Creating a duplication / imaging server
Hello, I had a few look here and there but didn't find my answers, so sorry if the subject is already on this forum and resolved. For the need of a project we'll need to duplicate hard drives.
The point is that i dont know yet how many and it can evolve. So for those needs the project i have is : install Acronis on a computer (Windows server or windows pro) add a hard drive plug/play slot on the tower and use Acronis to make images of my disks, restore etc...
The questions are :
- Wich licence do i need to buy for that kind of uses ? i mean in an enterprise context
- Do i really need to buy as many licence as disks we'll have and is it possible to use one licence for the server Acronis is installed on and that's all ?
Thanks by advance for you answers, whatever it could be.


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Hi Péter,
Thanks for your answer.
I don't really need to scheduled backups for now.
I want to install Acronis on one computer. This computer will be the "duplicate and clone" station.
I'll have two slot on the front of that computer to insert a System Hard drive from another computer, and then, make a clone of this disk, saved on a NAS or directly to another disk of the same model.
So i just need to install the "Acronis solution" on one computer to do that. I dont need cloud or scheduling etc...
If i follow your indications, for all the Systems disks of another computer that i'll save on NAS or duplicate, i'll need a license? even if Acronis wont ever need to be installed on?
I want to be sure :)
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Hey,
I had someone from Acronis on phone who confirmed me that only one license is needed by installation.
So this is the final anwser for my question :
About the project i explained, I saw on the website that we need to buy a license for each device. Also Peter you told me " You need license for each machine you want to backup/restore."
Question : Is a license needed for each device saved ?
Answer: No, a license is required only for an installation.
Once the program is installed on a computer, this computer can be used to save any other external disk if that disk wont need to have Acronis installed on, and if it will only been saved or restored.
Thanks anyway !
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Hello Thomas!
Yeah I also tried to say you need only one licence. I guess that information got lost in all the other stuff.
I'm curious to know though what advantage do you gain for this scenario from Acronis compared to a disk cloning program?
-- Peter
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Péter Szatmári wrote:I'm curious to know though what advantage do you gain for this scenario from Acronis compared to a disk cloning program?-- Peter
Hey,
I'm all ears about any alternative you can suggest :)
What do you have in mind ?
Thom.
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Hello Thomas!
I don't have much experience with cloning tools as I rarelly needed them, but Clonezilla could do the job for you if spinning up a live CD isn't too much of a hassle.
I leave the indepth feature comparison of these tools to you. It just seemed to me Acronis would be overkill for such a simple usecase. If at any time though you find yourself shuffling various disk images around, other than having it temporarily, do remember Acronis already solved the problems a pile of images can pose.
-- Peter
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Hey Peter,
Acronis True Image and CloneZilla can have the same utility but do not have the same "user-friendly" graphical interface. If a non-IT user wants to use the duplication process, it will be much understandable and easy to use with Acronis than with CloneZilla.
But i thought about it and a few people told me bout it too, as you did :).
Thanks for your answers.
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Hello Thomas,
thank you for posting on Acronis forums!
Question : Is a license needed for each device saved ?
Answer: No, a license is required only for an installation.
Please note that according to Acronis Licensing Policy, operations, not installations, are licensed in Acronis Backup. You only need licenses for machines\hosts you want to perform operations with. Thus, you will need licenses for deploying an image on remote machines via Acronis Management Console. However, you can stay with one "host" license in case when deploying this image on target PCs manually with a physical Acronis Bootable Media.
Alternatively, I suggest that you take a look at Acronis Snap Deploy 5.0 which is designed for deploying a "master" image on a number of target PCs. There are two types of licenses:
- A machine license allows an unlimited number of deployments to a selected machine. This license type is recommended if you regularly perform deployments to the same machine. E.g. to deploy and regularly redeploy 100 computers you need 100 machine licenses.
- A deployment license enables a single successful deployment to a machine. If a deployment under deployment license fails you can perform another deployment using the same license. This license type is recommended if you deploy the same machine once or infrequently. E.g. to make one deployment to 100 computers you need 100 deployment licenses; to make two deployments to 100 computers you need 200 deployment licenses.
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Hello Maria,
Thanks for your answer.
I'm a not talking about Acronis Cyber Backup, but about Acronis True Image. Is it still the same issues ?
