Would Like some Feeback-Acronis True Image

[Buz2b]

Ok, I've been involved in discussions before about backup software. I used to use Powerquest Drive Image, which was bought out by Norton (so I bought Ghost 9) and have now decided to move to Acronis True Image. I've seen lots of good info on it both here and other places.
What I'd like is if anyone has experience with this product to fill me in on their do's and don'ts, good or bad ideas, etc. Don't get me wrong, I've committed to it and am in the middle of a backup as we speak. However, I'm still new to using it and we can always benefit from other's experience. For instance, in the backup going on now I've noticed that 1)It burns the CD's quickly but 2)It's taking a lot of CD's to do a 40 GB HD (boot drive on my system). Is there a compression setting I missed when starting this backup? I know, I know, I should have put it on DVD's but wanted to try things out first. Anyway, all feedback would be welcome. Thanks!

 

[Auric]

Wow. How much data is actually on the 40GB drive? There are compression options but I don't recall if that includes "no compression", so you may be okay there but CD's are just a waste of time -obviously being relatively slow and time consuming, less reliable and increasing the risk a lot more just by numbers and of course taking up more space and perhaps even costing more than DVD if you want to niggle. I hope you at least chose to verify.

 

[mc866]

Personally the only thing I have had trouble with is the incremental backup. For whatever reason every time I tried to restore one it didn't work, so I have stuck with the full backups from now on. There is an option towards the end of the process that does let you choose your compression so keep an eye out for that. Other than that it seems pretty straight forward.

 

[Miramonti]

Acronis has been great for me except it doesn't work with ramdisks.

If you try and backup a 40gb harddrive with 700mb cd's, it will take you until your next birthday, particularly if you have many mp3's or video which is already compressed. Taking a stab in the dark, the best compression on an average harddrive's data might be 3:1, which for 40gb would still be 20 cd's. Don't quote me on that.

I highly recommend acronis, however I highly discourage putting 40gb onto cd's only (which imo aren't as reliable over time as hd's as well, particularly compared to a harddrive that you only use for data backups.)

 

[Buz2b]

Well, I've since found that writing directly to DVD's does not seem to be supported. Big disappointment to me. You aparently have to write to disk first, specifying size increments and then burn each image to DVD's. I've found the compression settings so no big deal on that. I guess I'll have to write the image files to my external HDD and then burn them from there to DVD. I like to have backup on disks for off site storage/backup.

 

[Auric]

True Image Home can only write to discs formatted in UDF and since XP does not natively support writing UDF, a program such as InCD must be installed:

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/faq.html#27

Otherwise, if the TI bootable CD is used not only should it be more reliable but it runs on a Linux kernel which should support UDF writing (version 2.6.x does). Perhaps someone with more experience will chime in. I tried it briefly but do not recall and preferred to stick with good ol' reliable DOS Ghost.

 

[Miramonti]

Originally posted by: Buz2b
Well, I've since found that writing directly to DVD's does not seem to be supported. Big disappointment to me. You aparently have to write to disk first, specifying size increments and then burn each image to DVD's. I've found the compression settings so no big deal on that. I guess I'll have to write the image files to my external HDD and then burn them from there to DVD. I like to have backup on disks for off site storage/backup.

That's correct unfortunately, it won't write to blank dvd's directly (aside from dvd's formatted for packet writing mentioned above). If you plan to write the files to them later, then you'd set it to Fixed Size, and 4.29gb (iirc) so the segmented files will be the right size for a dvd.

 

[Buz2b]

Originally posted by: Auric
True Image Home can only write to discs formatted in UDF and since XP does not natively support writing UDF, a program such as InCD must be installed:

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/faq.html#27

Otherwise, if the TI bootable CD is used not only should it be more reliable but it runs on a Linux kernel which should support UDF writing (version 2.6.x does). Perhaps someone with more experience will chime in. I tried it briefly but do not recall and preferred to stick with good ol' reliable DOS Ghost.

Are you saying it might be possible to boot to the TI CD and burn the disk image files directly to DVD? Just curious. I'll look around the TI forum too.

 

[Buz2b]

Originally posted by: jjsole

That's correct unfortunately, it won't write to blank dvd's directly (aside from dvd's formatted for packet writing mentioned above). If you plan to write the files to them later, then you'd set it to Fixed Size, and 4.29gb (iirc) so the segmented files will be the right size for a dvd.

Yeah, I went to their forum and did some looking around and saw the process of UDF packet writing. Sounds like a pain to me. I did see the segment sizing in the options and you can either define your own or there is one set for 4.4 GB I think for DVD's.

 

[fbrdphreak]

I can't speak to burning to media, but I use TrueImage (Pro I think?) all the time with an external hard drive. First off, I never make an image in Windows. I use the boot CD and image from there to my USB HDD. It is a bit picky about external drives; recognizes my Seagate just fine, but won't recognize a hard drive in a Vantec enclosure. I've used incremental and full backups, no issues. I love it and rely on it for creating/maintaining benchmark images

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: Buz2b

Are you saying it might be possible to boot to the TI CD and burn the disk image files directly to DVD? Just curious. I'll look around the TI forum too.

I just tried and alas, it cannot and apparently still requires pre-formatting. Worse, after error-ing and spitting out the disc and retrying there is a "Format" button which does nothing. Shoddy McShod Shod. Checking the forum, version 9.1 is the same (not yet released for free upgrade to Home).

p.s. I defy anyone to completely uninstall this crap, particularly the key HKLM/Software/Acronis.

p.p.s. Cripes, found more remnants of this moleware in /system32/drivers (tifsfilt.sys, timntr.sys, snapman.sys)... uninstall is real amateurville ... likewise the install's startup junk... bleargh.