Old and New Acronis
I have had to do a lot of reading Acronis Forums and Seven Forums on backup, image, cloning.
Bear with me. Until Jan 2013 our company used HP computers running XP Pro. I cloned all the computers - and now and then we lost a hard drive and I would swap out the compromised hard drive with the clone. And I would be up and running in minutes. My backup (clone) strategy was using Acronis True Image 2009. I would use the bootmedia disk. I would to a backup computer to one hard drive. Thus I had a backup. I would do a clone to another hard drive. Thus I had a clone. And I would do a data backup in case I had to retrieve a damaged file, a lost file.
Then in Jan 2013 we replaced all the computers with HP Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. I installed on most computers Acronis Home 2009 on the Windows 7 64 bit computers. I elected to do a backup of data within the windows environment - giving me a *.tib file. I do this with emails on a few crucial computers.
Thus I had a few data tibs from a few machines.
If I did a restore I could see the emails, I could see the folders and files. I did not proceed to restore as I just want to view those folders and files.
Then I used the bootmedia disk. Because of uncertainty after reading posting on who best to backup... Tib, image, clone - the users groups - I began do doubt the Acronis 2009 product. Using the bootmedia on several computers I created one backup to external USB sata hard drive. Then I ran the bootmedia again and this time I created a clone. Now I have two hard drive backups -Tib and Img.
However it is reading past comments that I have an impression that Acronis 2009 may create what I did - a backup - but that Acronis 2009 may be unable to restore the backups?
I thought if I did the backup/image/clone using the bootmedia I would be disconnected from the Windows 7 64 bit environment - and that working within the linux shell I would have backups and those backups would be restorable.
I have contemplated buying Acronis TI 2013. However, again from reading I come to understand that any and all TI 2009 backups will not be accessible for a restore using TI 2013? If I proceed to replacing all the TI 2009 with TI 2013 - then I would have to go to every machine and do the backups (Tib) and cloning anew using TI 2013. I can do this is this is the only option. The design here is to protect our company's data, and the whole of every hard drive.
I have used 2009 since it came along and have fully enjoyed its simplicity, ease, and functionality. I do not enjoy replacing an application that works. However, after reading user forums I am now uncertain.
Thanks for indulging this message.
Chuck
Your response was complete. I attempted to state one external target hard drive has the TIB file. The second external target hard drive I did a clone.
Thus I ended up with the two extra hard drives : one TIB and one a Clone. By habit over the years I only cloned hard drives. Now I am learning to Backup and that involves the use of TIB files for backup and restore. Thanks for the response. I now have a better understanding.
You can save multiple .tib images to a single hard drive, which makes for better backup safety. That is yet another reason why backups are better than clones.