Upgrading to Acronis True Image 2021

[Kathy Stevens]

We have been offered a deep discount to upgrade our Acronis backup software.

Is it worthwhile to upgrade from Acronis True Image 2019 to 2021?

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[PKCano]

Check information on line. I have read there are big changes in the backup methods, and that it doesn’t work for some people.

I used Acronis for years, using a bootable rescue disk for both imaging and restoring. My last version was 2017. There have evidently been changes since then.

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alQamar, Kathy Stevens

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[anonymous]

You may want to look at the Acronis version comparison chart at  https://www.acronis.com/en-eu/personal/versions-comparison/

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oldfry, deeppow, alQamar, Kathy Stevens

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[anonymous]

I recently upgraded from ATI 2020 to 2021. The main difference I noted was the new “Protection” features. I must also say that in testing, I have not been able to get Restore from an external USB HDD to work, either from the full app using a normal boot or from the Acronis Bootable USB. Even though I have the drive attached which contains a current “Entire PC” backup set per Windows Explorer, Acronis can’t find it. Currently working with Tech Support to try to resolve.

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chasrome, Kathy Stevens

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[Kathy Stevens]

I recently lost my C drive (a Western Digital 2TB SSD on my workstation that was running Windows 10 2009.

I was unable to recover the system using Acronis backups from either my internal D drive or an external drive.

After significant effort I have recovered the full system but am wondering if I am better off using Acronis, or other backup software, or simply periodically making a mirror image of my C drive on an external disk.

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chasrome

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[GoneToPlaid]

I used to use Acronis years ago. They would fix some serious bugs only in new versions which one had to pay to upgrade to. I switched to Macrium and have never looked back. When users report bugs to Macrium, Macrium tries to fix the bugs as quickly as possible.

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rexr, Kathy Stevens, chasrome, Graham

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[racorbin2010]

 

Ditto!!!

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Kathy Stevens

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[chasrome]

Me too.

Acronis tried hard to help me with the 2020 version but without much luck.  It is a very tricky program to use for recovery since Win10 was forced on us.  The 2014 version (which does not work with Win10)  was the last one to work as expected on recovery.

 

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Kathy Stevens

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[Kathy Stevens]

We have been using Acronis 2019 and recently lost our C Drive.  Was unable to recover using Acronis.

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[anonymous]

As a long time Acronis user and frequent BETA tester, I routinely create back up images of our “C” drives on a weekly basis. On one computer, we back up to the “D” drive. On my computer and the other two computers, we back up to an external drive — well, actually a drive we insert in a Kingwin KF-256-BK Hot Swap Rack w/USB Hub (price around $33) which accepts both SSDs and conventional hard drives. Acronis lets you schedule backup images. And we use full backups – incremental backups may be quicker, but you’ve got to keep all of them and can’t just delete some of them.

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[Alex5723]

Kathy Stevens wrote:

We have been offered a deep discount to upgrade our Acronis backup software.

Is it worthwhile to upgrade from Acronis True Image 2019 to 2021?

I am staying with Acronis 2018 as there is no way to skip the installation of the anti-virus/malware/ransomware… bloatware with the new version.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by Alex5723.

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oldfry, chasrome, alQamar, Kathy Stevens

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[Kathy Stevens]

@alex5723

Good advice re bloat in the newer versions of Acronis.

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[oldfry]

I was already running a full featured protection suite, and then Acronis anti-ransomware did some false positives.   After shutting it off it left the anti-ransomware software installed.   While you can fiddle around with things like:
net stop AcronisActiveProtectionService
I prefer a more light-weight solution.

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[anonymous]

But you can turn off the protection features and just ignore them — which is a good idea because some them can really slow down your computer.

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[Kathy Stevens]

Does anyone have experience using the Western Digital 2020 version of Acronis True Image that has a release date of 08/13/2020 and is available as a free download from WD if you have a WD drive installed on your PC.

