Macrium vs Acronis True Home Image 2011

I use Acronis True Image 2010 and it's been solid for me. The Try and Decide feature was worth it to me. Takes a snapshot of hard drive, then you can play with whatever you want and at end, you can discard the changes and go right back to where you were. I got the software for $23.99 and it's been good for me. I don't really make use of incremental backups, but it has it.

I do use Macrium at work and it works out good for that purpose.

OldMX said:

I went from Acronis True Image to Clonezilla to PING and now to Macrium Free, eventually all of them failed me on several critical scenarios, now, with Macrium, its been a couple of months trouble free.

Hmmm...I wonder if you are doing something fundamentally wrong. Or have a very complex scenario that it cannot handle. I've used Acronis, Clonezilla and Macrium Free all without issue. Never had one crap out and leave me stranded.

On a complexity scale, Ghost is 8, Acronis is 6 and Macrium is 3 (1 is best). I needed 1 year to understand Ghost, a couple of months for Acronis and a couple of days for Macrium. But there is also free Paragon which is nice. It really depends how much time you want to invest to understand the programs. They all do the job. And the free versions normally suffice - no need to spend money.

BTW: the Windows native imaging would get a 20 on my above scale - what a dog.

It depends on your use. For the main drive the system image option in 7 has proven itself reliable for a full year at both creating and restoring images.

Acronis WD free version tested and later full retail; Excellent for making images of and restoring to a second OS drive. ATI(ironic isn't it when abbreviated ) allow you to mount an image that will appear as a second C drive to add or remove files from an existing image. WD and Seagate provide their own free version of the Disk Director suite.

Ghost and Paragon never tried. Macrium free failed following unplug and replug as well as drive letter change labeling image as invalid when looked at.

GeneO said:

Go look at all of the problems and complaints on the Acronis support pages.

Of course, you can hit any companies website and see problems and complaints listed.

GeneO said:

I was fine with TIH 10 but it didn't support Windows 7 so I bought 2011 and it was awful.

The only version of Acronis that I have ever purchased was True Image Home 2010 and I bought it specifically for Windows 7. According to the acronis knowledge base, it says 2010 supports Windows 7 (All versions).Operating Systems Acronis True Image Home 2010 Supports | Knowledge Base. I'm unsure what information you were given that says TIH 2010 is not supported on Windows 7.

GeneO said:

They wouldn't even let me substitute TIH 2010 for 2011 - their loss. IOW, save your money.

Most software companies won't give you an older version than what they are currently offering to customers. If you buy Windows 7, they won't substitute Windows XP for you if you don't like it.

whs said:

On a complexity scale, Ghost is 8, Acronis is 6 and Macrium is 3 (1 is best). I needed 1 year to understand Ghost, a couple of months for Acronis and a couple of days for Macrium.

For me, I would say that Acronis and Macrium are more or less the same in terms of complexity. Both seem really really simple to me.

Perhaps a lot depends upon your system configuration. For me, it's always used on a computer with a single hard drive for the C drive, with 1 operating system installed. When I perform a restore, I pretty much always restore the C partition as well as the MBR for that drive.