True Image 2014

Myself as a expert user since 2012 version ended up having to leave Acronis entirely. I had 7 computers all running true image 2013 with the backup service. Days to get a download from a backup and the service was entirely useless. The basic backup was good , however but don't expect anything beyond that which it sounds like you are.
I ran into problem of random issues with disc errors when attempting backups and so forth.

Anyway, I just got email of an amazing deal for 19.99 to upgrade to 2014. I'm going to pass as after the amount of problems I've had in the past and the lack luster support of everytime I opened a ticket the solution was to reinstall it or something was corrupted I threw in towel and opted for Paragon's Hard Disk Manager Suite 14. Everything works as advertised without any issues and it even setup up SSD as a UEFI drive for fast boot into Windows 8 and eliminated the MBR without losing any data! It was fast too.

Anyway, I typically like Acronis but as I said beyond basic backups valuing an upgrade at 19.99 isn't going to happen when you've screwed over your 2013 customers with shoddy backup service that was worthless to use when it actually came to restoring as it would take days to download and constant timeouts. I've already gotten into the other issues.

Needless to say the only way I'd even try 2014 is if was provided as a free upgrade from my 2013 at this point after the poor quality product I got.
Good luck with your problem sounds like you got a nasty one. But , keep the faith maybe you'll get it resolved. But, I wouldn't put my faith in this product after what I went through with 2013 version. And after reading the forums it sounds like going to Paragon 14 was the right thing to do. So far so good.

I have to say I'm appalled by this program and its support or lack there of. Take a minute to read the list of "known" issues with this 2014 Edition. Nothing works. No wonder this will go out of business, its because there are excellent backup solutions available now. It used to be just acronis as far as I knew but, they've simply been bowled over by the quality new starts. I know I shouldn't complain. I only paid $10.00 through another service. But after the headaches it put me through, I wouldn't keep this on my machine if they PAID ME $100.

My goodness I feel had, and would like a refund on my life's stolen hours.

After reading Travis's post, I decided to give Paragon Hard Disk 14 Suite a try, and find it lacking in features compared with Acronis True Image 2014.

In particular:
1. There seems to be no way to automatically limit the number of cycles of a backup to be kept, i.e. only keep the latest 8 cycles, deleting older ones automatically.
2. Can't schedule backups more frequently than daily, e.g. hourly.
3. Full disk backup takes much more space than ATI, even with maximum compression.
4. Editing settings for a scheduled backup is clumsy.

ATI 2014 seems to be working fine for me ATM, with daily backups of my system disk, and daily and hourly file backups of other data, so I think I'll stick with it.

I'm only responding to this because to me, this sounds like a paid endorsement of ATI 2014. The topic is frustration. ie: does it work? Again, just read the known issues list and ATI 2014 makers admit the "known" flaws. The cloud feature was much to slow to be useful too. The extended drive feature was a joke because it doesn't have the drive to support it, included. A link is popped up to go to do download the drive. It takes you to 404 oops nothing. In the support area regarding this dead link, another link is posted on an entire support page on this dead link issue. Click on that new link and ... you guessed it. Yep. No driver there to download. So not only does the program not work but the support for it is kindergarten style. My point is that the number of flaws is unacceptable for a paid product. The same includes the support for this product. To me, the word scam comes to mind. Obviously something very bad has occurred to this company for it to fail so completely.

Rob wrote:

I'm only responding to this because to me, this sounds like a paid endorsement of ATI 2014.

That's certainly not the case. I'm just saying it works for what I want to do. I don't need a lot of the features.

emibel wrote:

4. Editing settings for a scheduled backup is clumsy.

Your comparison to Paragon implies that you are actively editing the TrueImage backup tasks. While editing is permitted by the Acronis program, my experience over the past few years including the current version, is that editing very rarely produces the results anticipated by the user. The rules which I practice is that I avoid all edits of the backup task. If editing needed, then I stop using the old task and begin a new task pointing to a new and empty storage folder so all mixing of backup files from other tasks are avoided. A change of schedule or stopping of schedule can be done from main menu without using the task edit function.

It is not my intent to start a new discussiion here, but I would not want to encourage anyone that the resuilts of an edited task will be the same as a non-edited task. There is no published information as to what the results will or should be when a task is edited.

http://forum.acronis.com/system/files/turn-off-scheduler.jpg

http://forum.acronis.com/system/files/turn-on-or-change-scheduler.jpg

Thank you for your comments. Also, thank you for providing your credentials. It is important to know that you have the knowledge.

emibel wrote:

After reading Travis's post, I decided to give Paragon Hard Disk 14 Suite a try, and find it lacking in features compared with Acronis True Image 2014.

