Acronis True Image 11 Home

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – the single most important PC-related chore is backing up your computer. It’s a pain in the backside and you won’t even use most of the back-ups that you make. But picture the one time when your computer crashes, your hard disk is trashed and several years worth of digital photos disappear down the plug-hole. With a good back-up regime, you’ll be fortunate enough never to have to experience that sinking feeling.

Features:
The main difference between Acronis True Image and rival back-up software is in its flexibility. True Image can create a full back-up of your disk (usually called a disk image), which could save you a lot of time reinstalling Windows and your favourite software if you end up needing to restore your computer on a new hard disk. Or you can just back up individual files and folders if you’d rather have an archive of important documents and don’t mind the thought of reinstalling software. If you’re sensible, you’ll probably do a mixture of both. It also comes with disk-cleansing software to securely delete files and Try&Decide, which cordons off an area of your PC so you can see the impact of installing new software without committing system settings.

Performance:
One of the most tiresome things about backing up is the time it takes to do it. True Image can cut down on some of the time it takes to make repeated archives by offering incremental back-ups, which analyse what you’ve saved before and only store files that have changed in the intervening time. This is very handy for making copies of things like your My Documents folder, which contain a lot of files that aren’t regularly updated.

Ease of Use:
The software is well designed and has a Windows XP-like look and feel. Most of the options are icon driven, making the program feel easy and familiar to use, and there are wizards and options screens galore to help you work your way through setting up a back-up. If things go seriously wrong, you can simply reboot your computer from the installation CD, which may help bypass any Windows errors and get your computer up and running from a serious crash in record time.

Value for money:
You can’t really put a price on a decent back-up. There’s software available for less that’ll do some of this for you – both Windows Vista and XP come supplied with simple back-up programs that’ll cover the basics. But having back-up software is no good if you don’t actually use it, and this software should streamline the process to make it more like a swift, regularly performed task than a mind-numbing chore.