's been for me. I know it works perfectly for some people, and more power to them.

Meantime, Retrospect (now 7.5) has never let me down for nightly file-based backups of my entire home network.

 

Long time ghost 2003 user here and can't comment on any other versions or similar apps as 2003 has done everything I require so I intend to stay with it.

 

Take a look at the huge number of similar problems with True Image on the True Image forum. I had a similar experience with Versions 8 and the Trial Version 9.

I used True Image over a year and had many backups but no failures so no chance to try it.

When I did have a problem and needed an image, True Image did not work. All of my images going back over 6 months were "corrupt" and would not restore.

I took out a 6 month old Ghost Image and easily got my computer going again.

Then, I started backing up with both programs monthly or more often and then "verified" the True Image images. They would test OK when first created and then deteriorate after a few days. This problem is similar to the problems encountered by many others. I was told that I probably had all kinds of hardware problems and they were the cause but this is the only program that has any problems on my computer and extensive testing found no problems.

If it ran reliably, I would buy True Image Version 9 and use it because it is a smooth running program. Also, they have a good tech support department. Symantec support is non-existent.

Symantec bought the PowerQuest program and renamed it Ghost. It is not the true Ghost Image which is an old but very good program. Given enough time to tinker, Symantec will probably ruin the new "Ghost".

 

Well I've read the Acronis Forums too, pretty scaring if you want to buy Acronis True Image.
That's why I tested the main functions of ATI and its CD as long I could, but each test was OK.

Some users can't even create the Acronis Bootable Rescue CD, which is nothing but a simple burning of an iso-file on CD. I've done it twice already without problems.
I never had any of these problems, mentioned in Acronis Forum.

I wrote some backup softwares down, mentioned in this thread, in case ATI ever fails.

 

With regard to "freeware contenders", I think the quote is reasonable.

For NTFS filesystems, two free drive imaging apps I have been watching are:

Runtime Software Driveimage XML here:

http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

Currently free. VERY mixed reviews on various forums.

Partimage here:

http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page

Open source for Linux if one multi-boots. NTFS support currently described as "experimental".

I would not ditch BootIt/IFW/IFD for either of these. However, I will continue to monitor both freewares. If one or the other becomes reliable, I may test alongside my current imaging software. After all, I currently use open source Linux OSs, office suites, etc.