Do I use Acronis True Image or Backup or do I clone - very confused newbie
Hi everyone
I am very new to the concept of using Acronis so please forgive any newbie questions and after reading posts in this forum I am very confused as to which Acronis program I should use, True Image 2017 or Acronis Backup, do I just save a Disc image or do a clone?
I have just purchased Acronis True Image 2017 and I have also downloaded Universal restore but I feel out of my depth and over my head so I would be very grateful for any advice. I have also made the Acronis boot disc.
I need to be able to copy the whole contents, Operating System, installed programs and any other files from my system drive and save it to a clean new USB HD (Western Digital 1TB My Passport) then if there is ever a problem with my system drive I can simply restore the drive. I would probably buy a new HD for the system drive so the backup made with Acronis would need to be able to restore to any HD, not just the one it was copied from.
I have removed my system disc from my PC and it is now in a USB caddy connected to a laptop so it may be copied.
The operating system on the disc I want to copy is Win 7 64bit and the operating system on the laptop I wish to use to make the copy (from USB Caddy system disc to new USB HD) is win vista home premium.
Watching the Acronis True Image 2017 tutorial video it mentions that if I want to 'clone' a disc to a different disc (may be of different size, brand and so on) then I should use Universal restore. I have installed both Acronis True Image 2017 and Universal Restore on the laptop. When I run Universal Restore it talks about the different WinPE versions but I have no idea of which one I should use or how to use it.
I do not wish to use the new USB drive that I have purchased as a boot drive - I just want to use it to store the contents of my system drive (OS, Programs, data and everything byte for byte).
Can someone kindly help me out and tell me what I need to do to achieve what I wish?
Thanks in advance.


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Hi Steve
I am so grateful for your kind reply and advice, thank you.
It seems that True Image is the way for me to go rather than Backup or Universal Restore.
I didn't want to fill my first post with too much information but I will explain a little further in case it changes things.
I work with audio and my Windows 7 64bit install (on the system disc I wish to backup) is a custom one that has been specifically tweaked/bloatware removed, un-needed processes turn off and so on by the company that built it for me (a specialist Digital Audio Workstation provider). Nothing is ever installed on it unless it is an audio program and it is never connected to the internet so it is kept clean and sterile.
Sometimes I will buy a brand new HD - normally bigger and faster than the old one, or I may buy a new Motherboard/RAM and I need to be able to just reinstall from Acronis the exact contents of my system disc - of course new drivers will be needed and whatever Acronis product I use will need to be able to obtain and load those when copying my system back.
From what I read on the Acronis website before purchasing a internet connection was required to authorise True Image and to download updates / login to my account and so on.
So I do not have to install True Image on the Audio Computer (this is the system disc I wish to backup) I installed it on my laptop (the one that runs Vista 32bit) and in order to access the system drive to copy it I have popped it into the USB drive enclosure.
This way I can be absolutely certain that nothing is written to the audio drive while connected to the net or by Acronis. I have already noticed that since installing True Image 2017 on my Vista Laoptop it has imediattlky become significanly slower to use and shutting down / restart sometimes takes 5 or 6 minutes whereas before it was almost instant. No way do I want that on my Audio PC.
Baring all of this in mind - I hope you can understand my confusion.
When booting from Acronis boot disc I get a menu that gives me the option of Acronis True Image or Acronis True Image 64bit.
As the laptop on which Acronis is installed is a 32 bit do I need to use the Acronis True Image (I presume this is the 32 bit version)
or...
As the system drive I want to actually backup (the one in the USB enclosure from my audio PC) is actually wind 7 64 bit do I need to use Acronis True Image 64bit?
or... as I have no idea of what hardware I may wish to restore my system drive to (as mentioned I may buy a bigger HD or a new MB) do I need to use Backup or Universal Restore given all of the above?
I find the downloadable PDF manual or the Acronis website does not cover all of these questions, sorry about this.
Thanks steve
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I forgot to mention that I will be installing a brand new Samsung Evo 250gb SSD as my system drive in my audio PC which is what prompted me to look for a way to copy my old system drive over on to it in the first place and to want to keep a backup of old system incase the new drive fails or I get a new MB.
My old system drive is a 500gb normal HD so I need Acronis to be able to install onto a smaller HD than the source drive.
The old system install (Win 7 64bit) only takes up 73gb so it will more than fit on the new 250gb SSD and the 1TB backup storage WD My Passport - it is just a case of if Acronis can do this.
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It can do that, assuming you actually don't have 250GB of data moving over. Please be advised that you should plan a buffer of about 10% free space on any drive - once you start getting below 10% and even more so below 10GB total free space, the entire drive will start to function very slowly. Your OS alone needs several GB of free space for temporary files like paging, hibernation, logs, and Windows updates.
As long as your total data on your 500GB is about 240GB or less (to include hidden paritions like the bootloader, recovery partitions, etc) Acronis can move it to the smaller drive. If it's too close to be sure, than 250GB isn't going to be enough - perhaps it transfers, but your performance will be terrible.
