Acronis True Image 2013 - OEM

Pros: Cloned perfectly. That's really why I purchased it.

Cons: I use the daily backup as well, but I have no idea if it is backing up what I want backed up and where it is going. I backup multiple drives to an external usb harddrive. I try a manual backup and it looks like it is only backing up my C: I need to dig a little deeper.

Other Thoughts: Got a combo deal on it so for the money I spent cloning my hard drive I am fine with it. I didn't spend a whole bunch of time reloading OS and copying files.

Pros: Works great with Windows 7 and the interface is easy to use.

Cons: None

Pros: I have used Acronis 2010, 2011, and 2012 only for cloning and it has almost never let me down (the occasional defective drive would throw it off).

2013 is the first one I actually installed to be used for backup. Scheduled a differential disk backup to a USB drive for my system disk and everything ran properly.

I like the compression level, and I like being able to set process priority. Give my jobs low and customer imaging high. Great!

Cons: This version is OEM. You get a good deal, but it will probably take an act of Congress to change hardware. Thankfully this is on a work laptop and nothing changes.

Other Thoughts: I was skeptical after reading the previous reviews, but I really liked how Acronis worked for my cloning needs so I gave the OEM a shot. Glad I did.

Pros: A shiny CD!

Cons: I have the 2009, 2011 versions. Tried booting with the 2013 CD on my Asus Maximus V rig - hangs. D/loaded the latest version/patches - burnt another CD - no go. Boot with the 2011 version - no problem.

I guess it works if you're willing to install it with 400 character keycode that you have to type in.

Other Thoughts: Stick with the older versions.

Pros: + Sensible (if not perfect) user interface.
+ Many different options for backup type (files, disks, partitions, full, incremental... etc).
+ I performed what I would consider a "difficult" restore operation, and Acronis handled it flawlessly (see below).

Cons: - I have not tested every aspect of this software, but everything has worked really well for me so far.

Other Thoughts: I use Windows very little--almost exclusively to play games--so I have never been too protective of the data stored on my Windows drive. Nevertheless, I had an Intel RAID-1 volume as my C: drive. That's the volume Acronis was backing up. As many of you probably know, even switching your SATA controller from AHCI to RAID mode (with or without an actual multi-disk array), or back again, will generally cause Windows to gag, unless you perform some registry incantations, etc, in advance.
Well, I decided to reuse the two disks in the Windows RAID array for something else, and ordered a Samsung 840 Pro from NewEgg to become my new Windows drive. I didn't really need the redundancy of the RAID-1 for Windows (especially with Acronis running backups too), and I did want to boost the loading speed of my games a little with the SSD. So I blew away the RAID, knowing that I had the Acronis backup, so I wouldn't lose any files. Nevertheless, I fully expected the process of restoring Windows onto my new drive in a bootable, happy state was going to be a chore.
The Samsung SSD arrived today, I installed it, and booted the Acronis recovery CD, with my backup drive plugged into the computer. I thought, "no way is this going to be a straight-forward recovery, but I have nothing to lose by giving it a try, and when it chokes I can worry about manually rebuilding Windows later."
It didn't choke. Not even a little bit.
I pointed the Acronis restoration utility at the new Samsung destination drive, and after about 20 minutes it declared it was finished restoring. Windows 8 (in EFI mode incidentally) booted on the first try from my new SSD. I've installed some overdue updates and rebooted several times since the restoration, and it's still working perfectly (and fast, as an SSD should).
To sum up, this was a migration from an image of Windows taken off two disks, in RAID mode, to a single SSD, in AHCI mode, with a completely different capacity, and it still worked flawlessly! Acronis resized the partitions, and fixed Windows' boot settings, all automagically, and without a hiccup. I'm sold (well, I was already sold--I paid for the product after all--but I'd pay for it again based on this experience).

Pros: Fast backup of complete partition. I've used acronis for a few years now and each upgrade gets faster.

Cons: It takes up a lot of disk space.

Other Thoughts: I do a complete drive backup once a month and a data backup every day. After my next drive backup I erase all previous backups and do data backups until the next full backup. Works for me.

Pros: I don't see any.

Cons: Will no longer back up to a NAS drive. The last version did. I am trying to protect from a disk failure.

Other Thoughts: I think I can pay a lot more for this feature, but I was just trying to stay up to date and support a product.

Pros: Easy to follow backup menus. It worked well until I installed my new disk drive and graphics card.

Cons: Any change in hardware or operating system upgrade causes the Acronis OEM license to become deactivated. The Acronis support channels are terribly frustrating in solving this problem. If I upgrade the disk drive or graphics card on my computer, it does not become a new computer. If I upgrade Windows Vista to Windows 7, it does not suddenly become a new computer. Acronis is scamming people with these tactics. They should be thankful that I actually purchased their program rather than download a hacked torrent and use it for free.

Other Thoughts: If not for the recent problem with the license activation, I would have bought 4 more licenses while this 70% off promo code deal was on.

Pros: 2013 now supports GPT as well as MBR Partitions (GPT is a more efficient disk partitioning scheme for larger drives). Works fine with windows 8.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Prior versions of True Image work fine with Windows 8 as long as you stick with MBR. When you launch True Image it acquires system drive information. Older versions crash if you have a GPT partitioned drive on your system. If you plan on using GPT you'lll want to upgrade to 2013.

I use True Image mainly for backups prior to making changes as well as dual booting. (I'm not sure if this still works with Windows 8 which is hell-bent on not allowing dual boot)

Pros: It does what I want it to do, when I want it to do it on properly set-up drives.

Cons: I can't find any . . .I've been using Acronis True Image for well in excess of 6 years and find it quite useful (on the bench and off)!

Other Thoughts: I have, through experience, that drives controlled by Internet Suite Softwares and continuous back-up suites like Carbonite, etc. have a tendency to reject Acronis and other back-up softwares because of their different ways of controlling the drive. Once these other drive control schemes are unloaded/removed Acronis works as advertised! That's the way it is!