some thoughts and my experience so far with ATI 2015

I've used earlier versions of ATI for several years, with success- only once having to restore a boot drive, which I was pleased that it worked.

So, after my 7 year old Dell with Vista just kept running slower and slower, probably due to having only 2 gigs of RAM- I don't think it had any malware as I always practiced "safe computing"- I ordered a new "hotrod" Dell, with the latest I7 CPU, a 256 gig SSD boot drive, a 2 terabyte 2nd internal drive and a 4 terabyte USB 3 Western Digital external drive. The OS is Win 8.1.

So, on this new PC I needed an Acronis upgrade since, I was told, that ATI 2013 wouldn't work with Win 8x. However, Western Digital's web site offered a free (somewhat limited) version of ATI. The web site said that this version (not numbered) would work on Win 7 and Win 8- and if you wanted the full version, you'd have to download it from the Acronis web site (now that version to be downloaded is identified as ATI 2013). So, the implication is that ATI 2013 could run on Win 8- but if won't, anyone going that route would be disappointed! By the way, ATI does seem to run OK on my wife's Win 7 machine- or is that an illusion and that it will fail to restore if needed?

Anyway, I downloaded and installed the ATI 2015 upgrade from ATI 2013. The download gave me some trouble since I tinkered with the download page and must have messed it up. I then had a "chat" with tech support and I was able to download it.

I had read many complaints about this version but I had read similar complaints about Win 8.1, yet a ordered the new Dell with that OS rather than Win 7 and I'm glad I did, as I really like Win 8.1- so, using the same logic, I decided to go ahead with ATI 2015.

I just ran my first backup of my SSD boot drive which currently has about 75 gigs on it. The backup to the external USB 3 hard drive took only about 3 minutes. I then had the program validate the backup and that took about the same time.

So, at least I'm very happy with the incredible speed of the backup. Later I'll back up my 2nd internal drive loaded with video and photo files.

One thing I noticed is that right after the backup- I couldn't get online, then I clicked on the Network icon in the tray and saw that it was reconnecting to my cable modem. It would be nice if that doesn't happen every time. Maybe if I had left the computer alone for a few minutes, it would have reconnected automatically.

There are still plenty of things I don't understand about this program, but at least so far, I'm not seeing any problems.

The biggest issue I'm concerned about is making the boot media, then testing it- but I'll get to that soon.
Joe