The WD down load site describes the software as follows,

“Acronis True Image WD Edition can clone drives, backup the operating system, applications, settings and all of your data, while also securely wiping any confidential data you no longer need.  Acronis True Image WD Edition provides you with all the essential tools you need to recover your computer system should a disaster occur, such as losing data, accidentally deleting critical files or folders, or a complete hard disk crash. If failures occur that block access to information or affect system operation, you will be able to restore the system and the lost data easily.”

Supported Operating Systems include:

• Windows 7 SP1 (all editions)
• Windows 8 (all editions)
• Windows 8.1 (all editions)
• Windows 10 – starting with Update 2 (WD ATI 6126 or greater)

It is not clear if the current WD version includes the bloatware that comes with the purchased version of Acronis 2021.

Any thoughts?

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[Alex5723]

If I recall correctly from the free Seagate Acronis these free versions are barebone backup/restore.. and not the full Acronis (2019/2021..)

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GoneToPlaid

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[Paul T]

I’ve been on 2014 until recently. Change to another app for additional features.

cheers, Paul

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Kathy Stevens, alQamar

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[A1ex]

I’m still using TI 2011 to make and restore whole system backups, booting from CD.
It works perfectly with no fuss.

A1ex

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Kathy Stevens

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[Ickabod]

To the person who can’t get Acronis to restore or find the portable drive even though it will back up to it. I had the same problem until I discovered you have to make the rescue disk or USB on the same computer you are trying to restore too. Hope this helps.

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oldfry, Kathy Stevens

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[chasrome]

Correct.  This is the only way to use the 2019 or 2020 versions for recovery.  I have not tried teh 2021 version yet.

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oldfry, Kathy Stevens

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[Kathy Stevens]

That is the possible reason why I was unable to recover my system using Acronis 2019.

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[Robert]

I would strongly recommend reading the posts in the Acronis forum from the many people reporting multiple problems with Acronis 2021. I did upgrade and rapidly wished I had not. I suffered several issues with desperately slow back ups, CPU hogging causing my high spec PC to slow to a crawl, “unable to access drive” errors when clearly the drive was accessible, “unable to lock file” error, the list goes on. When I requested a refund of my upgrade fee I was refused as I had exceeded the thirty day limit so I was penalised for trying to rectify issues with a previously reliable product.

I am sure that Acronis will eventually get it sorted but I cannot risk losing my system until then so I now use other back up software.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Robert.

4 users thanked author for this post.

oldfry, Kathy Stevens, Chris B, alQamar

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[alQamar]

As an Acronis MVP I would like you to know that 2021 is a generally good release with some caveats to be aware

• ATIH 2021 has not only changed from tib to tibx, with some of the limitations lifted in 2021 that were present in 2020 when it was introed
• the subscription version other than the perpetual version will disable Windows Defender without a note in favor for Acronis Cyberprotection
• Despite many tickets the issues for different ATIH customers the Acronis Dashboard backend issues are not solved. Introed in 2020.
  You cannot rely on the backup status and in consequence the email notifications even for fresh installations. (Reproed 2 weeks ago). In some cases new computers are not listed in the dashboard.
• Many of the security issues reported for ATIH 2020 / 2021, especially for the new antivirus do not seem to be addressed as per today. I am in still in the hope the Acronis Team is working on these.

I do not want to go into detail any further.

 

• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by alQamar.
• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by alQamar.
• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by alQamar.

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oldfry, Alex5723, Chris B

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[Kathy Stevens]

It is only good if it works and I found out the hard way that I was unable to recover my Windows 10 workstation using Acronis.

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[CraigS26]

GoneToPlaid wrote:

I switched to Macrium and have never looked back. When users report bugs to Macrium, Macrium tries to fix the bugs as quickly as possible.

+1 ….. Unmatched Forum / Macrium Support and App integrity. Look at the Forum (vs. formal Sppt Ticket) to get a feel of questions and how they are handled.

https://forum.macrium.com/Reflect-V7/Disk-Imaging

W10 Pro 20H2 / Hm-Stdnt Ofce '16 C2R / HP Envy Desktop-Ethernet/ 12 GB / 256G SSD + 1 TB HDD / i5-8400 Coffee Lake/ GP=2 + FtrU=Semi-Annual + Feature Defer = 1 + QU=0

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Kathy Stevens

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[SonicMojo]

Like a few others in here – I used to be an Acronis user – but made the switch to Macrium long ago. That is really all I can offer. There is no real value in constantly paying for upgrades that offer little value. Even with Macrium (which had little to no initial incentive for me to move from v6 to v7) – I waited about a year to make the move.

