Acronis True Image Home

2.0 stars

"Can't recommend. Loads slow. Support no help."

February 25, 2013  |   By Fort37

Version: Acronis True Image Home 2013

Pros

Once the program loads up it performs backups and restores as expected. Lots of choices of backup methods etc. Nice interface.

Cons

Takes over my computer. Hogs all the resources. Need to use Task Manager to cancel operation. Even after it loads up (5 minutes) it takes the same amount of time (5 minutes) to active my choice of backup. Once this is done the program seems to work fine. Had a number of long onml;ine chats with tech support. Let them remote control my system and they saw the same things I was seeing. They eventually passed it up to "expert" support who emailed me and asked for system dumps etc. I did all they asked and have not heard back in over a month. I emailed once and they said they are working the problem and that it may take a long time. That's all I've heard from them so far. Could be getting a runaround only time will tell.

Summary

I am considering another back up software "Macriun Reflect" as they have a free version that runs on my 64bit Win 7 system without a problem. May upgrade to the full version which is similar in capability to ATIH 2013. It's a shame because I have always liked Acronis but it looks like this latest version has a way to go before it is usable. And all the reports of poor support have me thinking of moving on.

Updated on Feb 25, 2013

Ironically, just after posting this I got an email from Acronis expert support. Apparently the person handling my issue is no longer with Acronis. The new expert advised me the issue was related to the enumeration of my cd/dvd devices and offered three possible solutions. One was to disable the cd/dvd devices prior to launching ATIH 2013. I tried that and it solved the problem! Subsequently after some trial and error I found that one of my three cd/dvd devices was the cause of the problem. I have removed that device and now Acronis is running like it should. So I must give them kudos for good tech support and now I can recommend this software. Perhaps those having a similar issue can try disabling your cd/dvd devices and see if it solves your problem as well.

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2.0 stars

"Not Recommended"

February 16, 2013  |   By digitalfirestudios

Version: Acronis True Image Home 2013

Pros

Nice interface, useful features, legacy reputation was good.

Cons

Painfully Slow, No uninstall, unexplained activity, hijacks Windows, upgrade issues with older image files, poor support.

Summary

Years ago, this used to be the backup software to beat. Now it's one of the worse I've used lately. First, I have no respect for any software that doesn't include a proper uninstall procedure. There are many times when this is necessary, not just because I don't particularly care for it. This alone is unprofessional and a reason to stay away!!

Once installed, it is painfully slow and reports errors on some USB connected drives. For example, I have a WD external drive that I "know" is in perfect shape but during it's scan, True Image reports an error with a negative sector number that is outside the range of sectors available on the drive. Then it makes you wait, and wait, and wait, only to tell you the same thing again. It takes 20-minutes to get through a scan in my case...20-minutes!!

It also does this lengthy scan for every tool you try to use instead of scanning once and storing the information temporarily in RAM while you use the software, or at least only scanning when necessary as the result of a change in drives or geometry. The timeout for errors is a lengthy 10-minutes and cannot be adjusted any lower and in fact, doesn't actually work. I've personally seen errors stay on the screen until you responded to them in excess of 30-minutes. Cancelling any function also does not work except, and only in the case of performing a backup. You cannot for example, cancel a scan that's going on for 15-minutes. I've had two crashes for unknown reasons with no explanations.

In an attempt to install a new 3-TB drive, this software could not successfully create a partition, format that partition, and make it available for use. In my particular case, it "appeared" to create the partition, format it, but upon rebooting (which it took over an hour...doing something with no indication of what), nothing was done. This is a brand-new drive with no data.

I actually, and regrettably, purchased the latest version which requires you to be online and logged-in to get support which is only through various forums. If you want to get someone on the phone and on a weekend, forget it.

My system is very robust (used for HD video editing with Adobe AE, Sony Vegas, etc) and I'm a power-user with strong technical knowledge so with all due respect to others, many of these issues have nothing to do with 'user error'. The fact is that nobody should have to spend this much time on system maintenance, backup software should be simple enough to set and forget, be reliable and have the ability to be uninstallable when necessary. Acronis True Image 2013 fails tremendously on all these points.

I'm sure others may have different, perhaps better experiences with this software than I have and that's great. However if you're considering this software and have not purchased it yet, my recommendation is for you to look elsewhere!

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1.0 stars

"Acronis True Image Home 2013"

February 2, 2013  |   By kawasik

Version: Acronis True Image Home 2013

Pros

Absolutely Nothing!

Cons

Tech & Customer Support very very bad! Stay far far ways from this product! **WARNING** after 60 days no support what so ever they will make you pay for support period!

Summary

I'm a IT professional. I was trying out this software on my own network computers. I purchased 6 copies. I have been busy with work. I really didn't know for a awhile that I had an issue with one of the computers. At first I thought it was on my end. Well come to find out it was not on my end at all. I went to get some support. I was told time after time. I need to pay for support because my free support had ran out, really after 60 days really? They would not budge one bit! I said really, I bought 6 copies of your software & you can't help me with one problem. They just blew me off!
I uninstalled all copies of this software & went with Norton Ghost which is working flawless. Which I must say has much much better product & support by a long shot!

