Windows 7: 10 Commercial Disk Imaging Software - Speed Comparision

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What a peculiar review.

No attention whatsoever paid to resource usage.

Obviously if you jack up ram and cpu usage,. plus have several services running in the background - the backup will be faster.

Why use "default" settings if conducting a speed test. Normal/default means different things to different software designers.

I set each to it's highest possible speed - then checked the resource usage.

My own tests reached the opposite conclusion.

I set each app. to normal/medium compression, and the highest priority ( speed) .

Paragon does not have a high priority setting - so obviously was not fast at 13 mins , with average cpu use 11-12%.

Macrium was extremely fast at 6mins 30 and average cpu 22-23%.

Acronis was fairly fast at 7 mins 30 mins - but cpu usage was around 39%.

Clear winner is Macrium - twice the speed of Paragon at about twice the cpu use.

Paragon can't be sped up, sadly, but cpu usage relative to speed is good - no trouble working over the top of it during backup.

Acronis does allow speed adjustment, but is not as fast as Macrium , yet by far the most resource intense.

There was some difference in the backup image size , which should be be taken into account, but not much - with again Macrium doing very well.

Your system may be different - and of course , the features each provides may appeal to different people.

Agreed, and not least because it hardly brushes the surface...

Not in my books, for instance it can't even read/reload Windows native backups!

Why not compare an earlier, leaner, version of TrueImage against Macrium (which has about the same number of features as one or two of the TrueImage builds circa v8 or v9) then I think the results would come out somewhat differently...

Is the clear winner in terms of SPEED. That is the headline of the article.

Features are a different matter. As are old versions of particular products - which would likely have fewer features anyway. The article compares relatively current versions that most people will be using - or about to buy now. It is not relevant to that to talk about old versions, obviously.

I clearly pointed that out:

You are not by any chance , an Acronis lover - rattled by the apparently adverse results?

Don't be. Use whatever you like. Every purchase of any product is a matter of personal choice, involving many factors.

One major reason I use Paragon products (mainly) is the astonishing support. That may not be important to someone else.


Please yourself.

Key ingredient missing: Acronis works every time, all the time!

Are you sure?

No program ever invented does that.

Just google it.

Another major reason I use Paragon (mostly) is that for me - there has always been total reliability.

The Paragon apps. sailed thru all the various beta builds of 7 I tried over the past year or so. I can't say the same for other imaging apps.

Gives a feeling of robustness and confidence in the apps.

You might prefer something else. Fine - up to you.

Sorry, can't speak to those who are un-initiated/inexperienced. You click/select the right settings/options and Acronis does it right. I've tried 4 of the products listed, Acronis is the one that works.

This is the most sensible thing I've ever seen posted when it comes to software.

I have used Acronis for years, it has never let me down. That is all that matters to me. Yet there are people who probably wouldn't even have it on their machines.

Good - if it works for you, as they say...

In category Backup from Windows the winner is: ATI
In category Backup and Restore from Rescue Disk the winner is: ShadowProtect Desktop