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Following on from Tono’s thread, I would be most grateful for some know-how and experience of fellow forum members who use Acronis True Image.
Specifically, I have 2 questions:
- the main thing I don’t get is the ‘Acronis Secure Zone’.
a) why would you want to store a backup on the same drive as the one that is being backed up?
b) surely creating the ASZ deprives the user of disk space (the manual, p 72, recommends that the disk space allocated to ASZ = 75% of the total volume of programmes and data being backed up)
c) can ATI be used without setting up this partition?
- have all the bugs now been ironed out?
Many thanks in advance,
Marc
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Good questions, Marc. Quote:
- the main thing I don’t get is the ‘Acronis Secure Zone’.
a) why would you want to store a backup on the same drive as the one that is being backed up?
If you had only one drive, it might provide insurance against OS corruption, for example. But it's certainly not the best plan and no help in the event of disk failure, or general computer catastrophe. Put backups on an external drive, or on DVD's, perhaps.
Quote:
b) surely creating the ASZ deprives the user of disk space (the manual, p 72, recommends that the disk space allocated to ASZ = 75% of the total volume of programmes and data being backed up)
The Secure Zone, of course, uses up disk space, but not more than the backups themselves. They can be fairly large, at 75% of the original.
Quote:
c) can ATI be used without setting up this partition?
Yes, you can ignore it, although backups saved outside a Secure Zone would theoretically be more exposed to accidental hosing. I do not use an SZ.
Quote:
- have all the bugs now been ironed out?
It's a completely mature program, operates without quirks.
You should nevertheless look into a newer image program called "MACRIUM REFLECT". I have tried it out extensively with good success. They offer a very capable FREE version, which works as well as Acronis -- same speed and perfectly equivalent results. Recommended.
Last edited by allis; 03/09/09 12:39 PM.
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Thanks allis for that very helpful input.
all the best,
Marc
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Quote:
You should nevertheless look into a newer image program called "MACRIUM REFLECT". I have tried it out extensively with good success. They offer a very capable FREE version, which works as well as Acronis -- same speed and perfectly equivalent results. Recommended.
Allis,
Thanks for the heads-up. I have REFLECT downloaded and the backup verified. Looks like it should do the job if needed.
Don S.
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That's good news, Don! You'll be happier, I bet. Musicians often have so many programs installed that re-installing Windows and re-registering everything might take days of miserably dull work. Using the image file, you do it in 40 minutes unattended. All your registration keys, bookmarks, Windows Theme, and such are preserved as they were when you backed up.
There are a number of good image programs. The Reflect thing seems the best free one. It's not horribly expensive if you decide to purchase it. The paid version will do "incremental" backups, which save a few minutes. I stayed with Acronis in the end, because it's just as good, and I already owned it. But switching to Reflect would cause no drama.
I hope you have made yourself a Boot CD, so you can start up when Windows is wrecked, to begin the reconstruction. That CD boots you into Linux point-and-click screens, and you restore from there.
Larry
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Quote:
I hope you have made yourself a Boot CD, so you can start up when Windows is wrecked, to begin the reconstruction. That CD boots you into Linux point-and-click screens, and you restore from there.
Yes sir, I did.
Don S.
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I bought a Maxtor external hard drive for backup purposes. The software pre-installed on this drive, Maxtor Manager, is fine as far as it goes but will only back up data files. It does not make disc images.
However, by virtue of owning a Seagate or Maxtor device, I was able to install and use another piece of Seagate software, DiscWizard which does, among other things, make and restore disc images. Interestingly, this software is ‘powered’ by Acronis True Image so perhaps can be thought of as ‘ATI lite’.
There does not seem to be any limit to the number of machines Disc Wizard can be used on, as long as your Seagate/Maxtor device is connected to the PC at the time of use.
I made bootable CDs and disc images for 2 of my PCs. I know that standard advice is to test such backups, but I ain’t that brave (or crazy, depending on which way you look at it).
For PC users seeking to pursue a backup strategy, there may be something to be said for buying even a modest spec Seagate/Maxtor drive in order to benefit from Disc Wizard. Bear in mind that the fully featured version of ATI currently sells for 50 US dollars and, if I am not mistaken, can only be used on a single machine.
Hoping that this post will have saved the PGMusic community many hundreds of dollars….
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Quote:
I made bootable CDs and disc images for 2 of my PCs. I know that standard advice is to test such backups, but I ain’t that brave (or crazy, depending on which way you look at it).
Well, your results may vary, but I have definitely tested my Acronis images on a several different machines and it has performed well every time.
