Mitchel,

Your comments and evaluation as "spot on." I've used Acronis workstation and home version a number of times which saved me countless hours.

When I travel, I keep a copy of my hard drive and information in case of data loss or disk failure. During one trip, I found myself in a position where I had to restore my laptop one night around 6PM. I was able to fix the problem, start the restoration process and back in business my morning.

It is worth the investment. Their software is solid for server platforms as well as home use.

Ray

If you are using Microsoft Products for your desktop and servers, I'd highly recommend Symantec Ghost (for workstations) and Backup Exec System Recovery for servers. With this disk imaging tool and a USB or Gigabit network attached storage device your machine can be returned to any snapshot in under 2 hours - even to disparate hardware. It is an investment that is well worth it. If you use a windows network the new Symantec Protection Small Business Suite gives you both Symantec Corporate edition antivirus and BESR desktop edition for one low yearly price (not much more than just antivirus).

You are right on with your comments on how important of backing up you system is. You, and I, are two of the very few who actually test backing up and restoring.

I have a web page http://www.agingsafely.com/help/guidelines_for_home_soho_computers.aspx called “Guidelines for Home / SOHO Computers” and backup is a key part. Testing both the restore of multiple versions of a single file and the restore of your system disk is exceptionally important. I’m not as demanding as you and don’t expect to be able to restore to a VM or different hardware without having to do considerable messing around with all of the drivers.

I currently use Ghost and am pleased with it as long as you have enough disk space. If the destination gets full Ghost folds up its tent. It also seems to use more space that I feel that it should. However, with terabyte external sata drives being in the $100 range, who cares.

I would like to be able to do a restore to a new disk, change Microsoft’s SysId and apply a new license key and use the disk on another computer on my LAN. This seems to be a complicated process, and I haven’t mastered it yet.

I saw this post and went right out and purchased a copy. Trouble is, it doesn't work when using Vista (or any OS) under Boot Camp. Such a fine piece of software from a market leader, yet they drop the ball on this aspect of the market.

The government workers who are in-charge of the important public records must have a reserved copy of all the files just in case when the original files are lost.

Acronis B&R10 looks impressive but so far they have released three builds none of which work on a basic Windows XP workstation.

The first release had loads of bugs

The second release caused BSODs on many Windows systems

The third release can't make backups with VSS enabled - which means you can't get a consistent image if you have applications like SQL server in use.

All in all it is very shoddy.

Add to that the once excellent support offered by Acronis to its corporate customers has now degraded into farce:

Long waiting times for telephone support
Inept 'online chat' support that doesn't respond to any kind of follow up
Support forums with no response or comment from Acronis.

I have been a long time user of Acronis True Iamge and got a free upgrade to B&R10 with my maintenance agreement. I would recommend any users avoid this like the plague until they have finally got their act together and sorted out the bugs.

I concur with the poster above in regards to Acronis Backup and Recovery 10 Workstation. The UI is slow, there are odd hangs, odd crashes, with this version and name change they really messed up a solid, reliable program. I would switch back to TrueImage Echo Workstation 9 but that is not supported in Windows 7.

I appreciate your post and definitely the comments left by others. I have been using acronis true image 8 for years, and it has saved my virtual life a couple of times. Recently I had an issue with version 8 that I am hoping will be a non-issue with the newer version.
I have found with many software companies that a new named version will often cause many conflicts, so I decided to research and see if I should choose version 10 of true image, or try the newest version acronis is now featuring. After reading the comments here, I am going to get the true image version 10, as I need something that is completely functional today.
Hopefully they will iron out the issues of the new product and that will be something really useful in the future.

I have to say that I completely disagree. I have never had as much frustration and wasted productivity with any product as I have had with Acronis Backup and Recovery 10. This product is the absolute WORST enterprise-level solution attempt I have ever tested. I highly recommend to anyone reading this not to pay anything for the server product; quickly run in the opposite direction. If you want to test the trial and have a lot of free time, have fun, but I wouldn't pay anything for this poorly designed, developed, and supported product. The support is even worse than the software.

I have used the standalone Acronis workstation and server products in the past with no issues, but the License Server and Management Server products are simply horrible. I have spent over 40 hours with support without consistently successful backups. Something is always failing, giving errors, hanging, and/or crashing on the majority of the machines. I have lost some respect from colleagues in my IT department for recommending and attempting to implement this backup solution.

