Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 Review

"Don't wait for your hard drive to crash. The disaster already happened." What starts out as a demonstration and review turns into a massive waste of time and disaster when it comes to the Acronis line of products. Avoid disaster altogether and skip the Acronis Backup & Recovery product line.

When it comes to Acronis products, they are often seen as the world leader in system backup. This video demonstration and review takes a look at the strength and weaknesses of one of the later Acronis products. Three virtual machines are connected to a host hub, all running Acronis Backup & Recovery 2011 Advanced Workstation. The host hub will function as the main source for backups for the other workstations, and will also be used to try the data deduplication feature, which is said to significantly decrease storage space requirements for backups.

The video goes further to explore the weaknesses of a hot (live) backup and restore versus the traditional, tried, and true method of bare metal backup and restore. The video serves as a critique of a user interface gone awry with unnecessary complexity, advertising that the narrator believes goes over the top, and a pricing structure that is out of range for the quality of products being sold.
What started as a review and demonstration, slowly becomes a demonstration of a product that has become so complex it may be extraordinarily difficult to deploy even in the smallest of environments, much less an enterprise environment. As such, the video compares Acronis Backup & Recovery 2011 Advanced Workstation with other well-known backup products from Paragon.
Sadly, the narrator had hoped to obtain additional marketing information and software licensing from the PR and Marketing team at Acronis, in order to properly evaluate 2011 Advanced Server properly. The video culminates in the total frustration that many veterans of backup and restore may face when attempting to use the product simply over NAT and on a Local Area Network.
Clocking in at over one hour, this video is not for the faint of heart, and should be viewed as a learning experience shared by both the presenter and the viewer. Ultimately, through no fault of the narrator, this video becomes somewhat of an expose about how successful companies make it big in PC and computer magazines, and then fail to deliver, even in a structured test environment.

[robsuyat]

I am glad I am not the only one having trouble using acronis 11

[avms]

@Windows7Forums Technically, bootable disk of ABR11 of any edition can backup and restore Server OS (except for Universal Restore feature, where OS to be restored is checked to match the license). However Acronis EULA prohibits such usage (i.e."you must assign that license to one of your PCs or Servers (*depending upon the license* you have purchased" ). I only checked if Paragon HDM can install on server, and apparently their EULA has no limitation for bootable disk. May be they don't care.

[DeepSociety]

this saved my system. so thankful for this software!!

[WindowsForums]

@zik1zik It is important that you can retrace back steps that were used at the time to make your own, clear, concise evaluation of the software. As one individual already pointed out, had certain settings been applied differently, the centralized vault backup may not have failed. However, the difficulty in using the software on "1st time use" was definately being documented here.

[avms]

59:53. The point of centralized management is exactly 'not doing the same' on many machines, just create a centralized
backup plan on the management server, click boxes for machines or groups to backup and specify a single centralized vault as a destination.

[WindowsForums]

I am sorry you feel this way. Actually, Acronis liked this video, and we later partnered with them to sell True Image Home, which is one we will look at down the road as an instant classic. We need to get a version working live on a server and not in a virtualized environment (even though that VM-env has enough RAM and proc power). I have installed and managed True Image Echo Server 9 in multiple offices so this is not a fair assessment. This is a review-on-first use video and there is a curve.

[avms]

Around 53:00. You created ASZ on clone0. Then you clicked on clone1 in machines list, create a backup plan to backup the whole machine
and specified 'each machine's ASZ' as destination. But there is no ASZ on clone1. Backup failed - 'failed to open backup location'

[RydiasRevenge]

I do admit that it did take me a bit of a learning curve to use Acronis in my environment, especially on the Linux side. However, as soon as I got it working properly, and basically set it up the way I wanted to, I was able to backup all my Windows and Linux Systems. Support isn't the best though. You guys do want to get the Advanced Server or Workstation versions, as they have the better features. If you have Exchange or SQL databases, then get those products as well.

[WindowsForums]

@NeoTifasRevenge I think this may be the most fair assessment. The GUI can be more intuitive and that is that. Otherwise strange errors and mistakes would not have been made. If you care to watch a documentation of someone who has deployed other types of backup systems in an enterprise environment involving branch offices, you are seeing it here. I am highly certified and had difficulty. If you can overcome that steep learning curve, maybe it is the best. Critiques can improve software.

[WindowsForums]

@avms15 I am sorry to hear that this is the case. Are you doing this as a bare-metal backup or are you trying to install the software onto server? In the case of convenience I would be talking about actually booting from disc and running a bare-metal backup and restore. With Paragon Backup and Recovery 10's bootable media I am sure this was not making a distinction between Server and 7, for so long as the bootable media was used. Its just a flag they add to charge more which is sad. Most do it.

[avms]

1:00:57 You managed to append backup of clone1 to the existing backup of clone2. If a scheduled incremental backup were
configured on clone2 it would become very confused. Unfortunately this type of shooting off one's foot is permitted in ABR11
(in ABR10 it was roughly the same).

[WindowsForums]

@Yotofuji You are very much entitled to your beliefs and thoughts, and even I admit that I faced a learning curve using the management system from multiple machines. The reason comments are kept open and fair are not to attack the publisher or any other commentator, but to facilitate constructive criticism. The minute you use terms like "fanboy" you start to build a straw-man argument. This is not fair to your own critique! If you are in pain, you can change the channel. This was 1st time use.

[avms]

I bothered to visit paragon wibsite to check if I can for just $49 (Hard Disk Manager 2011 Suite) backup "whatever I want", "whether it is server or not".
I tried to install a trial on w 2003. As expected - no dice - "HDM 2011 Suite doesn't work under this OS! /OK/", they want me to shell out $750 for a server version.

[WindowsForums]

@avms15 Overall, the creation and use of a centralized vault from multiple workstations seemed like an elusive task, even when the steps necessary to perform it are reportedly in place. Local machine backup settings can very easily get confused with the management server settings; even on the management server machine. I found this to be a glaring flaw in the software, whereas other products can get you moving qucker. While we are to expect that this is enterprise level software, there are flaws

[chrisfillippi]

Has anyone had experienced Cloneing 2008 R2 with a Raid 5 to a new Physical same model server Raid 5?  It keeps asking for MBR?

In the video you say that you will try on a few other machines and then add an update to the review.

Later you tell Mr. Tetteh that you actually ended up partnering with Acronis, so apparently somewhere you did end up changing you opinion.

You throw around with certifications and titles, but you are fiddling around like you never had to deal with new software before. This particular review is for me as good as you consider the application to be.

Will there be an updated review on this ?

[bopraYT]

I wish I watched this video before I bought Acronis backup&recovery 11. Nearly one year later(maj 2012) I experience the same problems like in this video. Credentials dissaperaing, lost connectivty, occassional stalling...This thing is a mess. At best it feels like Alpha/Developers edition. Acronis support is ok but still they can help that this is a flawed software. Administrators stay away from this piece of software.

[DelTetteh]

Hi! i guess the next time you decide to do a (RE)view of a product, you might want to actually view it and thoroughly test it first. This wasn't very helpful when you looked like you didn't exactly know what you were doing, and especially when you sound very prejudices in your presentation.

[hininhellhk]

so you endup DIDNT managed to run any backup at all?? LOL

[kopels]

IF i were U !!!
i would immediately LEAVE the IT Profession .
AND DELETE THIS LUDICROUS VIDEO