Setup and interface
Installing Acronis True Image 8.0 is simple and takes just a few minutes. The installation process also allows you to create a bootable rescue disk (floppy or CD), which you'll need to reboot the PC and restore data after a hard disk crash. Our setup proceeded without incident.
The True Image interface is similar to that of Norton Ghost 9.0: Both present orderly main screens with large, colourful icons, as well as wizards that whisk you through major tasks. Dig deeper, though, and True Image's superiority becomes apparent. Its Create Image Wizard, for instance, estimates the time it'll take to image your drive and gives you a ballpark figure for the backup file's size. Ghost, by comparison, makes you search the help file or the manual for this information.
Unfortunately, some True Image terminology is a tad geeky. For example, the title bar of the backup dialog box reads Commit Pending Operations. Say what? Similarly, one menu item, Create Bootable Rescue Media, is bound to baffle more than a few neophytes. And the Image Archive Splitting screen in the Create Image Wizard warns, "FAT32 does not support files larger than 4GB." That's good to know, but how do you find out which file system you're actually using (FAT32 or NTFS)? The wizard doesn't say. On the plus side, Acronis automatically breaks large backup jobs into smaller chunks for removable media such as CD-R discs.
Features
Acronis True Image 8.0, like Norton Ghost 9.0, performs backup/restore operations in Windows. That means you can use your computer normally while Acronis toils in the background. True Image exacts a slight performance hit, naturally, but nothing near the performance loss you get when using Ghost. In our tests, for instance, Microsoft Word took about 8 seconds to load during a True Image backup, some 2 seconds longer than normal. By comparison, during a Norton Ghost backup, Word took a leisurely 13 seconds to load. True Image proved faster than Ghost at running backups, too. It archived our 11GB partition in just 16 minutes -- more than 2.5 times faster than Ghost.
True Image's skills at estimating backup times aren't perfect, though. It predicted our 16-minute backup would take 40 minutes. (Then again, we're not complaining about the faster performance.) Similarly, it estimated the size of our compressed archive to be 6.6GB, when the actual size was significantly larger, 8.1GB. According to Acronis, estimates are often imperfect because the program doesn't know what types of files are on your drive. For instance, on a disk with a lot of compressed files, the archive size will often be larger than the estimate.
True Image performs tasks that Ghost doesn't. For example: partitioning and formatting a new drive are simple chores when handled by True Image, but not by Ghost. And the millions of PCs stuck with Windows 95/98, lacking the memory and processor power for Windows XP, can use True Image but not Norton Ghost 9.0. For Windows 95/98 users, the Ghost 9.0 retail package includes a copy of the clunky, old Ghost 2003, which reboots you into DOS to run a backup.
Service and support
Acronis's phone support is expensive: US$35 for a single incident or US$100 for three incidents. (An "incident" isn't a single call, but rather a specific problem than may take several calls to resolve.) Symantec charges AU$76.20 per incident for incidents involving Norton Ghost. Most users will opt for e-mail or fax support, both of which are free. We found the e-mail option to be very efficient;. Acronis answered our e-mail queries within 24 hours, while Symantec took four to five days.
Two small gripes: There's no online support form for e-mail queries; rather you must enter the product name (Acronis True Image), version and build number, and operating system information in the body of a standard e-mail message. It's a bit tedious. And the program's help section is in Adobe Acrobat format, which is harder to navigate and search than a conventional Windows help file.
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thecomputergenius
27/09/2007, 04:43 AM
rating
4/10
I used to like this product but for some strange reason when I use it on a Dell 478 board it takes 5 hours to clone
Pros: easy
Cons: way too long
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jimbo
07/07/2007, 06:33 AM
rating
10/10
No program will work on all PCs or all configurations. This is the easiest and most user friendly program on the market. Anyone that has issues with it is either a) a Norton employee or b) someone that should take their PC to a professional and stop messing with it.
Pros: Easy to use. Gets all files- even open ones.
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cosmian
05/04/2007, 07:32 AM
rating
3/10
So my hard drive crashes and I use True Image 8 to restore the image. I have, on an external hard drive two separate images of the whole hard drive. The most recent comes up "Image archive [blabla] is corrupted. Please choose another file." So I choose the older one. SAME THING. (Like the experience of others, when True Image created the image, it said it checked the it and found it good. Acronis fails both times. I'm screwed.
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papernush
03/11/2006, 06:42 PM
rating
3/10
Too inconsistent. May have some features that Ghost doesn't have but is not in the same league for reliability.
Pros: Fast and fairly easy to use.
Cons: Erratic, buggy behaviour on anything but the most simple of tasks. Resulted in a lot of bad data. Luckilly I had backed up data beforehand and was just testing it.
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sanjay
11/09/2006, 07:59 PM
rating
9/10
it is very powerfull utility for partitioning.
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hendry
15/04/2006, 05:42 AM
Do not use!
Did a clone of main notebook drive to usb notebook drive and it corrupted both drives!!!
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30/03/2006, 05:54 PM
What it says is what you get. A true image fast
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18/02/2006, 01:49 PM
Image Checks OK - But corrupt
Backup with no errors to USB HD. Image verifies OK after backup. When trying to restore gives Corrupt Image. Used hours now to fix problem to no avail.
Ghost 2003 works ok on same machine: Has never failed.
An Image Backup that verifies corrupt Images as OK, that's really bad.
The money wasted is nothing compared to loosing your data. DO NOT USE True Image: Even the forum is full of Corrupt Image messages.
Geir Ove
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DaveS
25/01/2006, 07:40 AM
experienced good results!
If I had these experiences I wouldn't recommend it either. Some of the ones I have were with version 6. Version 8 has worked flawless. I've imaged and restored over 70 pcs and 10 server primary root drives with only two errors and those were my fault. Some problems I found were improper permission settings, trying to image to a domain controller, and not enough free space. I create and restore images across the network with no problems and usually within 12-15 minutes for about 10 GIGs of info.
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dave
05/01/2006, 04:33 AM
Takes too long to clone
I am using a USB 2.0 external HD with 60 GB to cone to a 60 GB HD. It takes 8 hours to restore the failed HD. Much too long.
Please email me if you have any suggestions.
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