Acronis True Image offers three main functions in their backup utility. The user initiates each of the functions (backup, restore, and explore image) from its main menu. It also has a separate utility for creating boot discs based on Linux - this allows for greater hardware compatibility should a disaster arise preventing access to your PC.

Backups:

After selecting the backup function, we move on the select the destination of the image. As you can see from the following pics, the backup process is pretty much self explanitory.

Acronis True Image maintains its simplicity throughout the backup procedure. On top of the basic imaging functions, it also allows you to protect your image with a password, add comments (believe me, it really helps later on when you sort through your backups), and even has a slider for you to adjust your compression. However, the compression slider seems to be a little deceiving. The compression levels are not spread out evenly throughout the slider. Instead there seems to be only really two levels of compression - no compression or the other extreme with maximum compression. All the levels of compression in between the two are only minor deviations from that of maximum compression. The compression itself is quite nice. For my 8GB of data on my laptop, Acronis True Image manages to squeeze it down to only 3.3GB. Since 3.3GB is still too big for CDR media, there is also the option of splitting your image into smaller chunks. You may either set it on automatically split when you media gets full or specify the exact size of your image files.

The only gripe I have regarding the backups capability is the fact that Acronis True Image does not have direct DVD writing capabilities. In order to write to DVD, you would have to split up your image into 4.7GB file size, store it onto a hard drive, and then using a 3rd party software, write the image files to DVD. Although this is somewhat of an inconvenience, this is still a HUGE step ahead of Norton Ghost. Ghost demands that my DVD writer be installed internally on my PC in order to write to DVD. Acronis True Image still, in a way, allows me to write my image to DVD without having to deal with going to DOS. The fact that I can do my backups to DVD on each of my systems using drives in external enclosures without the worries of hardware compatibility is a definite plus and worth the extra effort.