In particular:
1. There seems to be no way to automatically limit the number of cycles of a backup to be kept, i.e. only keep the latest 8 cycles, deleting older ones automatically.
2. Can't schedule backups more frequently than daily, e.g. hourly.
3. Full disk backup takes much more space than ATI, even with maximum compression.
4. Editing settings for a scheduled backup is clumsy.

ATI 2014 seems to be working fine for me ATM, with daily backups of my system disk, and daily and hourly file backups of other data, so I think I'll stick with it.

Everything you said I agree with. Acronis is in fact more feature rich and the scheduling is far more extensive.
But for my "needs" the Hard Disk Manager Suite 14 "cut the mustard". I don't care about hourly schedules.
I don't really like that you can't limit or change the number of incremental backups and it's not as "automated".
The scheduling is a bit clunky. But for myself everything works and I liked that it included what I consider more feature
rich on the partition management side of the house. When I moved to Windows 8 I found that the Suite made the
move painless as I was able to back my drive up and then using the wizards it automatically formatted and partitioned
it for GPT and aligned and allocated it correctly for a UEFI BIOS interface. I simply was able to restore my back
up to the GPT partition for the OS as MBR is no longer required for UEFI Bios boot ups as the MBR information
is stored in the BIOS through some sort of key and identifiers between the BIOS and the Windows 8 OS.
The result was a more scecure PC with vastly improved booting time. I think the package as a whole offered more
than what I got from Acronis. And I think it's good that they hear these things.

I'm not going to give up totally on Acronis as they do have the upper hand in back ups but not so much for partitioning and
management as Paragon seems to have. So this is a trade off. If I had it my way I'd use Acronis for backups and the partition
management with Paragon. But my problem here is that I owned 2013 and it was bug ridden as well for some time and I bought
many licenses and was purely frustrated when I purchased the online backup service to discover how poor it was. I complained
and opened tickets with absolute refusal to credit me for it. That left a sour taste in my mouth and I'm not upgrading for 19.99
when I feel they owe me some upgrades after getting screwed over with 2013 and the online backup service which was god aweful.
It worked , it was painfully slow and restoration was undesirable taking days sometimes NEVER working with timeouts.

I paid in quite a bit for the 2013 licensing and was keeping my eye out on 2014 and to learn its bug ridden appears to be showing
a trend from 2013. If they want to make things right they need to get it fixed, get that online working better (MUCH) and
for those who forked over good money for multiple licenses in 2013 and the online backup service as I did they need to be a bit better
than sending me an email for 19.99 upgrade offer when Paragon gave me a bargain basement price for something that works currently
without bugs and the partition management features is far more than what I had in ATI. The 2014 Suite from Paragon may
be less feature rich on backups but it works does the job well and has actually more feature rich as it includes a significant amount
of parititon management that was important for me. As I said, if I have it my way I'd use Acronis for backups and PAragon for
partition management. PArition management isn't important for many but it is for me. So , until I see them making it right
on the wrongs that was done after spending hundreds of dollars to get shoddy service and a 2013 product my business went to Paragon.
I'm leaving the door open but my experience with customer service on the matter was not desirable when I asked for a refund on the online
service which was terrible all I got was a 1 month extension. What good is that when it didn't work that well in the first place?

19.99 for an upgrade? Nope not going to happen. I have 7 licenses I have to replace. I'd love to use Acronis over PAragon but
Paragon just works and does it well and I get the extra benefit of the partition management tools that is very powerful when it came
to setting up the UEFI BIOS and the drive to work with Windows 8 properly. No more MBR. No lost data either. Perfect.
So, I don't if they intend to do anything but I wrote it with the intent to signal to them to shape it up and they need to do something
about the terrible experience I had with 2013 and the online backup services. I just can't pay 19.99 for it for 2014 when users
are sititng here complaining about even more issues than before. This is a trend. And I'm not shelling out money not even 19.99
until at least my particular issue is made right. Offer me 9.99 and I may put up with the bugs and be al itttle more lenient
when it comes to shoddy online back up. But Im not risking doing that again.

I will say the ACronis Sync was beautiful. Love that feature. But for now Paragon wins it for me until they make my issue right.
Then I might come back to use it for backup software and use Paragon for partition management. There's trades between the two
products.

Thanks all for sharing. I felt the need to share my story with Acronis. They won't be able to make right what was wronged if they
don't know there are customers out here that are not pleased by 2013 and the horrible online back and asking them to upgrade
for 19.99 for more bugs isn't going to fly. Try 9.99 for those of us with multiple licenses for many pc's and I might jump.
MIGHT.