Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 Advanced Workstation for Windows

User Reviews

• Backup utility that's priced like an OS

  compdocMay 3, 2010

  Pros

  Usually does a good job of creating and restoring drive images, with central management, scheduling, iSCSI device support, password protection, tape drive support, ?Deduplication?, and a few other features.

  Cons

  Version 10 licenses are pricey and a critical feature has been removed from the bootable CD: disk cloning. Restores sometimes fail with no explanation. The bootable CD can fail to work with certain video cards, making backups impossible.

  Summary

  Acronis Advanced Workstation has many features, and includes components that can be installed on a central computer to help you schedule and manage the backups of the computers on your network. With Windows 7 and Linux support, it covers a lot of what your IT person is looking for. This product creates backup images of the drives on your computer. This differs from file-based backups in that the images can be restored directly to a new hard drive should the old drive fail, getting your system up and running again quickly without the need to reinstall the Operating System (OS) by hand first. When it works, it works well. But when it fails you can end up with nothing - not even an explanation of why. And there are other problems? The 'Deduplication' option can make your backups smaller - useful if you have limited storage space. But the 'Universal Restore' has never worked well for me. Supposedly, it can help you move Windows to new hardware. However, you will still run afoul of Microsoft?s Windows Product Activation (WPA) when Windows finds itself on a new system, and I?m not sure how it?s better than the free Sysprep utility that Microsoft gives away. Workstation Version 9 had disk-to-disk cloning on its bootable CD, which was an important feature when moving an OS from a failing hard drive to a new drive, or when moving your OS and data to a larger drive. Unfortunately, version 10 lacks this feature. You can still move an OS to a new drive, but it has to be done over your network making it slow and prone to failure when moving large volumes of data. And one thing you need to be careful of when using this product: there is a folder it creates named '.meta ' where it stores files containing important information about your backup images. This folder is hidden and permissions protected, and the names of the files inside are impossible to associate with the files of the backup images. You have to use the file creation date and time to determine which backup it belongs to. Acronis needs to end the practice of hiding this information from its customers. The base price for version 10 is $99 per computer, which is a lot for a backup utility. And if you add the Deduplication and Universal Restore options, you're looking at $134. This is in the same price range as Windows 7 Professional -which is kind of nuts when you think about it. You could save yourself a lot of money if you just bought a 2nd hard drive for $50, and used it for RAID 1 mirroring for real-time, 24/7 protection.<br /><br /><span class='notifyMsg'> Updated </span>on Nov 20, 2010<p/>This program no longer works properly after the last few releases. It does not support AHCI, which is the bios option that enables the advanced features of your SATA hard drive, and the boot CD that is used to create full backups is so screwed up now I would not recommend this program to anyone...

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• Use the old Echo True Image Workstation version instead

  jpeniSeptember 18, 2009

  Pros

  The program claims the following functions: Event-based backup Comprehensive recovery options Unique Acronis Secure Zone and Startup Recovery Manager Advanced backup scheduling with policy-based management

  Cons

  Acronis has taken the well-designed old version of Echo True Image Workstation and rewritten the backup and restore functions into a complex, limited and extremely non user-friendly program that makes simple bare metal restore annoying.

  Summary

  I use and depend on the old version of Echo True Image Workstation created by Acronis, but this new constipated version of a backup and restore program changes my trust and respect for Acronis products. I witnessed the same misdirected rewriting of good programs into user-unfriendly crap by Norton and Symantec....I was hoping Acronis would not be the same.

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• GoodGoodGoodGood

  JorgeCMNLMay 29, 2009

  Pros

  GoodGoodGoodGoodGood

  Cons

  GoodGoodGoodGoodGoodGood

  Summary

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• Inferior to Home 2009 version. I do not recommend this.

  bcauldApril 8, 2009

  Pros

  Did a fine job of cloning a disk, BUT, wiped out the original. Did a fine job of restoring a drive, BUT, wiped out the original.

  Cons

  Clears original when cloning. Clears original when restoring. Has no option to cycle a specified no. of full backups or differential backups.

  Summary

  There are other features in this app, which are mostly network/server related, that I have not tried. I got this by accident with a Dell computer and tried to use it as a workstation. Not a good idea. I will either try to get Acronis to downgrade me to Home 2009, or buy a Home 2009 and give this away. Home 2009 is a marvellous product... best of breed

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• Nice gui, but device recognition?

  MisnomerSeptember 27, 2007

  Pros

  Cons

  Didn't recognize a drive with a different file system.

  Summary

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• Very helpfull!!!

  fredy_simpJuly 25, 2007

  Pros

  I love Acronis products. Use it in different ways: backup my dt, clone hd, protect my pc from spyware and so on. This utility is very useful for me, it allows to backup users pcs without timeouts in work. I realy like it.

  Cons

  Summary

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• This is the BEST HD Image Copier HANDS DOWN!

  Robert KMay 30, 2007

  Pros

  My XP hard drive was failing (S.M.A.R.T. warning) and was barely loading my operating system... but it did. Nothing I tried would give me a successful copy of the drive but this program. The new drive works exactly as the old one before it began falling apart, super fast performance and all. Everything is there. I can't recommend it high enough. Very well thought out program, EASY interface, basically wizards you right through with logical explanations. <p>Forget Norton Ghost. This is the one you want.

  Cons

  There is nothing not to like.

  Summary

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• Good for everyday backups!

  gpenegarMay 27, 2007

  Pros

  This is a very nice program for backing up email or your entire drive to an external HD. Very easy to use.

  Cons

  Acronis will not backup to DVD creating a bootable image for an easy reinstall of your system from a DVD. I found Paragon Drive Backup a much better solution. It worked better and would image directly to a bootable DVD for full system recovery.

  Summary

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• BEST SOFTWARE I HAVE EVER USED

  cool_as_cebuMarch 2, 2007

  Pros

  Without any doubt whatsoever this is the best utility product I have ever used, in fact, probably my #1 software application I have ever used & tested. <p> <p>As a computer user I am very aware of the devastating havoc that viruses, hackers & plain old software corruption can have on your system. I use many products for pc security such as Faronics Deep Freeze, Comodo firewall, Avast anti-virus, 'hi-jack this', & several spyware programs... Even then, you're NOT SAFE!!! Some kids using my pc the other day managed to load a trojan horse that disabled even Deep Freeze. <p> <p>No problem, boot with Acronis' emergency disk. Select the back-up image & within about 20 minutes the computer is completely back to normal!!! I'm so confident with this product that I'll even do a lot of software testing, after I finish rather than delete the programs one by one & leave junk in the regsitry, I'll just wipe & start again with my Acronis image. <p> <p>Works like magic every time. I can't recommend this product enough.

  Cons

  Only unbelievably stupid thing about this product is that it can't see 'hidden files'. I actually made the acronis back-up image hidden so that others wouldn't delete it, unfortunately also, even a passworded back-up image CAN be deleted easily. <p> <p>Anyhow, when I loaded the Acronis boot disk it couldn't see the hidden file! This is a strange thing for a utility program! Anyway, the changed the file back to normal visibility & no problem. <p> <p>Still, a brilliant product.

  Summary

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• Great Product

  RayfredFebruary 14, 2007

  Pros

  Does exactly what it says. Easy to use like all acronis products that I have tried recently. Best backup software that I have ever used. If like me you are only a home user using windows xp. Then I would suggest visiting the acronis website and trying True Image 10 as it's $30 cheaper.

  Cons

  They say it will backup to DVD. But I have only ever been able to backup to CD.

  Summary

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