Partition Magic vs. Acronis PartitionExpert vs. ?

[Booty]

Which program do you prefer? I've only used PM, but when I went to buy it from Amazon, I saw that some people bought Acronis instead (never heard of it). So is Acronis a better product... or is there an even better third option? We're getting ready to purchase one of these titles for work, so I need to decide which one to grab. It has to be able to handle NTFS partitions (which I'm sure they all do by now)... being able to use it with *nix would be cool, but isn't a necessity.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I used PM from version 2 through 6, but with 6 the reliability seemd to drop (got lockups and really slow operation). Also after version 4 PowerQuest added code to even the DOS version that blocked it from running on systems with a server OS installed in any partition since they wanted to sell the $1,000 server versionof PM.

I just bought the electronic download of Acronis PE for work a couple of weeks ago. It's very fast, very relaible so far, has no server block, and unlike PM it can create a bootable CD during the install process for use with laptops and newer desktops without a floppy drive.

The Acronis bootable CD worked great on the laptop I was setting up, except that I had to unplug the USB mouse from the laptop and use the touchpad instead (buggy USB mouse support).

Edit: the only downside is that Acronis sells their boot manager separately ($50?) while Partition Magic comes with Boot Magic bundled.

 

[Booty]

Thanks for the feedback... that server block might be an issue, so that's really good to know. I don't think the boot manager will be an issue for us, but if it is, Acronis still ends up far cheaper if we end up needing it for a server. Anyone else?