Acronis True Image 2010

Data Backup

Acronis True Image 2010

Verdict: A very well defined backup tool that simply blows away the competition.

Specifications

Rs 2,284

www.acronis.com

System Requirements

OS: Windows 7/Vista/XP; Processor: Pentium 1 GHz; RAM: 256 MB; Hard disk: 100 MB.

Contact Acronis

PHONE  +1 877 669-9749

Founded in the year 2000 with their primary focus on disk partitioning and boot loader software the team switched their focus to backup, recovery and disk imaging. The software came to be known as Acronis True Image and since then it has held its ground as the king of backup utilities.

The interface of this application is extremely easy to comprehend and allows you to create a backup of your whole drive as well as individual partitions and folders. The main interface gives you a brief idea of whether the application is running in the background or not. Here you can either choose to run a backup of files and folders or choose to recover partitions from a previously backed-up image. Now if you take a look at the backup options you will find it divided into four different subdivisions. The subdivisions are self explanatory and consist of basic operations such as disk backup and data backup. All operations are self explained and there is practically no hand holding required when executing various tasks. Compression levels during a backup are good and with the setting set to High, archives can be compressed to almost half their size thereby allowing you to save on precious hard disk space. Archives can also be password protected as well as encrypted using the AES method. Since a proper backup is quite large the tool also has support for archive splitting which basically helps in splitting large backups into smaller sizes thereby allowing you to carry them in CDs or DVDs. These settings can only be changed in the options menu and are only effective before performing a backup.

The latest version of Acronis True Image comes with an added feature known as the Acronis Nonstop Backup. As the name suggests this new addition backs up changes made to the partition every five minutes. This feature is more of a data backup than a disk or partition backup—a useful feature and can be used to make copies of your music, movies and important documents. The application also allows you create a bootable rescue disk that has almost all of the same features when run from Windows. Another super useful option is the Startup Recovery Manager which gets activated only when a hidden partition aptly named as Acronis Secure Zone is created. Depending on the size the hidden partition can further be used to save backup images.

You will find the Try and Decide feature rather helpful if you are the kind of person who simply loves experimenting with various software. It basically creates a secure and virtual environment in the operating system. Once started you have the freedom to make global changes to your system without causing harm to your operating system or even data. Changes to the system are only made permanent when you stop the process and agree to apply the changes. This nifty little tool even works after your machine is restarted. The only limitation to this program is that it is bound to the size of space allocated to it; thereby compelling you to make a decision between applying and disregarding the changes once you run out of space. However, if changes are many, the process will take a considerable amount of time in applying them. As brilliant as this process might look the overall performance of your machine will slow down when using this mode. Nevertheless, even with the overabundance of features Acronis True Image is easy to use. 

– sandeep.balachandran@chip.in