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Hi Bobbo
If I do a 'right click' properties on the source drive (the old system disc) windows reports
Used Space 72,657,178,624 bytes 67.6 GB
Free Space 427,343,699,969 bytes 397 GB
Capacity 500,000,878,592 bytes 465 GB
So am I correct in assuming that as there is only 67.6 GB used being reported Acronis can copy this onto a 250 GB SSD?
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Just as further information I have just completed a full backup of my Audio computer System drive and the image file is only 24.5 GB so cabn I assume that Acronis can clone this onto a 250 GB SSD?
Obviously it will fit onto my 1TB usb also?
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Yes, you should be good to go. 65gb for the OS, plus estimate a bit more for recovery partitions, but you're probably well under 100Gb which should fit just fine. Since you have backup images, if it were me, I'd take a full disk, offline image with the rescue media to have one last recent point in time that will be taken without windows running. Pop out the old disk, pop in the new one and restore the backup image to the ssd with the rescue media or proceed to clone after that.
You should also check if your OS drive is legacy/MBR first and initialize your ssd in Windows and format it to match as legacy/MBR or gpt/efi before you start... just in case. Some uninitialized new drives are not picked up by rescue media until they've been initialized. Then boot your rescue media to match the OS install type, legacy or Efi, and proceed with the image recovery or clone.
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Belinea2010 wrote:Sometimes I will buy a brand new HD - normally bigger and faster than the old one, or I may buy a new Motherboard/RAM and I need to be able to just reinstall from Acronis the exact contents of my system disc - of course new drivers will be needed and whatever Acronis product I use will need to be able to obtain and load those when copying my system back.
Buying and using a brand new HDD or SSD should not present any problems, however buying a new Motherboard is a completely different scenario and would require the use of Acronis Universal Restore providing that there is sufficient compatibility between the old hardware and the new hardware involved.
Also if moving to a different motherboard, you will also hit Windows Activation issues unless you have the full Retail version of your Windows 7 OS which permits moving the license to a different system. If you have an OEM license for Windows 7 then this is tied to the hardware where it is activated.
At this point in time, I would suggest making any changes in small bites only, i.e. if you are wanting to upgrade to a new SSD drive, then take this as a first step in getting to know the Acronis application.
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Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:Yes, you should be good to go. 65gb for the OS, plus estimate a bit more for recovery partitions, but you're probably well under 100Gb which should fit just fine. Since you have backup images, if it were me, I'd take a full disk, offline image with the rescue media to have one last recent point in time that will be taken without windows running. Pop out the old disk, pop in the new one and restore the backup image to the ssd with the rescue media or proceed to clone after that.
You should also check if your OS drive is legacy/MBR first and initialize your ssd in Windows and format it to match as legacy/MBR or gpt/efi before you start... just in case. Some uninitialized new drives are not picked up by rescue media until they've been initialized. Then boot your rescue media to match the OS install type, legacy or Efi, and proceed with the image recovery or clone.
Hi Bobbo
Many thanks for the reply and I appreciate your help.
Can I check something with you just to make sure I understand?
Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:if it were me, I'd take a full disk, offline image with the rescue media
When you say 'offline' image do you mean take a image using the Lunux based True Image Recovery Disc?
Many thanks
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Hi Steve
Thank you for your reply which I really appreciate.
Steve Smith wrote:Also if moving to a different motherboard, you will also hit Windows Activation issues unless you have the full Retail version of your Windows 7 OS which permits moving the license to a different system. If you have an OEM license for Windows 7 then this is tied to the hardware where it is activated.
I have the full retail version which I purchased direct from the Microsoft online store and it was delivered by download.
Steve Smith wrote:At this point in time, I would suggest making any changes in small bites only, i.e. if you are wanting to upgrade to a new SSD drive, then take this as a first step in getting to know the Acronis application.
Wise advice Steve and I do not intend replacing the Mother Board any time soon but should it become necessary (a Mother Board can fail at anytime) I want to make sure that what ever I do using Acronis is going to allow me to get my system back with out too much trouble.
As I mentioned previously I am however changing the disc upon which my system/OS resides from a 500gb standard HD to a super fast 250gb SSD.
My OS is very lean, all of the bloatware removed and so on so it does not take up that much room and all of my user generated files reside on a seperate drive.
Between what you and Bobbo have advised I feel a little more confident so thank you again Steve.
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Belinea2010 wrote:When you say 'offline' image do you mean take a image using the Lunux based True Image Recovery Disc?
Yes. Backup images created with the ATI Rescue Media, running from either optical disk or USB flash drive, use a Linux-based environment. As such, Windows is never booted, never active, which is what Bobbo means by "offline". I like such backups because Windows is entirely removed from the equation.
And, please don't use the term "clone" when talking about restoring a backup image to a new disk. "Clone" is a specific named function in ATI and other imaging tools. Personally, I'd like to see the clone function disappear, as it is risky and prone to catastrophic consequences yet is a magnet for uninformed users. Just forget about clone, and instead do backups and restores.
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