Remember what this is at the end of the day – backup software. As long as the application is creating solid backups that you can actually rely on when needed – it’s doing it’s job.

Have learned for almost all of my software to focus on what’s important. All the bells and whistles and extra flashy doodads won’t make a bit of difference if your backups are not accurate and useable.

Have to assume that Acronis or Macrium or whoever – should have mastered the basics by now – so I would never spend any more money on this types of app unless there was a quantum leap in performance regarding the size and speed in which they can take a full system image.

There is no shame is staying put on a version that works for you.

Cheers

Sonic

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Kathy Stevens

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[Kathy Stevens]

As mentioned else ware, I was unable to recover my Windows 10 2009 C Drive using Acronis 2019 despite having backups on my D and external drives.

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[SonicMojo]

Kathy Stevens wrote:

As mentioned else ware, I was unable to recover my Windows 10 2009 C Drive using Acronis 2019 despite having backups on my D and external drives.

Hey Kathy

I think if you could not actually recover the Windows system drive – when you needed to – I think you have answered your own question on whether it’s worth it to upgrade.

If it were me – all it would take is one failure (right when I need it) to make me drop a company fast. I believe this is what I went thru with Acronis but that was at least ten years ago – I cannot remember why I quit them – but it had to be a logical reason.

I can vouch for Macrium tho. They are in another league for a product and especially support – these guys are on it 24x7x365.

Sonic.

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cmar6, oldfry, Kathy Stevens

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[Kathy Stevens]

You are right, our time with Acronis is coming to an end.

Macrium is one option moving forward.

We are also considering cloning the C drive of our recovered machine (and storing the SSD  away in a safe place) and then periodically coping our document directory to the D and external drives. Then if we lose the system we can replace the unreadable C drive with the clone and transferring files from the D or external drive  back to the C drive.

More in a separate post when I have time.

 

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[KB6OJS]

The best disk-imaging tool I’ve found is Macrium Reflect.  The free version is more than capable of handling all of my disk imaging needs (end-user, not sure about corporate needs), and there is of course a paid version with more extensive capabilities.  However, I’ve never needed any of those features.  I’ve used Macrium Reflect Free for several years, and make regular image backups of my C: drive on different machines (mine, my wife’s, my “tinkering” laptops, Linux, etc.) especially prior to installing any significant updates to the system like a Windows feature upgrade.  Also, it allows you to mount the image backups (except for Linux file formats) as virtual drives so that if I have to do a reinstall of Windows I can access the image backup and transfer files from the backup to the fresh install.  It’s well worth exploring, and hey, the price is right!

//Steve//

 

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Kathy Stevens, oldfry

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[JohnUSA]

To all users who are having trouble restoring their Acronis True Image backed up image: Please, do not try to restore from your Windows installed Acronis version program,

Create the boot flash drive first, then boot up your PC with this flash drive and make sure that the external drive USB drive where your backed image is saved is also connected to your PC.

So with both your boot flash drive and your external backup drive connected to your PC you can now BOOT UP.

I guarantee you that you will now be successful in restoring your backed up Acronis image.

Good luck all.

 

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Kathy Stevens

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[anonymous]

I thought the discount to upgrade to 2021 looked like a bargain. Was I wrong! First of all the “upgrade” moved me from a perpetual license to a subscription basis. Secondly, the installation took my computer to a dead stop while disabling all applications that accessed external services because it was “protecting me”. The installation ground on for hours and when complete I could not access the user interface to Acronis! I found some software on their website which rescued me and I quickly disabled the “protection”. I’ve uninstalled the upgrade and gone back to the 2020 version which has been working fine for the past year.

