Very Happy with Acronis 11

After reading the recent problem messages on this forum I thought I would post a message about my success using this backup program. I setup 7 tasks to backup a complete image of my desktop's hard drive to "MyBook" external drive. Each task executes at the same time each morning for each day of the week. I name each backup file using the day of the week (Monday - Sunday) so that each new backup overwrites the previous weeks backup. It's completely automated and has been working perfectly for 6 weeks now. I created a restore disk and tested it by booting my desktop using this disk.

I have successfuly restored individual files a few times whick has saved me many hours of work. I have a bad habit of deleting Word 2007 distribution lists by mistake and when I do I have to restore the outlook.pst file from the backup made in the morning.

Last year I had no backup system in place. Now I do and I sleep much better at night now.

 

I too have had success with ATI 11 on two of my machines, and that includes doing automated backups and backup management (all with Full disk backups only, no diffss or incs). I had to pull it from two other machines and won't put it on any of the others -- we're sticking with ATI 10 for now, except on the two machines. For one of the two, I needed to make a VistaPE disk becfause the ATI boot CD was too slow.

Silver lining: found out how easy the VistaPE was to make and how well it works. I use a VistaPE for restores on all my machines now.

 

Yup, backup from Windows + restore from VistaPE = very fast and completely problem free security.

 

Recently, I got lazy and had someone else build me a new system. I was simply too busy to build one myself this time, and I needed another system "yesterday", so I had a company do it. The builder installed an OEM version of TI. I told him that I was a die-hard Ghost user, but he convinced me to try TI. The OEM version worked well enough for me to purchase TI 11.

For the past ten years or so, I've used Ghost; with no problems. Hundreds of images created, images restored, full disks cloned, copied, and so on. Never, ever, EVER had a problem. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for TI.

While it has it's share of positives, it has quite a few glaring negatives too...

1. Image creation is way too hardware dependent; and thus, imaging times vary too much. Even on completely identical systems, imaging times are drastically dfferent. The software is simply too finicky and unpredictable.

2. It has features I don't need. I'd rather have reliable software with basic features instead of feature packed software with inherent "featureitis" and "bloatitis" instability.

3. There are silly features and options, and yet some basic common sense options are sadly lacking.

4. The user guide is inaccurate and incomplete, and tech support thus far has been terrible.

All things considered, Acronis TI strikes me as someone's idea of "dumbing down" imaging software for the masses. That's not only a big mistake in theory, but it's also responsible for the instability of the software. I don't want features, I want the program to do what it's supposed to do... no more and no less.

At this point, I'm simply not impressed. But I'm not giving up on TI either. The program certainly has potential. But Acronis needs to change it's thinking, and they need to work harder to provide a far more stable, down-to-earth program than what TI currently is.