Acronis True Image 10.0 Home Review

A data backup solution is of utmost importance to any computer user. Unrecoverable data loss is quite common, reasons for which include- but are not limited to-

1. A severe virus or spyware infection. Many a times your favorite antivirus or anti spyware software may fail to completely eliminate severe threats.

2. Your operating system may all of a sudden become inoperable due to failed software installations, changes made to critical system settings, etc.

3. Physical damage to your local hard discs.

Acronis True Image 10 Home is a "disk imaging" or a "disk cloning" software that can be used to create an exact copy of your hard drive, hence backing up your files, folders, operating system, programs and application settings. This allows easy data recovery in case of the above mentioned disastrous situations.

Acronis True Image 10 Home is feature-rich, and some of its features include:

1. It has an easy to use interface. The built in wizard makes it extremely easily to backup your data.

2. Unlike some previous backup solutions, you do not need to use DOS. True Image works within Windows.

3. True Image has the option to transfer all the data including operating system, installed programs, etc. from one hard drive to another. This is the perfect solution if you are looking forward to upgrading your hard disc drive.

4. True Image has the option to store backups on a remote computer instead of the local computer. This feature comes in handy if the local computer is low on disc space.

5. True Image can compress, split and burn the image files to CD/DVD.

6. True Image allows you to explore the backup image and restore only selected files and folders in case you do not want to recover your entire system.

7. Data Verification within true image checks the backup image files for perfect integrity and restorability.

8. True Image has the option for Incremental backup. It can backup new or changed data to an existing backup image backup file. This ensures that you do not have to go through the backup process again.

9. True Image has a scheduler which can be used to periodically create incremental backups.

10. True Image can also backup settings of various applications and softwares. This feature comes in handy when you make unwanted or disastrous changes to your applications' settings.

11. True Image allows you to create a bootable rescue media. In case your operating system becomes unstable or does not boot up properly, you can use this medium to boot your machine and properly restore a previous backup.

12. Acronis secure zone is a special hidden area created on your hard disc by True Image which cannot be accessed or tampered with by external applications. You can store your backups here without the risk of their getting damaged,etc.

13. Startup Recovery Manager allows you run the program on startup without loading the operating system. This feature is helpful in case your operating system does not load for some reason and you do not have a bootable rescue media prepared.

14. True Image features great compatibility with nearly all hard disc types, file systems and operating systems.

Well, we all see the undoubted superiority of True Image over other cloning applications. The only major flaw here is with the customer support. My Outlook Express was crashing after a successful recovery from a backup created with True Image. It took the authorities nearly a week to sort out my problem. But the good thing is that the problem was finally solved!

Another small problem with True Image 10 is that the size of the backups are greater than those created with True Image 9. Well this is not such a big problem as True Image gives us a variety of options to store our backup images. (We might as well burn them to CDs and DVDs.)