Is Acronis Really That Good

dmorris68: Sorry, but TI's usual mode of operation has always been sector-based. I'm quite sure Acronis support will confirm this.
One of many snippets on the web: "...Acronis True Image is a sector-based backup solution. Acronis True Image uses checksums in order to check the sectors for changes...".
TI offers some additional modes - file/folder backup, sector-by-sector.
Most imaging tools work sector-based because image-creation is much faster than file-based. File-based is more efficient for deploying and can provide smarter features.
AFAIK sector-based doesn't mean it'll have to backup each and every sector. TI is smart enough to backup only those sectors which are used by files or have changed in incremental mode.
"Sector-by-Sector" ist just a special mode you definitly have to use if TI can't understand a foreign or encrypted file system. E.g. TrueCrypt partitions can only be backed up sector-by-sector since TI only sees random garbage from its point of view. I did backup such encrypted partitions - works but backup size is always the whole partition size, no matter how much space is actually used.

 

dmorris68,

Glad to hear you are happy with Acronis. Since I started this thread have done a lot of research. Bought TI11, successfully created a SZ on my Vaio's hard drive, made an image to it, and will buy a Seagate 500GB FreeAgent external USB drive. Am learning VERY slowly what to and not to do during file backups and restores.

Question is: When you do any image backup and then restore to an external drive, do you need to do it through the Acronis bootable cd or can you use Windows? Have heard both ways mentioned. I assume other backups or saves can be done similar to how I save to my thumb drive. Don't plan on doing incrementals or differentials.

Reason I ask is I tried to see if TI could read my usb ports by plugging my thumb drive into one. It's FAT32. It did not see it through Windows, but did through the Acronis recovery cd. I don't know if that is the way it works when I get the external drive or if I am doing something wrong. I think I have to use Acronis for any type of backup to the external drive, since it has no backup software of it's own. IE can't just drag and drop between my laptop's C: drive and the external.

Thanks for any help,

Ken

 

If that's what you're referring to, then I agree with you. When you said "sector based," I assumed you were referring to what TI calls "sector-by-sector." Yes, the data is generally backed up at the sector level, rather than the file level (although TI supports file level backups too). However fragmentation should not be an issue, because only those sectors flagged as in-use should be imaged, whether they are contiguous or not. Not to mention on an NTFS filesystem, fragmentation is marginal compared to FAT filesystems. I almost never defrag NTFS filesystems, and have never had an issue with any version of TI with a fragmented drive.

Restores can be done to any drive from within Windows. If there are any conflicts, such as trying to restore the OS drive itself, TI will tell you to reboot, and it will restore the image during the boot process (the same way Windows will wait until reboot to run CHKDSK /F on a system drive). If you're restoring to an external drive, such as one from another system that you've connected via USB, it should restore from Windows just fine as long as there are no files open on the disk (TI needs exclusive access to the drive, so nothing else can have anything opened on it, including Recycle Bin or System Restore). Typically, I use my rescue CD for everything, since I don't have to keep Acronis installed, although you do have to install it at least once *somewhere* in order to burn the rescue CD.

As far as USB support, TI supports all USB drives I've plugged into it. It should support any type of drive supported by Windows (when in Windows mode) or by Linux (when in rescue CD mode), including flash drives. I've never seen it refuse a USB drive yet, in either mode. It's strange that it couldn't see your FAT32 flash drive from Windows, but I've had issues before where hot-swapped drives didn't show up in Windows. It was usually caused by something (like a drive mapping) that interfered with the drive letter that Windows wanted to assign to the flash. You might try going into Disk Manager and changing the drive letter on the flash drive, then re-running TI to see if it recognizes it.

 

Thanks dmorris68,

I'll leave the thumb drive as is. I may mess up trying to change drive letters. I only backup to the thumb drive from windows anyway. I'll get the Seagate and see how things work. I'll post if I have any problems with it.


Ken