Windows 10: Acronis True Image Alternatives

Yeah, I'm OK with that. It's just that Darwin has more cachet and I'm mediocris persona.

 

Then maybe you should not make comments on what Macrium Reflect can or Can't do, if you don't know much about the program. It has changed a lot I guess since you used it last. *Wink

 

Absolutely correct. I was planning on using the free version as a trial to image my own laptop. Once I see how it works, such as the speed at which is creates the image, I'll get a business license.

 

I would not worry about speed. The imaging can happen in the background whilst you continue using the system.

 

I care about the speed when restoring an image from a server or external drive. I never have and never will run an imaging program that's installed on the system. I feel like that's trying to change the oil of a car while driving it on a highway. I prefer to do my imaging from outside the OS, so that's why I want it to be bootable from USB. Acronis works, but it frequently changes it's time remaining. A typical laptop for us can take 20 minutes or 2 hours...or anywhere in between, despite coming from the same drive and having roughly the same amount of data.

When I'm trying to crank out laptops, two hours is a big difference compared to twenty minutes.

 

Although I understand your primary interest will be restoring to blank (or overwriting new) disks, note that, if continuing your use after that, paid versions feature RDR (Rapid Delta Restore) where only files that have changed will be written for restores, potentially cutting restore time significantly (aside from transfer speed you actually see).

 

That would be something for me to look in to, because much of the data is the same. Basically, I take the computer out of the box and use the MCT to upgrade the system to Windows 10. Once complete, I wipe out the drive and pay down an image, which is configured with all of our software and boots to an activated state, ready to hand over to the end user. It will be interesting to test and see what the end result is.

 

I think you are just making your life more complicated. But to each their own.

 

I have tested all the major players Macrium across several devices. Macrium is always the fastest generally. Aoemi was pretty close but had some issues. Not tested Acronis recently, but it was comparable to MRF.

Today I imaged by 60GB SSD drive to an average hdd in 18 minutes or less.

Truth is for most domestic use Macrium beats the pants off the free versions (although I have yet to fully road test recent versions of aoemi). Frankly, although Acronis may be good, it is an expensive luxury for little gain.

BTW: the info that Macrium could not backup from an external drive must be at least five years old or more, as my laptop is that old, and I was using Macrium long before that.

Also the assertion that it is better to boot outside of windows to backup, is really outdated, as Macrium along with other major packages use smart sector copying now - file based backups (which could have am issue) have long been superseded.

I just backup from within windows (especially on touch devices) as one slight weakness of Macrium is that touchscreen drivers are not installed by default when booting from Macrium.

 

How so? Is there a step I can skip in that process?

 

That's good to know, but is there a better way to handle my methods? I prefer wiping the drives clean to ensure all the Dell pre-installed junk is removed. Seems like that would take long to manually install the OS, then Macrium to pull down an image.

 

For one you should install the imaging program so that you can image in the background. Nothing bad will happen because the imaging program freezes the image at the beginning.

 

Hi there

slightly OT but also important so I hope the OP doesn't mind.

All you guys with things like NAS boxes etc -- how do you back those up, what program would you use and what do you back them up to --it's quite common for these systems to have 12 TB of storage or so -- or do you simply rely on RAID etc so your HDD's will never (???) lose data.

Since the HDD's are usually swappable a replacement server if it gets damaged isn't an issue as you can replace the HDD's into the new one but what about loss of the entire server plus HDD's due perhaps to Fire / theft / flood etc. The small Microervers are actually quite desirable and potentially very stealable -- I've carried one on a public Bus so they are portable (reasonably).

A faulty HDD in a decent RAID array can be replaced usually without losing data but I'm still sure these systems should be backed up in some way or other.

I'm sure you won't ne using cloud servers for 12 TB of backup - especially from HOME systems - however fast your internet speed is.

Cheers
jimbo

 

That's the part I'm confused about. Why would I want to install it on a computer that is right out of the box with the OEM image? How would the installed software pull down and restore an image on a drive that needs to be wiped clean?

 

I have a 6 TB NAS at home, and I back up all the data on it to external drives or cloud services. Much of our content is digital photos, so we store them in a Zenfolio account ($50 annually). Disc images and software are copied to an external 2 TB drive. RAID is great for keeping data online and available, but there's an old saying...RAID is not a backup. RAID doesn't protect you from file deletions or overwrites, so RAID alone isn't enough to truly make your data safe.