Which backup program is best? An unbiased opinion, please.

So very true for many of us. Acronis in the TrueImage Window sums it up nicely. It says "Compute with Confidence". You need not learn anything if you have mastered the art of creating and restoring Disk Images.

jumanji said:

pparks1 said:

..... I don't even hardly troubleshoot problems, I just restore images.

This method has worked great for for years. YMMV.

Same here. I haven't made any System Repair Disk. I do not know how to run Startup Repair - I get amused to read it has to be run three times and honestly I never bothered to know how to start Windows in Safe mode, clean boot and all that trouble-shooting process. Yep, that is the power of backing up.

I just remember richnrockville's mantra - 1. Backup 2. Backup and 3.Backup.:) And you will never come to grief.

Our of the three I have used in the past few years, Acronis, Windows 7 and Macrium, I still use the last two. I just restore a system image with macrium last night as a matter of fact.

What caused you to give up using Acronis? Any special reasons?

GeneO said:

Our of the three I have used in the past few years, Acronis, Windows 7 and Macrium, I still use the last two. I just restore a system image with macrium last night as a matter of fact.

My opinion is bias,
However currently I am enjoying ... somewhat Windows 7 Image backup.
For about 3 years i was using Acronis, then on their last version i was angry and my system ended up having terrible shutdown times. It would take about hours (2-8 hours) to shutdown. My system image wasnt that big either it was about 800GBs originally and about <400 once compressed and ready for backup.

Acronis was really good, they had a good GUI, Fast and Easy. Many useful and helpful tools. They still have those tools however with my system i encounter inconvininces.

Today i am using Win 7 System Image utility

Unbiased then

File folder backup:
Sync Toy, Windows 7 inbuilt, GFI, drag & drop.
Imaging:
Windows Inbuilt, Macrium Reflect (free or paid), Acronis free for Seagate/WD drives, Easeus Todo (still a bit new).

If your system allows you to easily connect another internal HDD then I recommend you get one (maybe when prices drop). When you can confidently reimage to the new HDD you have a good imaging package.

I have only rarely installed Acronis on my Computer and that too for very short periods only for making the boot disk. Once the boot disk is there I uninstall Acronis TrueImage from my hard Disk and depend solely upon the the boot disk for imaging purposes.

I have found that the boot disk does an excellent job. The main program is not as good as the boot disk, may be for the reasons that you have outlined.

GeneO said:

wanchoo said:

What caused you to give up using Acronis? Any special reasons?

Every release they changed the user interface and functionality, mostly for the worse, and every new release had bugs. I had to get rid of an older version, which I liked and which worked well, when I moved to Windows 7. I had to purchase their latest release which I found buggy and did not like the functionality or interface. Every release it seemed theey provided a different way to do the same things, in a less intuitive way, and for no good reason IMO. I asked them if I could trade this for their previous release instead of getting my money back and they said no. So I got my money back and they lost a customer.

Thank you all for your input. Guess what? I think I will buy Rebit 5. It sounds like it might just do the trick for me.