14 DAY TRIAL // This is the largest area of Acronis True Image Home 2010, containing all the little things that give extra value to the package. At the top of the list is Startup Recovery Manager, an instrument that lets you boot directly into Acronis instead of Windows by pressing F11 key.
Once enabled, it will allow you to start a limited-featured version of Acronis before Windows and backup data, restore it, manage Acronis Secure Zone (a hidden Acronis partition where you can store backup images and from where you can restore them), clone disks, or securely erase data stored on the available drives.
The feature comes in extremely handy if your OS refuses to boot and restoration of a system image is on your mind.
Just like any respectable disk imaging software on the market, Acronis provides the possibility to create a rescue disc to boot from in case disaster strikes and the operating system refuses to load. The emergency boot disc can be created with the built-in media builder, which will guide you through every step of the procedure.
Any bootable media, such as CDs, DVDs or USB flash drives, will do for the job. The entire process is swift and, in our case, it did not take more than a minute. Building an ISO image of the disc you can later burn is also a possibility.
Properly used, the powerful set of protection tools offered by Acronis makes it impossible for you to lose important data or restore to a previous, healthy state of the system. One-Click Backup is an easy way to create an image of the system disk, which you can store in the Secure Zone, while the bootable rescue media and the Startup Recovery Manager offer the possibility to load up Acronis and restore your computer to a healthy state.
The utilities included in the suite come in handy when preparing for creating a backup archive, browsing it, searching its content or securely delete sensitive data. Getting the contents of an entire disk to another one is not an issue for this software as it can clone the entire device and copy it to a new location with no problems.
DriveCleanser utility is designed to wipe all data on the hard disk, without any possibility to recover it. You can choose between the most efficient sanitizing standards on the market (DoD 5220.22-M, NAVSO P-5239-26 RLL and MFM, VSITR, GOST P50739-95, Peter Gutmann or Bruce Schneier) or create a custom one; either way, sanitized data will not be recoverable. On the downside, there is no renaming of the file before destroying it, and as such, data recovery software will show you the name of the files. The File Shredder available is designed for the same task as DriveCleanser, with the difference that it is more specific, allowing you to erase individual files and folders.
System Clean-up is the utility to use in order to set the ground for a new system backup. It features tools for ridding your computer of unnecessary data such as temporary files, recently used documents list, history of opened/saved documents and data in Windows Prefetch directory.
As far as the latter is concerned, it is not too bright of an idea to clean the prefetch folder periodically; doing so will actually decrease the performance of the system. But the recommendation stops here, because the cleaning of all other locations brings nothing but benefits to the system, making it move quicker.
Besides deleting all the junk data on the hard disk, the System Clean-up area in Acronis sports a free space sanitizer. The tool can be used individually for each partition or on all of them in a single session, the end result consisting in wiping them clean of any elements that could be recovered. The sanitizing methods involved are those used by DriveCleanser, so there is no worry about getting them back.
Regardless of the operation you choose under System Clean-up, you will have some trouble with job completion time estimation. There is absolutely nothing to show you the development of the task except for a progress bar that will rapidly fill up to a certain point, then lag for a while, only to completely fill up when the job finishes. In other words, it gives you no sense of task progression.
The last entry on the Tools & Utilities list is the Search Settings. Actually, there is only one setting to be made and that is enabling/disabling indexing the backups under Windows Search utility. Nevertheless, the search function in this Acronis True Home is a bit smarter than this. It can search for files inside the backup archives (which are detected automatically) available on the computer. In order to do this, use the search box in the top right part of the application window.
The Good The interface has changed for the better, giving even beginner users the chance to boldly handle the application and create backup jobs themselves.
Virtualization options have been developed, allowing you to decide on the location to store all the changes recorded in Try & Decide mode; or in the newly introduced Nonstop Backup, which provides continuous data protection by taking snapshots of user-defined locations every five minutes.
Converting between TIB and VHD archive formats lets you mount use Acronis converted backups to mount in Windows 7 without the need of having Acronis True Image Home installed on the system. Combined with the Sequence Boot Manager, you can add a VHD archive to the boot options and work with it.
Not all users can benefit from the online backup feature because it only works for the regions where Acronis has datacenters installed. Moreover, the suite has acquired some virtualization skills that will go through further development. In this release, the conversion between Acronis’ proprietary format (TIB) and Windows’ (VHD) will help advanced users boot directly into virtual environment, thus benefiting from a better performance of the virtual environment. The conclusion is that this version of Acronis indeed represents an improvement and comes off as a professional data backup and restores solution that can be easily used even by beginners; at the same time, it sports features for advanced users that need a fast working virtual environment for their testing.The Bad
The Truth
