Buy Now...

click image to enlarge

I usually just install the latest version on my work machine and continue my regime of weekly full backups. Being a belt and braces person, I also do separate backups for emails and for any work in progress files.

The first week all was fine and I determined to look deeper after week two, the trouble is week two produced a problem that I found quite major, the backup proceeds my backup takes around 90 minutes and I have got into the habit of doing it over an extended lunch break on Friday’s. The trouble is it never quite completed, on the second run through I kept a close watch and rather than flag up a problem it just starts again.

I found the problem was that the external drive I was backing up to had just not enough space, this is something that happens from time to time and I had got lazy expecting Acronis – as with past versions – to warn me at the start or say so at the finish, neither seem to happen with this new version which I call a fairly large B U G.

See also: Backups

more

Sure when late on Friday I gave it more space to backup to all was fine as it was the next week and also last week but it has shaken me.

I contacted the Acronis PR Company who passed this on to Acronis and I am waiting to hear back from them.

The advantage Acronis has over most other backup programs is that even if you get to a stage where Windows cannot boot you should be able to do a restore even if it’s with the aid of a CD-ROM that you made to enable it to boot and after a while you should be back to whenever you made your last backup.

It can also allow you to restore a single folder or file just click on the last backup – or an earlier one if that’s got the file or folder you need – and you see a representation like you would with File Manager and you just select the file or folder you want you then choose where it is restored to.

If you have upgraded from an earlier version all your earlier backups will still be available to restore.

The default setting used to be once a full backup was made to then do an incremental backup but that could have problems. So the default is now to do a full backup in one weeks’ time, I would prefer if it defaulted to no repeat, it’s easy enough to change but you have to remember to go to options and untick a box. You can of course backup more often and there are other choices.

While I still use Acronis on my work machine the BUG mentioned has made me feel less secure and that might lead you to see what the $%^& I can always do a full reinstall but instead of the backup that takes an hour or so even if you can locate all your disks this is likely to take several days and then you still have to do all the updates and how did I get it to set so and so up as I liked, no I think I will still do my weekly backups and just take a little more care before I start.

There are several versions available either as a subscription or an outright purchase for 1, 3 or 5 machines with or without Cloud as an option.

Acronis True Image 2017 is available from Amazon for three machines for £86.46 at the time of publication.