Why is Acronis True Image Home considered to be the best backup software ?

[JE42]

I have been researching several backup software products. I checked out several forums online.
I'm trying to figure out why I often find in discussions about backup software the suggestion that Acronis is the best backup software. Most of the time, these suggestions are not backed up by arguments. I usually just read something like that "they are the best" or "i only trust acronis".
The forum at acronis.com tells a different story. It is full with people who are not happy at all and explain in rather long stories why Acronis fails for them !
What is your take ? Do you think they are really the best and why ?

Thanks in advance !

 

[Monster_Munch]

I've used acronis a few times to clone drives and never had a problem with it. It's fast and easy to use, what's not to like?

 

[yinan]

I really like it. It has both Linux and WinPE bootable media for creating images. The advanced workstation version can do scheduled backups with deduplication as well.

 

[Emulex]

it sucks dude. unreliable in business. BESR2010/ghost15 are far superior.

 

[Anteaus]

It's sort of a love hate thing. Acronis is an amazing product sold at a good price. The downside, it has a tendency to either work or not at all. They don't update their hardware support often enough so what happens is people buy it just to find out it doesn't work at all on their latest build.

 

[Emulex]

exactly. i have tons of pc's that backup more than 1nce a day using BESR (norton ghost 15 just trimmed down set of features). full hot vss backups over network. so far - never let down - the most important thing imo - test your DR policy at home/work/etc.

test it make sure it works. most people think backup complete is all they need.

 

[Modelworks]

Acronis got its reputation from the old versions not the new ones. The new versions are crap, junk, bloated, I really can't say enough bad things about what they did to a good product.

I use macrium reflect now.
http://www.macrium.com/

 

[DirkGently1]

I don't have high demands for backup software so the built in Win 7 image backup is all i need, along with a backup folder for Apps, Licenses etc. Every decent bit of software eventually gets ruined by feature bloat so i like to go with the simple, effective solutions.

 

[super_sinbad]

I've been using Acronis products (TrueImage, Disk Director Suite) since 2005 with all types of systems, laptops, desktops, servers (all windows) and never had any issue, it's fast and extremely reliable, I have more than 25 different images created with it.

Used to use the early version of Ghost and it was very sluggish.

 

[Rottie]

I have been researching several backup software products. I checked out several forums online.
I'm trying to figure out why I often find in discussions about backup software the suggestion that Acronis is the best backup software. Most of the time, these suggestions are not backed up by arguments. I usually just read something like that "they are the best" or "i only trust acronis".
The forum at acronis.com tells a different story. It is full with people who are not happy at all and explain in rather long stories why Acronis fails for them !
What is your take ? Do you think they are really the best and why ?

Thanks in advance !

because it is easier to use and the interface is very simple to navigate.

 

[WildHorse]

Acronis got its reputation from the old versions not the new ones. The new versions are crap, junk, bloated, I really can't say enough bad things about what they did to a good product.

I use macrium reflect now.
http://www.macrium.com/

Why do you think Macrium Reflect at $40 per computer is better than the backup+disk image feature built into Windows 7?

I'm happy with the Win7 native backup & imaging tools.

[Side note: I used Acronis True Image for years, but when they bumped from rev 9.1 up to rev 10 I started not being as happy, and then v. 11 was awful so I quit Acronis.]

 

[jsalpha2]

With 3 or more good freeware alternatives I can't see buying Acronis.
macrium has a free version, also Easeus Backup, or DriveImageXL
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp
http://www.todo-backup.com/
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

 

[Phynaz]

unreliable in business.

True Image Home isn't a business solution. Who woulda thought?

 

[readymix]

Why do you think Macrium Reflect at $40 per computer is better than the backup+disk image feature built into Windows 7?

I'm happy with the Win7 native backup & imaging tools.

the W7 is great, all i need, since its inclusion in vista in fact. like it more than ever since i found out it images to bluray disks too.

 

[JE42]

Thanks for your input !
Very interesting und helpful !

 

[Emulex]

they restrict the ability to rotate media on network.
you want your backup to create a new backupset (compressed) then after verify is ok, it will trim the # of backup sets back down (disk size/# of backups).

this prevents a bad block backup or failed backup from deleting the old one.

iirc the fundemental copy on write feature is missing from win7 backup

 

[HeXen]

i like easus todo backup

 

[Cerb]

Ghost up to 7.5 was awesome.

It then went downhill, as did the A/V software.

Acronis picked up the slack, ran with it, got OEM contracts, and is still running on that inertia.

 

[linesiders]

Pricey compared to Acronis but for Home Office Small Biz I use ShadowProtect for my clients, including for servers. Not cheap. But is can do a good image backup and in omst versions with Hardware Independent Restore (which I've used successfully).

VMWare licenses and rebrands Shadow Protect for the P2V conversion software built in certain versions of VMWARE.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Personally, I like these features and don't think they are included in the windows backup:
encrypted backup file and compression.
Also, it seems to do backups faster.

Why do you think Macrium Reflect at $40 per computer is better than the backup+disk image feature built into Windows 7?

I'm happy with the Win7 native backup & imaging tools.

[Side note: I used Acronis True Image for years, but when they bumped from rev 9.1 up to rev 10 I started not being as happy, and then v. 11 was awful so I quit Acronis.]

 

[RU482]

loves me some ghost32 (DOS based) for backup/recovery. seriously

 

[JE42]

Pricey compared to Acronis but for Home Office Small Biz I use ShadowProtect for my clients, including for servers. Not cheap. But is can do a good image backup and in omst versions with Hardware Independent Restore (which I've used successfully).

VMWare licenses and rebrands Shadow Protect for the P2V conversion software built in certain versions of VMWARE.

I checked out Shadow Protected the other day. The full image backup seems to be pretty fast. However, the incremental step was as fast as the full backup. It should be quicker. I also checked out Macrium Reflect. The full backup was slower, however the incremental backup was only 40% of the full backup time.
I wonder why ShadowProtect is so slow with the incremental step. Do you have an idea?