Acronis True Image Alternatives

Hi there

I would suggest to a lot of people that the best way to run backups etc is to use a STAND ALONE bootable USB / DVD. The reaon for this is that you don't have all the problems of installing stuff on your machine which might (as per acronis) come with a lot of services doing goodness knows what - as well as "phoning home" regularly for activation / licence issues - which always give problems at the most inconvenient moment.

In this regard Acronis is fine run from the bootable media. I didn't like the fact that the bootable Macrium software could only RESTORE an image but NOT MAKE ONE.

Taking client images (laptops etc) for single user machines should be easy and booting a stand alone backup / restore program once in a while shouldn't be a hassle.

Now backing up a NAS is another whole issue -- haven't solved that one yet -- I just have some of the multi-media files archived off to separate 2 / 3TB portable USB3 drives -- but the idea of backing up say 16TB of data (don't have it yet but NAS could easily store this amount) is another whole exercise.

BTW Samsung will shortly come out with a 10 TB SSD !!! (yes no typo !! 10 TB SSD's !!). WD already has HDD's of 10 TB.

@those who say you'll never need that much data --I think a certain wealthy and well known Mr B, Gates said once you will never need more than 640K of memory !!!).

My audio collection alone is now over 900GB (all FLAC - I HATE highly compressed music) so storage use does grow inexorably - especially as price decreases and speed increases.

@Word Man

better saying I think "The Price of education is expensive -- but the price of ignorance is Astronomical" !! -- not a dig at you of course --just commenting on your signature.

Cheers
jimbo

Word Man said:

Macrium makes images fine from bootable media - can you expand on this in case misunderstanding you?

Hi there.

I'll have another look at that -- I'm sure the FREE version had some restrictions --but it was a while ago since I last looked as I've been using Acronis bootable systems.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Hi there.

I'll have another look at that -- I'm sure the FREE version had some restrictions --but it was a while ago since I last looked as I've been using Acronis bootable systems.

Cheers
jimbo

Then maybe you should not make comments on what Macrium Reflect can or Can't do, if you don't know much about the program. It has changed a lot I guess since you used it last.

Word Man said:

Not assuming anything on how you will try it - just wanted to point out licensing terms for FREE may be different for Business versus Home use - I know the link for Business will take you to a trial version.

Absolutely correct. I was planning on using the free version as a trial to image my own laptop. Once I see how it works, such as the speed at which is creates the image, I'll get a business license.

I would not worry about speed. The imaging can happen in the background whilst you continue using the system.

I care about the speed when restoring an image from a server or external drive. I never have and never will run an imaging program that's installed on the system. I feel like that's trying to change the oil of a car while driving it on a highway. I prefer to do my imaging from outside the OS, so that's why I want it to be bootable from USB. Acronis works, but it frequently changes it's time remaining. A typical laptop for us can take 20 minutes or 2 hours...or anywhere in between, despite coming from the same drive and having roughly the same amount of data.

When I'm trying to crank out laptops, two hours is a big difference compared to twenty minutes.

That would be something for me to look in to, because much of the data is the same. Basically, I take the computer out of the box and use the MCT to upgrade the system to Windows 10. Once complete, I wipe out the drive and pay down an image, which is configured with all of our software and boots to an activated state, ready to hand over to the end user. It will be interesting to test and see what the end result is.