There is an attractive feature in the 2020 version (it might be in there in earlier versions) that takes about 2Gb of an external HD to make it bootable, runs the Acronis software on boot-up and allows access to the backup on that drive or any other drive attached to the system. I’ve also always had success using a USB drive as the boot source.

I’ve used Acronis since roughly 2009 and it has always done what I needed until this most recent release.

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[petesmst]

@anonymous:  There is an option to select a non-subscription upgrade.  (You have to look carefully for it, though!)

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core CPU; MSI X570-A PRO Mobo; Win 10 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; 512GB SAMSUNG 850 PRO SSD; Seagate 2TB Barracuda SATA6G HDD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis TI 2020 Premium, VMWare Workstation 15 Player. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync 144Hz Monitor.

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GoldenNorm

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[Paul T]

Kathy Stevens wrote:

I was unable to recover the system using Acronis backups

Have you tried older versions of Acronis installed on another PC?
Are you able to mount the backup images to extract the files?

cheers, Paul

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[Alex5723]

Paul T wrote:

Are you able to mount the backup images to extract the files?

There is no mount. Double click and the backup image opens in Windows Explorer.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to access attached files.

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[ScotchJohn]

anonymous wrote:

First of all the “upgrade” moved me from a perpetual license to a subscription basis.

Yes, I stay on a stand-alone licence in preference to a subscription licence wherever possible.  But you do have to remain alert to being moved without noticing what is happening.

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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GoldenNorm

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[petesmst]

I decided to upgrade to the non-subscription version.  No issues, BUT note that if you make full disk/system backups, you can NOT use a recovery disk to recover individual files from such backups if the images were saved in the newer .tibx file format.  You can only do so if the image has been saved in the older .tib format.  Files can, however, still be recovered from file backups as before.

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core CPU; MSI X570-A PRO Mobo; Win 10 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; 512GB SAMSUNG 850 PRO SSD; Seagate 2TB Barracuda SATA6G HDD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis TI 2020 Premium, VMWare Workstation 15 Player. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync 144Hz Monitor.

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[GoldenNorm]

petesmsst,

I just double-clicked on a .tibx file residing on an external USB hard drive and had no trouble getting to and reading an individual file. Did a copy/paste to another drive to verify that I could restore a signle file. I have not tried doing this when booting from a recovery disk.

Acronis 2020, Windows 10 Pro, Version 20H2, build 19042.630.

Norm

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Alex5723

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[Alex5723]

petesmst wrote:

you can NOT use a recovery disk to recover individual files from such backups if the images were saved in the newer .tibx file format.

You don’t need a recovery disk to recover files… just double-click on the backup file .tib/.tibx for full access.

There is a hack for Acronis 2020/2021 to backup with the old .tib format instead of .tibx.

How to create a Disk backup as .tib (not .tibx)

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[ghostwriter264]

I used Acronis years ago until Macrium came out. In my opinion Macrium is a better product than Acronis. I have never had a problem with Macrium.

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Kathy Stevens

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[Kathy Stevens]

Sounds as if Macrium is preferred over Acronis to protect against system loss.

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[KB6OJS]

Kathy Stevens wrote:

Sounds as if Macrium is preferred over Acronis to protect against system loss.

I’ve never had a failure with Macrium.  That’s good enough for me….

//Steve//

 

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Kathy Stevens, cyberSAR

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[Kathy Stevens]

I never had a failure with Acronis until I lost a C drive and needed to do a full recovery on a new SSD.

How many time have you used Macrium to recover a system?

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[Paul T]

You keep telling us you had a failure with Acronis but you have not given any details, despite our requests.

Please provide full details of what you have tried and answers to our questions. Replying in your other thread is best. #2317988

cheers, Paul

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[KB6OJS]

Kathy Stevens wrote:

I never had a failure with Acronis until I lost a C drive and needed to do a full recovery on a new SSD.

How many time have you used Macrium to recover a system?

Several.  Before any major change to my system, I do an image backup with Macrium.  Then, if (and sometimes when) the update farbles up my system, I have a fallback.  Trusting in Windows’ restore points is one thing, but if those get messed up I like to have additional insurance.