What I have found that works for me is to always do my image backups from the bootable CD. Yes, Acronis will let you run it live from within Windows, but I've had occasional hiccups doing that, so I now always do it from the CD. I usually just kick it off before leaving for work or going to church or whatever, and then it's done when I come home. The other thing I do is to set the option to verify the backup when it finishes. Those two things give me a higher comfort level and so far I've had no problems restoring my images.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA BB2025/UMC404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/MixBus/Notion/Finale/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com
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Thanks for that John.
I did take the precaution of running the 'verify' procedure after creating one of the images, thinking that the programme would have a quick look at the file, declare it wholesome, or otherwise, and then let me get on with whatever it was I was doing.
But not a bit of it! Verify takes just as long as the image making itself - although I was pleased to see that DiscWizard did declare its own work to be sound.
I'm pleased I have the images, but I can only see myself mounting them if everything has gone south. My 'users' (who operate very strictly on an 'if it ain't broke - don't fix it' principle) would not understand it if I broke what is currently a fully operational system.
Anyway, I'm much reassured by your testing and by your own faith in ATI!
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Running the imaging program from the bootup disk is slow -- up to an hour to make an image of a small Windows partition. I can make that disk image on this machine in 8 minutes (and verify it in the same amount of time) when running in Windows and doing other tasks at the same time. No difficulties -- not even once -- have ever cropped up from that, and if they ever do, I'll just make another image in 8 minutes to replace the one that busted.
When you restore the image to the hard drive sometime, you'll have no choice. You must do that from the bootup disk environment and let it do its thing for an hour. When that time comes, you'll be startled at the smoothness of the procedure and wonder why you were ever worried about it.
One other thing: The commercial Acronis allows you to select your level of compression. Using highest compression saves me about 20% in image size, which goes down from 10 gigs to 8 gigs -- and takes 12 minutes instead of 8 to prepare. If your version allows that, you may want to investigate it. Or perhaps it isn't worth the bother. My smallish backup drive benefits from higher compression.
Larry
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I just upgraded my DAW to a Qad Core 3Xs i7 system and Acronis came pre-installed. I've done one full backup so far on one of the three internal hard disks (which I'm keeping just for these backups) but I'm wondering how I'd go about recovery. When I switch the system on a message flashes up saying something like 'press F11 to start Acronis recovery manager', so I assume it's as easy as that? BTW, the new 3xs is an amazing piece of kit - no fans, totally quiet and amazingly quick. Sound On Sound rated it the fastest DAW they'd ever reviewed. So I can make mediocre music even quicker now!  John
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Quote:
...something like 'press F11 to start Acronis recovery manager', so I assume it's as easy as that?
Yes. As weird as it sounds, it's precisely that easy. Push the F11 and start following instructions. About four clicks later, the thing will be calmly rebuilding itself. It's the same when you start from the bootup disk, except in your case, you don't have to find the bootup disk.
That machine sounds wonderful. The ideal DAW uses all three hard drives for music, though. And your backup images would be safer on an outside disk stored apart. But you'll be all right anyway.
Larry
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Hi, Allis -
I used to do images from within Windows originally (and it's definitely faster than using the boot CD)...until a couple of them said they were corrupted when I tried to restore them. That's when I switched to using the bootup disk exclusively and haven't had a bad one since. I'll take the time trade-off, since I usually just kick it off before I head out somewhere or before I go to bed at night. Maybe with ATI 2009 I might not have that problem anymore (I originally had the corruption with version 10 or 11). But, as they say, your backup is only as good as your ability to restore it (that's why I've always tested it). Having a successful backup doesn't necessarily mean the ability to successfully restore. If you can't restore using your backup, then it's just a big file sitting there.
To each his/her own...
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA BB2025/UMC404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/MixBus/Notion/Finale/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com
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I understood your point, John, and didn't mean to argue with your success. Only to reassure that this is not a shaky process needing white-knuckle concentration and iron nerves, as we all fear when we first try it.
The images you had that refused to restore: Had they previously been verified as being OK?
In any event, keeping one older image that has been proven to work takes the last bit of uncertainty out, even if like me, you don't even bother to verify them any longer.
Larry
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Quote:
Had they previously been verified as being OK?
Yep, they were verified as being OK. I may try again, since I've got several backup copies of images I know work (because I've restored from them), so we'll see how it goes. Like I said, maybe it was a glitch in version 10 or 11; I'll try it with version 2009 and I'll let you know if I have any other problems. I'm glad it's worked well for you.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA BB2025/UMC404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/MixBus/Notion/Finale/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com
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