Optimal Acronis 2010 back up method?

Everybody has different needs and I see that the consensus is full backups are better. But what about power users that have a bunch of stuff installed that want daily restore points. Surely, the incremental backups would be preferred!

Say I'm using over 100GB of space and it takes me 30 minutes to do a daily full backup. I can do 5 incremental backups before the next full backup since an incremental usually takes less than 5 minutes per day for me. Thus, I can do resource intensive tasks quicker rather than worrying about the backup process taking a lot of resources. This is important in the new resource hogging games like Dragon Age.

But judging from from what I've read, it's not good to have too many incremental backups all relying on the full backup because it makes it slower and more prone to have errors.

Few home users would do a full image backup daily, at least of the OS. Most people's personal data--as opposed to Windows/system stuff, changes minimally every day, and so they would not likely need a new image of data daily either.

If you are trying to backup PERSONAL DATA daily, the quickest method by far is to do an automated file by file backup using one of many available programs. The exception might be if you turned over half of your data every week, in which case imaging might be quicker. But if you add or modify maybe 1 or 2% of your files daily, then imaging would be slower.

If you are trying to backup something else--typically Windows and "system" files, then most likely you would do full images occasionally--not likely daily. I make maybe one or two a year and otherwise rely on system restore points. Ideally, I will NEVER have to restore an image. I use them for disasters only.

Incrementals add another layer of complexity that I personally wouldn't want to inject into the process.

Large organizations that need to back up multiple terabytes of data daily don't use the likes of Acronis or Macrium and don't likely even think of it.

HughShaw said:

Everybody has different needs and I see that the consensus is full backups are better....

It all depends on how much Data you have in your System ???
Acronis is great for backing up a system ... But there's better ways to back up Data.
If you have a lot of data .. You may want to Partition your hard Drive so All your Data is in another partition...
then a full Acronis backup occasionally is all you need.
With over 200 gig of Data ... I cannot use Acronis to backup data.

How many gigs of Data do you have in your system ???

There is also a server version which automates workstation backups daily.

Again, however, I would point the OP at Acronis own forums.

Acronis is a good program. I ended up doing a monthly full backup according to everyone's suggestions. (Incremental seems too iffy) Combined with Windows System Restore, that's about all the protection I need.

One more question: Can I use a full system backup to restore onto another computer with different hardware? (I read that you can somewhere) Or do I have to use the Clone Disk utility?

If by "another computer" you mean a PC with a different motherboard---no.

There are workarounds to allow it, but it's a lot of work and iffy.

Cloning is generally thought of as within the same PC--as when you buy a new hard drive. It just bypasses the image step. You can't rely on cloning with a new motherboard either.

Anything other than a new motherboard should not cause a problem.

Acronis supposedly has some new function in the newest versions that will allow "new hardware", but without more details I would be suspicious, particularly if a new motherboard is involved.

Yes! I found out that you can. (I'm using TrueImage2010 v13.0.0.5055) In the recovery wizard, just select "Use Acronis Universal Restore" and it will recover an image to a computer with different hardware. Cool!

HughShaw said:

The only advantage Acronis seems to have is that it compresses the full image.

Haven't tried disk imaging with Seven but with Vista, the MS version insisted on imaging ALL the OS partitions it could find -- even though I only wanted to image one at a time.

I, too, don't bother with incrementals. Image once a week with ATI Home 2010 and that serves me nicely.

However, I only image to have a backup in case I need to recover the OS partition, so, I really want to do a complete partition overwrite.