I also use it whenever I do a Windows reinstall, since I can then access the image as a drive letter once Macrium has been reinstalled on the new system, and then copy files over from the old image to the new installation.

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[jniffen]

I still will create a backup by booting the Acronis 2016/2018 DVD and have the scheduled process backup as well.

Then restore by booting via DVD I was also able to restore from the Acronis 2106 schedule backup.

Will Macrium allow the same process of backing up via a DVD or USB thumb drive?

I’m old enough to remember using Norton’s Ghost in the day.

Since the SATA SSD 3.5″ 500GB drive are around $50.00, I periodically will test my backups. If you don’t, then you really don’t have a backup.

 

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by jniffen. Reason: adding text

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[Paul T]

All of the backup apps allow you to boot to USB/DVD and backup.

My preference is to install the software and backup from within Windows. That way the backup is automated and I can’t forget.

cheers, Paul

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[cmar6]

SonicMojo wrote:

Kathy Stevens wrote:

As mentioned else ware, I was unable to recover my Windows 10 2009 C Drive using Acronis 2019 despite having backups on my D and external drives.

Hey Kathy

I think if you could not actually recover the Windows system drive – when you needed to – I think you have answered your own question on whether it’s worth it to upgrade.

If it were me – all it would take is one failure (right when I need it) to make me drop a company fast. I believe this is what I went thru with Acronis but that was at least ten years ago – I cannot remember why I quit them – but it had to be a logical reason.

I can vouch for Macrium tho. They are in another league for a product and especially support – these guys are on it 24x7x365.

Sonic.

Sonic:

I’m convinced by comments here, including yours, that I should drop Acronis and go with Macrium. Two questions for you backup experts.

1. What Macrium product is recommended for a typical home user who currently uses about 1.3 TB on the Acronis Cloud.  Also, does Macrium have a cloud backup?
2. If one is cloning locally, what’s wrong with using Window’s System backup?

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[Paul T]

There is no information provided about why the restore failed, and others here have vouched for the reliability of Acronis. Given you pay for a cloud backup I would not be changing without very good reason.

Test your backups by booting to a USB and attempting to restore some files. If this works you know your backup is OK.

cmar6 wrote:

If one is cloning locally, what’s wrong with using Window’s System backup?

We recommend 3rd party apps to clone because they are more flexible – and free.

cheers, Paul

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cmar6

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[cmar6]

Paul: Thanks for the ideas, which I will try. When you say “booting to a USB”, do you mean the recovery drive on USB that I created after doing Windows system backup?

If so, how does one get the computer to boot to the USB rather than to the HD?  By “restore files” do you mean from the Windows 7 backup on the external drive or do you mean restore from the Acronis Cloud backup?

Thanks, cmar6

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[anonymous]

I have used Acronis True Image and find it is hit or miss on a successful recovery.

Now I have been using Aomei Backupper free version for 5 years with no problems & just purchased the pro version that has cloning and sync options and will help you move your system to SSD.

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[Paul T]

anonymous wrote:

and will help you move your system to SSD

The free version will move your system to SSD too – so will the other free backup apps.

cheers, Paul

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[cmar6]

Paul: Since consensus on this board seem to be to go with Macrium, would their free edition be enough for system backup (is that the same as cloning?) and for daily differential backups?  Thanks, cmar6

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[Paul T]

cmar6 wrote:

how does one get the computer to boot to the USB

Plug in the USB, turn the computer on and press whatever key your machine uses to change the boot device – often F12. Press it lots as soon as you press the power button. If you get the Windows startup screen you are too late.

To test the boot you can select it from within running Windows. See this post.

cmar6 wrote:

By “restore files” do you mean from the Windows 7 backup on the external drive or do you mean restore from the Acronis Cloud backup?

Both. You need to test that you can restore files before you need to do it for real.

cmar6 wrote:

Macrium, would their free edition be enough for system backup and for daily differential backups?

Any of the free offerings will do that for you.
Keep an eye on this thread for details on a real life trial of backup software.

Macrium Reflect Boot Media

cheers, Paul

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