Acronis True Image

Simon_Says · Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 7:10 pm Post subject: Acronis True Image

So I've been away for almost a week now, and the Panda Samurai is announcing story time! Gather round the fire children!

The reason I've been away is, as some may know, that I was overhauling my computer network to new servers, new protection, some new hardware, etc. I decided, what the hell, so I got to work on re-installing Windows on my computer, and my network account/profile, from scratch. It's been a royal pain in the ass yet a beautiful spring-cleaning. So I’m here to share one of my discoveries over the past week: Acronis True Image. This program is teh cheese. That's good in case you're wondering.

Most of us should know that you should backup your files. There are programs that allow you to back up your entire system. Norton Ghost is one of these, and it was my program of choice for years. I could back up my entire hard drive, keep it on the network or on DVD, tucked away safe and snug, until my computer acted up on me, and then I could just restore to a backup.

Then I remember that the program does not support hardware RAID. The new versions support software RAID, but software RAID sucks plain and simple. I was stuck, so I started searching if there were any hacks to make RAID work with NG (Norton Ghost). Vague mentions at best, but one of the first things that I came across was the mention of Acronis True Image. I decided to check it out. I got the demo, and was absolutely awestruck at the simplicity and aesthetics of the program. I purchased it immediately.

True Image was written on Linux software, but works perfectly with windows. Just burn a boot disk, load it, and before windows loads, True Image will pop up offering the options. After selecting to run the program, you can either make a backup, load a backup, and much more. True Image is very well designed, I seriously think a monkey could use it.

The real fun begins when you actually begin to backup your system. It took this baby less than 10 minutes to back up 7 GB, something that took hours with Ghost. Restoring a system took about the same time. I must stress that this was on a RAID system, and as such single drive machines may take even less time to back up.

I was absolutely blown away. True Image takes a dildo, and slaps Ghost into submission. There is no equal to this fine piece of code. I love it, the $60 tag was worth it (especially considering how Norton Ghost 9.0 is about $100, and inferior in every respect), I’m never gonna leave it. I am now Acronis’ bitch. Get Acronis True Image NOW. You’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

You can download it here!
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