The project is not to lead a deployment server or make masters etc at all, but only to backup on NAS and duplicate on another disk similar, to be able in a case of crash to use the system instantly by inserting the duplicated disk. Those disks are coming from various machine but in all something like 20 devices. There is no packager, no PXE deployment planned, we don't need cloud services, there won't be any virtual machines and the computer park is not homogeneous.. so i think this is not the way to go to !! :)
So i don't understand why would i need a license in Acronis True Image for duplicating a disk to another ?
Not any license is asked in this this process .. ??
Thomas.
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Thomas,
So i don't understand why would i need a license in Acronis True Image for duplicating a disk to another ?
You mentioned in your first post that you re planning:
install Acronis on a computer (Windows server or windows pro) add a hard drive plug/play slot on the tower and use Acronis to make images of my disks, restore etc...
Please note that Acronis True Image could not be installed on a server operating system.
Moreover, you posted this question in Acronis Cyber Backup 12.5 thread which makes us discuss this solution. We can move this topic to Acronis True Image 2020 forum thread.
I'll have two slot on the front of that computer to insert a System Hard drive from another computer, and then, make a clone of this disk, saved on a NAS or directly to another disk of the same model.
You can make a backup of the guest system disk, save it on a NAS and restore it to new hardware later. However, again, please note that you will not be able to back up server OSes with Acronis True Image.
Clone is done directly from a source drive to a target one and could not be stored as a file.
Please read the respective KB article on differences between Clone and Backup: https://kb.acronis.com/content/1540
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My bad !!
Sorry for those mistakes, i had an idea and this idea has changed along the way..
To be honest, i first laid out my idea, to find the best solution.
Well as i said, it could be a Windows Server or Windows Pro.. the environment is not yet final..
Clone is done directly from a target drive to a source one and could not be stored as a file.
source to destination ?
I know what are the backups etc, i'm not english native and just muddled terms, sorry.
This thread can be moved to the right section if it's needed, sorry about that :).
Thomas.
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thomas,
If you have a source disk and you want to clone it to another like disk there are a good number of hardware devices on the market that can do that. See link below:
If you need to create images of disks that can be restored at any given time to storage devices (HDD, SDD) than Acronis True Image can provide that functionality.
If your environment needs multiple machine protection at an enterprise level for many machines then Acronis Cyber Backup product is better suited to your needs.
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One further comment, if using Acronis True Image to either clone or restore to a disk that will be used in another system than the one doing the operation, then the BIOS boot mode used by both systems will need to match if doing this from within Windows.
Example: Host system boots as UEFI / GPT and you clone a disk from a Legacy / MBR system, the end result of the clone will be that disk migrated to UEFI / GPT with no option to decide on this migration during the process.
The Acronis Rescue Media can be used in both Legacy and UEFI boot modes to allow disks to be cloned or recovered and the same format kept.
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Enchantech wrote:thomas,
If you have a source disk and you want to clone it to another like disk there are a good number of hardware devices on the market that can do that. See link below:
Hey Enchantech. Thanks for your reply.
I thought about that method and one of those docks is in my basket right now. Waiting for validation.
One of the reasons why I haven't bought these docks yet is that cloning the docks, most of the time, must have the same target disk in front of the source disk, or a disk with higher capacity. Among all the brands, disks seem to have some small differences that can cause errors.
Steve Smith wrote:One further comment, if using Acronis True Image to either clone or restore to a disk that will be used in another system than the one doing the operation, then the BIOS boot mode used by both systems will need to match if doing this from within Windows.
Example: Host system boots as UEFI / GPT and you clone a disk from a Legacy / MBR system, the end result of the clone will be that disk migrated to UEFI / GPT with no option to decide on this migration during the process.
The Acronis Rescue Media can be used in both Legacy and UEFI boot modes to allow disks to be cloned or recovered and the same format kept.
Thanks you very much for that information. When you think about it, it's logical. But in a pure cloning process it's a strange thing ?
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Thomas, this is a strange thing in the scheme of things but is an indication that ATI is mainly intended for the home user market where Acronis are trying to make things (too) simple for users by not giving them more choices about cloning! In an ideal world, there would be a simple and advanced option for users to follow according to their skill & confidence!
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