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#11
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
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 they 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.
EDIT: Oh yes, I finally quit using it when I had a failed restore. The boot CD said (every one of) the backup files were of the wrong type or corrupted, tough they checked out fine in windows.
Last edited by GeneO; 05 Feb 2012 at 18:36.
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.
There seems to be a unanimous consensus that anything that works for you is OK. I have used (not only tried) Ghost 14 for Vista (costs money), free Paragon (is good but a bit complex), Windows Imaging (gave me all kinds of problems) and free Macrium which I like most because it is robust and reliable. So it is up to you to try any or all of the suggestions that were made.
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.