Giving up Acronis in favour of FREE AOMEI

I just started using this also, found it in Brinks tutorial on the win8 fourm.

besb said:

Hi Jimbo, I can vouch for AOMEI, I have been using it for over 3 years.
Also has SSD optimization.
I clone drives as backup - just switch drives should one fail, much quicker than restoring images!!
I can only recall one failure which was attempting to clone a Toshiba satellite drive running W8.1
Not sure of the exact failure report but it was something about having too many partititions.
Windows MBR, OS , Hidden recovery, Data, another hidden partion; or something like that.
I had to restore from a backup image as you correctly suggest.

I do the same, using Cloning as my scheduled every 2 week HDD backup. I also Image occasionally for redundancy in the event of a Cloning issue encountered.

Have you used AOMEI with the Win 10 beta builds?

davehc said:

besb "much quicker than restoring images" Lol. I love that and admire your skill - no sarcasm. It takes me about ten minutes to undo all those minute screws on a laptop, my image is usually done by then.

I have 2 SATA Hot-Swap Racks installed in my Desktop tower which eliminates the time required for accessing the internal case. The HDD's remove/install like a CD/DVD disc.

jimbo45 I am using it on one of my laptops running windows 10 pro 10130. really like it and have done a few recoveries with it on several different versions of 10. also Dude helped me with a partition rearrangement and I used AOEMI parted very easy to figure out and have used to reconfigure to get my old D: revovery partion back.
Shipinomore

jimbo45 said:

Hi there

I've been trying out the FREE version of AOMEI backup -- seems to have everything I need including Differentials / incrementals , explore Images, disk / partition / file backup restore / image checking, Linux partitions etc.

Can also disable VSS when running on Windows -- sometimes I've had problems with things like Macrium with VSS. AOMEI can use it's own internal locking if backing up while Windows is running.

Seems quite fast too.

I like the clean interface as well. I might well switch to this one after I've given it a robust trial. I was a long time user of Acronis but it seems to be sliding downhill at the moment - I never realized at how much has been removed from AT2105 even though it has a slightly better interface than ATH2014.

Anyway I suggest if you want a decent FREE backup utility which is far better than FREE Macrium and which runs on Windows as well as a bootable stand alone version I suggest you try it.

(Before RESTORING ensure you have a restorable image from another system you've tried -- I don't think there's any problem but it pays to be safe when testing a new product like this -- also backup and restore an image initially that doesn't have critical data (e.g don't start with the OS).

AOMEI Windows Backup, Cloning, and Recovery Software

Cheers
jimbo

This is what I have found with AOMEI -
Make sure you have a backup of your configuration. Mine sometimes deletes it then you have no backup jobs. Without the config. backup you'll have to re-enter all your jobs again.
I have talked to the Tech. Support they didn't even know about this.

I like Macriun Reflect. I used Acronis in the past and did not like it.

topgundcp

Thanks for the AOMEI startup/repair info.

I use Macrium (free ver) for both of my Win 7x64 PC's and a family member's XP PC. Works well for me.

Has anyone tried AMOEI, Macrium, or another familiar-named Cloning/Imaging tool with the Win 10 builds and verified Cloning or Image-restoring to a bare-metal recovery bootable HDD replacement and successfully booting into Win 10?

Hi there

Although as the the starter of this thread I now actually use my Linux server to backup all my Windows images -- the reason for this is that my Linux server is running 24 hrs a day 7 days a week as my primary file / printer / media server and has around 8 TB of free storage on it.

However on the road it's still useful to have a decent program that can be run from a USB stick / drive so you can restore say a laptop if you have to.


With all the various W10 builds at the moment I find it easier to run a backup schedule from the Linux server (CRONTAB) so my whole network just gets backed up daily without me having to bother about it. I've enough HDD space now.


The only time my Linux server gets re-booted is if I'm adding certain bits of new hardware (not often). - My current server has been running now for nearly ONE YEAR without a re-boot. !!!


However for all readers of this thread -- Whatever you use ALWAYS ENSURE YOU HAVE ADEQUATE BACKUP --so many problems can be solved and a LOT OF TIME saved by simply taking backups before updates / software installs --should only take about 15 mins to image a system these days --ALWAYS KEEP THE OS ON A SEPARATE DRIVE / PARTITION.

Cheers
jimbo