Acronis True Image is a very popular backup and disk imaging software choice in today's market.  I’m certainly impressed as someone that’s spent time using it, further to that I thought I’d write a review which I hope you find useful.

Acronis have introduced some great new features in version 11 and we’ll run through these in a moment.

Acronis True Image 11 is now strongly acknowledged in todays software market.  Thats not happened by accident.  You can decide for yourself, lets start by having a look at the main features of True Image 11:

1. Backup & Restore (plus disk imaging)
   

2. Snap Restore
   

3. Try & Decide Utility
   

4. Drive Cleanser
   

5. File Shredder
   

6. System Clean-up
   
   

So what can you backup?:

1. Partitions or entire disks
   

2. Groups of files of any kind
   

3. System State (All critical system files
   

4. Images / Videos / Music / Docs
   

5. Just application settings
   

6. Emails
   
   

Backup & Restore

Normal backups are nothing to get too excited about lets face it.  I might add though, Acronis does include a very nifty ‘disk imaging’ facility.  Its really very easy to use.  If your interested in ‘Disk Imaging’ then check out the video (above).

Acronis True Image has plenty of other features which qualify as being fairly eye brow raising, which nicely contrasts the dull and dry topic of plain old backups!  Let me explain some of the more exciting capabilities of True Image 11 to you

Snap Restore

Ok this will probably excite you more if you’ve previously experienced a system failure - first hand.  Even if you haven't, take it from me, it’ll wipe the smile right off your face.

So what the heck is ‘Snap Restore’ and how does it help?

Lets take a scenario, lets say that some of your system files got corrupted, or perhaps you suffered a virus attack.  If your system suffers a critical virus attack, it can be virtually impossible to get rid of in some cases.

Okay so you system is dead, all you need to do is to reboot your PC.  Acronis pre loader appears, and you press F11.  (see screenshot) and choose “Use Snap Restore”

Now this is the cool part, Acronis then starts to rebuild your Operating System immediately.  The new ‘restored’ operating system (Vista not covered for Snap Restore yet by the way) starts to boot up pretty much right away. The reason I liked this so much is that your literally back on your feet within minutes.

Even though we all complain about lousy Windows, I’m sure you’d be happy to see it make such a swift recovery, I know I would be!

Okay, Windows is back, perhaps you select to open an application which is yet to be restored (because the restore is still in progress even though XP has booted up).

Acronis will divert its attention and start to restore the application that you requested immediately from backup.  Its a impressively dynamic, doesn't take long before everything is back to normal

WARNING : MAKE SURE YOU SELECT ‘Sector-by-Sector’ when your creating the backup image, this is necessary if you want to use ‘Snap Restore’

Try & Decide

Try & Decide is a nifty little feature, it simply allows you to install ANYTHING you like, even some nasty dirty piece of software thats riddled with viruses.

So lets say you made an application download off the internet.  You installed it using the ‘Try & Decide’ feature.  You then realised its unsafe and a potential hazard to your system  . . . so what next?

Well, next you just command ‘Try & Decide’ feature to revert the changes of the installation, your system returns back to its original state, instantly.

If you installed something so screwy that your system actually crashes, Acronis ‘Try & Decide’ feature will revert the changes automatically after you reboot your PC.

You can set this feature to start when you login into Windows, that way, each time you logout you can decide if you want to keep any installs or system changes which you made during your logged on time.

File Shredder

This often gets an interesting reaction.  So the question is, ‘What happens when you delete confidential / personal files from your PC?’ When I say ‘delete’ I’m talking about hitting the delete key and then ‘emptying the recycle bin’

Well the files are gone right, never to be see again? Wrong!  The files are still there, just that Windows can no longer see them.  Anyone, with the right tools can access and recover your deleted files.

‘File Shredder’ gets rid of all the files for good.  Peace of mind, those nasty files can never be recovered again, well not without clairvoyance anyway ;-)

Drive Cleanser

This is similar to ‘File Shredder’ accept its intended for disk partitions or entire disks.

Okay lets make up a wild scenario : Lets say you wanted to give your old hard drive away to the local church (as you do).  Perhaps you wanted to make sure that nothing that was recoverable anywhere on the entire drive? 

Yup, you guess it, thats what the Drive Cleanser’s job is.  The ‘Drive Cleanser’ feature uses predefined algorithms containing known national standards as well as algorithms developed by authoritative experts in data security. For example, the U.S. Standard DoD 5220.22-M and the algorithm of P. Gutmann. 

Incase you suffer from paranoia you can even write your own data destruction algorithms. . . then after its done you can use the ‘Disk Viewer’ to see the ones and zeros on the drive itself.  Doesn't get anymore thorough than that!

Acronis Secure Zone

This is a special type of disk partition.  Standard applications on your PC are not permitted to right to this partition.  That means its completely safe from virus attack or from data being overwritten, damaged or generally compromised. 

You’ll need to  setup the Safe Zone in order to use any of the following features :

1. Acronis Recovery Manager
   

2. Acronis Snap Restore
   

3. Acronis Try & Decide