My test environment is simple: 10 Windows XP Pro machines and 1 Windows Server 2003 Management Server. The installation process for the server was simple, but pushing out the remote agents almost never works correctly. Once the agent is finally installed on a workstation, the backups consistently fail with no resolution from "support."

Everytime I call in with an issue (which is often), support wants to update to the newest version of the software. This suggestion would be fine, accept that updating requires uninstallation and reinstallation of the entire product. The server must be reconfigured, and the agent must then be reinstalled. When you have spent 30 hours just getting the agents communicating with the server, starting over is not an option. Simply terrible.

Unfortunately, I have nothing good to say about Backup and Recovery 10 other than it was a good idea. I still use the old Acronis imaging products for individual computers/servers, but Acronis is simply not ready for the enterprise. I am truly disappointed to have to write this reply, because I have always been a fan of Acronis in the past.

While Acronis True Image 2009 appeared to work well for laptop image backups, I too am now trying Backup and Recover 10 Workstation. While the GUI is much cleaner and easier to understand, I too find it very buggy. Still trying to find the correct combination of settings that actually work consistently. Already discovered that VSS turned on does not work. (makes this impossible for SQL Server use).

So far, the only successful backup and restore was to backup and restore from the boot CD. That only worked when I turned off most features.

Most backups started from the GUI will either stop with an error at various points in the process or simply just hang the moment I start using the system. This is really disappointing. Since our Acronis 9.1 for our servers constantly fails as well, I guess I will be looking at Ghost again and Paragon. Too bad.

I just bought Acronis this weekend and installed it on my recently upgraded Windows 7 64th system. Norton Ghost 14 which I had been using won't work with 64 bit systems, so I was going to have to switch to Ghost 15 or Acronis.

So far it hasn't been a great experience!
It hangs (not responding for hours) or fails with "Internal error (tag 0=0) contact support"

Currently it claims to have done a continuous backup, but when I go to restore a single file it complains that there are no backups.

I guess that I'll get to test how good Acronis' support resources are.

/Dave Snow

I too have had an abysmal experience with Backup & Recover 10, both on a Windows 7 32 bit machine and on a Windows 2003 Server. I have been using Acronis products for a good 4-5 years and have found them to be outstanding. Because of my excellent past experiences I blindly purchased Backup & Recover 10 for both my Windows 7 laptop and a W2K3 Server without trying the free trial. What a mistake. B&R 10 simply does not work! After 6 months I have yet to get a valid backup on either computer. My understanding is that Acronis’ policy excludes obtaining a refund due to the free trial; therefore I have purchased non-functioning software and cannot return it. I feel totally ripped off by Acronis. Imagine purchasing a brand new car only to find that it won’t start and then being told you can’t return it because you didn’t take it out for a test drive. Given the fact that I have seen hundreds of posts from other people in the same boat as myself I seriously doubt that Acronis management did not know they were shipping a defective product. To that end I feel that Acronis has behaved criminally - they stole my money. Do not purchase this product.

So Now What's the alternative for acronis ?

Acronis True Image Home 2011 is very reliable backup software but I would recommend everyone to create Acronis bootable disc when you install the software. Then create full drive backup and boot from the created boot CD to check if the image you created is not corrupted. Good luck!

Acronis in my experience will tend to make their older files obsolete, thus removing the point of backing up. If you have Acronis 10, back something up and acronis 11 comes out, you cannot restore with Acronis 10 anymore and have to purchase the new one. I am amazed that more sites have not mentioned this as I has happened to me a number of times now, with different versions of acronis. If this is not true, then an equal and just as disastrous problem is that the backup file corrupt over time. No idea why... Buy a Mac.

Mitchel,

I know that you're an authority in the .NET and DNN realms. However, I must disagree with your findings on Acronis BR 10. It is a disgrace to any company to release a product with so many bugs - and to think that the end user puts their trust in it for a reliable backup. I've tried for a few days to get it to backup over FTP and I haven't had a successful backup yet. What's worse is BR 10 came out at the beginning of last year and still doesn't work! Luckily, I installed the trial version and didn't purchase it.

I'm now using NovaBackup and haven't had any problems with it. (Plus: It's a LOT cheaper for SQL/Exchange backups !!!*WITH*!!! VSS!)

I agree - B&R10 is absolutely terrible. Everyday brings new errors and more rounds with "Acronis Telephone Support". Don't touch this with a barge pole! Life's too short!

I really loved reading your blog. It was very well authored and easy to understand.