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5.0 stars

"One of the Best System Backup tool"

January 29, 2013  |   By salmanshah123

Version: Acronis True Image Home 2013

Pros

Simple Interface which makes it easy to use, extremely fast and its compression capability is superb. It compressed 24GB data into 9GB in only 7 mins! That is impressive.

Cons

I have faced any problem while backing up my system.
I have not restored it yet. So I can't tell about its restore performance.

Summary

waiting to restore.

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1.0 stars

"Awful,really slow,buggy. Manual = longwinded & useless."

January 25, 2013  |   By Gold60

Version: Acronis True Image Home 2013

Pros

Could not tell if it was working so did not observe any Pros

Cons

It locked up my W7 system so that it would not shut down (after 9 hours of waiting with no apparent activity).
Uninstall failed. I had to use Widows System Restore to get rid of it. This in turn meant I had to reinstall Norton 360.

Summary

That is the end of Acronis for me.

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2.0 stars

"Nonstop backup does not work reliably"

January 21, 2013  |   By vomako2012

Version: Acronis True Image Home 2013

Pros

Nice user interface

Cons

Nonstop backup worked for a few days and then it stopped working. I deleted the backup and created a new one. It worked again for a few days and then it stopped working.

Summary

I expect a backup solution to be more reliable.

Updated on Jan 24, 2013

From my point of view, Acronis support has been, in two cases I chatted with them, incompetent (if I provided the chat protocol, I guess everyone would agree) and unreliable (e.g., they did not call back at the agreed time).

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4.0 stars

"Simple, reliable, does the job"

December 12, 2012  |   By stephendufton

Version: Acronis True Image Home 2013

Pros

This is 1 of 4 backup software packages I tried out. Its pretty straight forward, though I found the opening screen rather confusing. It is also pretty efficient - I don't notice it running ( I have a desktop machine) and it does a full backup of everything on the machine in around 2 hours. The main pro for me is the number of options available for the back up. I need to keep only one back up and have limited space. So I set the backup to overwrite the existing backup each time it runs. This was not possible with the other three products - all of the failed because of lack of disk space. I checked out the backup a couple of times. No problems and it is very easy to retrieve just part of the backup.

Cons

The interface seems more confusing than it needs to be . It took 2 or 3 attempts to get the back up strategy that I needed working. Yet once I understood what was needed, it was simple and straightforward. Its a bit pricey

Summary

good product

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5.0 stars

"Flawless, I wonder about the critics?"

December 5, 2012  |   By Randy Bell

Version: Acronis True Image Home 2013

Pros

Works flawlessly in Windows 7. Will read all older True-Image formats. Whoever said it would not is all wet, no offense. I can, with Acronis 2013, even read and validate old image archives via my home network, that were created with Acronis TI 10.0, the version of Acronis released in 2006.

Cons

You need to have some disk space and adequate RAM to run this program. When not running a task, it takes up very little resources (memory & CPU).

Summary

This is the consummate imaging suite, the cadillac of suites that are out there. Well worth it; and you can shop around to get discounts at places like eBay or Amazon, and other online shopping sites for computer software.

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1.0 stars

"Bloated, Bug-ridden and Dangerous!"

November 24, 2012  |   By Lemcom

Version: Acronis True Image Home 2013

Pros

True Image has a very nice looking user interface with well designed graphics (apart from that ugly 'Get Started' screen with hand-drawn images).

It's fairly intuitive to use.

It has a good range of options to select during backups and restore.

Boot CD loads quickly and usually detects most devices.

Cons

It's Bloated: Each year more useless rubbish is added just to keep the Marketing Department happy.

It's Slow: It brings my 6 month old Intel i5 laptop with 8GB RAM to a crawl. You should not need to use the very latest top-end hardware just to be able to back up your files.

It's Invasive. It hooks into the operating system in all sorts of unnecessary ways. It removes standard Windows features and gives you no control over the level of shell integration.

It's badly programmed. It uses all sorts of legacy proprietary filters when it could instead use standard Windows ones (which would be much safer). Developers flatly refuse to address this issue.

It's Dangerous. This program FREQUENTLY stops working for no reason, and it can trash your system if you try to uninstall it (gets stuck in infinite loops or constant Blue Screen crashes).

Unhelpful Staff. If you dare to complain about any of these issues, your comments will be deleted from the Acronis forum (and you may get banned too).

Summary

A potentially good program ruined by a Marketing Department who is only interested in having new features to list each year and by Developers who refuse to acknowledge the poor decisions that have been made with the code base.

Unhelpful and dismissive customer "support" leaves you without assistance when you most need it.

Save yourself a lot of hassle and avoid all Acronis software. There are now many much better alternatives to use instead.

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