Review: Acronis True Image Home 2010

I’m willing to bet that in any review of an Acronis True Image product, the term ‘saved my bacon’ or saved my a**’ will come up. This review is no different, for it is true. I have used Acronis True Image for many, many years on almost all versions of Windows with great satisfaction. One of the true great feelings in the computing world is knowing your data is safe and you can restore it (or Windows) in a few minutes and be up and running. It’s hard to put a price on satisfaction like that!

I have been a bit late in getting around to upgrading to Acronis True Image Home 2010 (herein referred to as ATIH2010) due to a number of factors, mainly time. I wanted to take the time to see what was different, what was new, etc. Now, the following is by no means an exhaustive review of ATIH2010, but I want to highlight the features I like and use most and how these tasks are easier to perform in this new version.

So, let’s begin!

Installation is straightforward, so lets go right to the main screen (click to view a larger image):

A nice clean, uncomplicated interface, isn’t it? I have highlighted (in red) two areas of interest, ‘Recent Backups” and ‘My Favorites’. These are very handy shortcuts to tasks I perform all the time.
For instance, if I want to update my ‘System_C’ backup, I just click the Update link and the process begins. Easy!

Here is a backup in progress:

Note the calendar that keeps track of the backups you make as well as their status.

Acronis Online Backup

Something new that Acronis has come out with is their Online Backup program. For a reasonable fee, Acronis will give you 250GB of backup space on their secure servers. The advantage of this is that your files are stored offsite (as any true backup should be) and accessible to you from any Internet-connected PC.

One caveat with this is that it may take a lot of time to upload your files to the server, depending on your connection’s upload speed. Acronis states on their support site: “Most customers should expect to back up 2-5 GB/day. Some users will have higher performance if they have higher bandwidth connections; others will be slower.” However, once your files are uploaded, it only takes a few moments to keep them updated with Acronis Online Backup since only new and changed files are included.

So you would probably want to select only those files that are irreplaceable, like photos, documents, financial data files, etc. In fact, Acronis Online Backup can select these types of files automatically for you, or you can customize your file selection once you log in:

Here’s a look at the Acronis Online Backup file browser:

If you log in to your account from another PC (via your Acronis customer login page), you will see this:

Just enter your encryption key and you will have access to your files:

Other ATIH2010 Features:

I would like to mention a few other features before wrapping up this review:

• Try & Decide: this feature allows you to take an instant snapshot of your system. Handy if you are installing beta software, or anything else considered ‘risky’.
• Acronis Startup Recovery Manager: pressing F11 at boot time starts this, if you so choose to activate it. Saves having to use the Acronis recovery disk in your CD drive.
• Acronis DriveCleanser, System Clean-up, FileShredder: secure destruction of files and folders, computer usage history.

There are more tools included in ATIH2010, but hopefully this review has helped you to see how versatile and indispensible this software can be.
You can read more about ATIH2010 here at the Aconis site: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

Related posts:

1. Free Tool: Acronis Drive Monitor
2. How to Backup Your PST File
Categories : General, Reviews, Software