Cloud storage reliability and today's T-I 2021 500GB Offer (17 March 2021)

Paul, if you are happy with your current ATI 2020 application and it is a perpetual license, then my personal opinion would be to stay with what you have!

ATI 2021 brings with it their Acronis Cyber Protection which lots of users here, including myself, do not want or use but which cannot be fully turned off regardless of setting it as disabled!

Please note that to fully use the new Cyber Protection requires an ongoing annual subscription to either the Advanced or Premium versions of ATI 2021, otherwise you are no better off than staying with ATI 2020 with Acronis Active Protection!

Acronis have also made statements of intent to stop providing perpetual licenses and have made it impossible to find these on their web site recently other than when upgrading from an earlier perpetual version!

Steve,

Many thanks for that - I did wonder about any recurring subscription,so you've answered that for me too.

So I had a look at TrustPilot, had never heard of it before.  I had a tough time finding reviews of True Image and finally got there by searching for Acronis.  I found 65 reviews and yes, mostly negative.  I found that many reviewers complained about support personel or methods.  For me this is a logical expected result.  I say this as most people buy an application and then after install go clicking around hoping to figure out how to work it.  Once that proves unworkable they turn to support and front line support can be frustrating.  So these reviews reflect just that.

I did find that 8% of reviewers gave excellent ratings and 2% gave good ratings.  In reading those reviews it was obvious that these users had at least read enough of the documentation to perform the task they needed and were happy with the result.  This is a logical result for me as well.

With regard to the Cyber Protection feature of the 2021 product, I recognize that some users have experienced issues with it.  I understand that some users may not wish to have it installed on their PC's at all.  In general I understand the position of if you like your current product, stay with it.

Having said that I will add that I have been active in increasing my knowledge and understanding of the changes taking place with cyber security over the past 6 years or so and so based on that knowledge and understanding I encourage all users to have a deeper look at what cyber threats exist in today's world compared to a few short years ago along with trying to get a better understanding of how these threats are being combated and the tools available to do so. After that ask yourself this question, how do I fit into this picture?  If you are among the many that now rely on performing your job online rather than in person your are automatically effected by the proliferation of online threat increases.  After that make an assessment of your current preferred malware solution and see how it measures up to the current threat level.  You just might find that it is not what you think it is.  If you do then the Acronis solution might be a good fit for you which of course would mean that an attractive offer for the 2021 product would have appeal.

Thank you for your thoughtful contribution.

I've looked online at the product description on the Acronis site, and also the (favourable) PCmag review, which mentions that "Acronis Cyber Protect can also counter malware and even act as a ransomware protection tool" which I thought my T-I 2020 was already supposed to do. Presumably it's being done differently and in more depth.

I'm now retired, but continuing my research at home, effectively in isolation. I keep multiple copies and backups of large volumes of research data on detached external HDDs and have three (seemingly compatible) "anti-almost-everything" products that periodically alert me to threats they've discovered and dealt with. 

So, on balance, I think I'll stick with my one-off T-I 2020 for the present.

Regards - P

Enchantech - I've replied at some length, but it's being reviewed, so I don't know whether you'll see it eventually. But thanks anyway for your thoughtful contribution.

Paul,

Your welcome.  I have a much different perspective on this than most here for sure.  I appreciate your asking your question, it spurred discussion which is always good.

I used to be an avid Acronis user but several things forced me away.

1) Their desktop software slowed my PC to a crawl.
2) I wanted to do hybrid local/cloud backups.
3) I wanted to use my own choice of cloud storage - specifically google or amazon long term storage, which proves much, much cheaper than the Acronis offering (which is probably on the same platforms with a markup - most people are).

In the end I found that iDrive ticked all the boxes - clients for my Windows and Linux boxes, cloud storage at a price per TB close to what I could get it for myself and pretty robust clients for the individual machines.

Acronis saved my data on several occasions but turned out too expensive and not very innovative.

For local, quick and dirty backups to NAS and external hard drives I use Macrium Reflect. Not as pretty but for those of us who prefer function over form its superb. No cloud capability though, so I keep the iDrive client gently working in the background.

Apologies to those who find this too blunt a post for an Acronis forum. I bear no ill will except for their direction of travel.

Geoff, thanks for sharing your feedback on this issue and your decisions on alternative solutions with other users visiting here!

In reply to Geoff,

Without intending to defend Acronis, and assuming I understand what you mean by "their desktop software" (= e.g. running ACRONIS T-I 2020?) I'm a bit surprised that it seems to slow your machine badly.

I've recently started using Acronis on my 12-year-old 64-bit WIN7 DELL PC (8GB RAM, Intel i7 CPU) and to be honest - not really noticed the impact of running Acronis, except when it's doing a full backup at 3am (saving about 400GB to an external HDD).

There are 7 Processes listed in the Task Manager, with 5 Services listed as Running, together taking up 96 MB of memory but 0 cpu. For comparison, Malwarebytes takes 250 MB and also shows as 0 CPU even though it's clearly active.

Is your PC optimised?

Regards - Paul

Thanks Paul,

I may have had other issues with the PC at that time I guess. It was the fact I needed to also back up a Linux server with a container stack that also pulled me towards a dedicated cloud backup solution.

Having made the decision I extended it to include the Windows box - it was just easier. The iDrive client on the PC uses virtually no resources and has a Zen feel about it - I just don't even know its there.

So the solution for me was:

Windows - I drive continual file protection to their cloud. Macrium for one off 'big' local archive / backups.

Linux - iDrive continual file protection and rsync to local NAS or to spare hard drives based on cron.

I take your point about the latest version of Acronis for Windows 10 - it may be lighter by now and my experience may have been due to other factors.

Cheers

Geoff.

Thanks for the feedback, Geoff.