backup imaging software

M

mikeblas

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - May 2006
Joined
Jun 26, 2004
Messages
12,777
I'm getting a little impatient with Acronis TrueImage, and I've been thinking about getting different backup software. I have about ten machines at home which I back up onto a server. TrueImage records an image of the disk onto a RAID1 drive on one of my servers. I can use the image to restore the machine after a catastrophic failure by booting to a recovery CD. The backups are scheduled.

Can anyone recommend scheduled imaging backup software with disaster recovery? Paragon looks pretty good, and I might download the demo. Are there others that I should try?
 
I've always been happy w/Norton Ghost but I do most of my image backups to external drives (USB/eSATA), haven't tried it over the network (only one or two of my machines are usually wired, the rest are on wireless connections and that's ass for such a large transfer).
 
I guess it does what I want ... but it's hard for me to want to use a Symantec product.
 
Acronis hasn't updated TrueImage for more than six months. They used to be good about making lots of updates and iterating pretty quick, but they've apparently given that up. The UI has always been very goofy. For example, you can let a scheduled task start and see a very detailed log of its progress. If you manually start a task, you have to wait until it completes to see detailed progress. Important features are missing, and so on ...

Most recently, I found that TrueImage on one of my machines was backing up at an alarmingly slow rate. After letting it run for 12 hours, it was 4% complete on a backup of about 25 gigs (uncompressed).

I finally had time to take a look, and I'm giving TrueImage a reprieve, at least temporarily. It turns out my server had downgraded its NIC from 1000 megabits/second to 100 megabits/second. After restarting that machine, it's back to 1000 mb/s, and the backup runs in about 35 minutes as expected.

Thanks for your recommendations. I'll keep them in mind if/when TrueImage gives me grief again.
 
I finally had time to take a look, and I'm giving TrueImage a reprieve, at least temporarily. It turns out my server had downgraded its NIC from 1000 megabits/second to 100 megabits/second. After restarting that machine, it's back to 1000 mb/s, and the backup runs in about 35 minutes as expected.
Click to expand...

If you can screw-up Acronis, more power to ya.

I've used it many times since V.8 or 9, and the only times it's faltered, it's been from operator error.

I've never been shown one thing about computers since my first lappy @ 8 yrs. ago, and I have a bad habit of poking buttons "just to see what it will do".

Acronis has saved my buns many-a-time.

That's one program I actually pay for!
 
Old Hippie said:
If you can screw-up Acronis, more power to ya.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I guess--though are you talking about TrueImage, the software from Acronis, or Acronis--the whole company? Or all Acronis software products?

If you're referring to TrueImage itself, I'm not alone—the Acronis forums are full of similar complaints, and lots of people who are having problems due to the software and not operator error. While some problems have been fixed over the years (I've been using TrueImage at least as long as you have), the lack of updates for nearly a year while serious bugs still remain has been quite a concern.
 
I have been using R-Drive Image latley and have been very pleased with the results.
 
I'm curious as to what the "impatient" thing is all about, as well as the sudden need to have updates within a 6 month time frame for hard drive imaging software, so if anyone can clue me in, go for it.

I've been using True Image since before it even had an official name, as one of the original alpha compile testers, and I've never had issues with it, either the bootable CD recovery media versions nor the actual Windows-based client software across what, 11 different releases so far?

So, I'd love to hear about these so-called issues sometime... not meaning to derail the thread, but... my curiosity is certainly peaked now.
 
Did you read post #6 here, Joe? Do you spend much time in the Acronis support forum for TrueImage?
 
Yah, I read everything, but in my experience, I've never seen such issues with performance or slow imaging, hence my question. I do pop into the support forums at Acronis sometimes, but since I seem to be one of those people that just don't have issues with the product, I don't find it necessary to hang around and troubleshoot those problems people have - Acronis gets paid to do that, not me. :)
 
Then I'm afraid I'm a little lost, Joe. Since you know some of the issues I have, what is it you're asking for? Would you like me to share more details about more problems I've had? Since you point out that you won't help, what would be the benefit of going on about those issues?

I'm glad you've never had a problem, though. Good for you—I only wish I could find backup software that I was so satisfied with.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top