Acronis True Image 2021 Premium is without a doubt the most comprehensive solution when it comes to backup and computer security for Windows PCs. In fact, we are not aware of any other product that these two software disciplines actually marry in one streamlined application.
While anti-malware and backup may seem like a strange marriage at first, the ability to back up or access previous backups when malware is detected makes a lot of sense. A licensed skeptic when the company first started this path, I am now a big fan of the concept.
This review is part of our ongoing roundup of the best backup software. Go there for information on competing products and how we test them.
Design and features
Acronis True Image sports a clean, attractive interface, and is easy to use – once you get used to it. There are some quirks in organization and operation, and the program sometimes assumes that something is obvious when it is not. If you’re new here, take a good half hour and explore (hint: move the cursor over everything) before committing to your first operations.
There’s a lot to talk about with True Image. I will come to malware protection later as first and foremost the program fulfills the promise of its name by creating image files of disks or partitions as well as selected files and folders. These can be full (everything), incremental (everything since the last backup), or differential (everything since the first backup). You can also create files from your phone or remote files with remotely shared network locations, and use Blockchain to notarize backup files using the premium version.
IDGTrue image captures data from almost every location.
Real Image lets you schedule backups, will kill older backups automatically (if manually) when space is running low, splits backups, sector-by-sector or just copies data, validates the backup post-run, pre-commands and performs post-surgery, and many more. In short, almost every option invented by the backup community has been implemented.
The program also backs up almost any type of destination: optically, the 1 TB of cloud storage provided by Acronis, hard disks, network locations, and more. It will optionally place a version of the program on removable media for use during recovery operations. If you are a super-old school, sorry, tape is not supported.
Other related and tangential features include hardware-independent recovery media creation (USB / optical), disk cloning, an OEM-enabled recovery partition creator, a system cleaning tool (think CCLeaner), and a secure deletion program.
IDGReal image sports options abound. If a feature is implemented in the backup space, you will find it here.
There were some annoyances when defining backups and other tasks. For example, after clicking on the Add backup button, the initial creation process was so slow, I found myself unnecessarily clicking again. There should be immediate feedback. If I did not provide references (username and password) for a network destination, I could not double-click on this location to re-enter it until I exit the task setup and re-enter.
I also wish that once True Image could allow multiple destinations for each job. Most end users have one set of data, and they want to backup it to different locations for redundancy. These are all minor gripes that do not affect the excellent overall usefulness of the program.
There are three versions of True Image, the premium version of $ 100 that I test with all the goodies, a $ 70 version that omits Blockchain and electronic signatures, and a $ 50 version that lacks cloud storage and related features such as cloud backup replication, and Office 365 backup.
Protection against bad things
A few years ago, Acronis recognized an opening in the market due to a space of ransomware attacks, and added ransomware protection to the bag with tricks from True Image. It has now expanded its capabilities to protect against common malware, malicious websites, and other bad behaviors, such as code injection into apps. This, of course, requires real-time intervention – this year’s big addition.
To test its anti-malware capabilities, I recommend the tests provided by Acronis, such as the game WICAR (Acronis provided links), and surfing on some known bad areas of the web. Real Image captured everything. As effective as it is proven, real-time protection is optional and can be disabled.
Once upon a time I might have pooh-poohed ransomware protection. Then the NAS box hosting my personal website fell prey to a vulnerability in an outdated version of WorldPress. It was not fun, although fortunately it did not affect the USB attached backup. It’s affecting a synced Dropbox account, which’s the only reason I’m tracking it. Whew.
Little was lost, but it was a disturbing affair. When I was on a NAS box, it was not something True Image would have captured unless the box was mapped as a local drive (it was not). But the point is – learn from my experience. Ransomware exists, and it’s annoying.
Note that online conference protection and web filtering are not available on the Mac version.
Performance
In general, True Image is as fast as they come. Sporting a new 2.5GbE network, I really enjoyed the speed of backup to and from my NAS boxes, and so on. I also back up local folders to hard disks, folders to optical (single BD-R / M-Disc), and some files to the cloud. All went quickly and without incident. I hate incidents and do not tend to trust backup software that suffers from them.
One area where I want to see a little more speed is in the actual startup of the program. Some of the delays are no doubt due to communication with the Acronis servers. If you do not want a program that is the outside world, True Image is not for you. I would also like to see a bit more flexibility in the applet of the system tray, such as the ability to get rid of it.
IDGAcronis True Image with all its features sets up a whopping 12 background processes. There is not much impact on performance, but that is a bundle.
As you can see above, True Image has a heavy system footprint and spans a whopping 12 background processes. Likewise, I did not notice much impact on system performance. With a relatively new computer, you should not have to either. Real Image calls network locations very quickly, something that many programs seem to stumble upon. It also automatically remembers your login details. Nice.
Final thoughts
True Image offers an all-inclusive tragedy prevention solution for $ 100 per annum. Given the wide possibilities, that’s pretty reasonable prices.
Of course, the scope of the program and the number of processes it remains is not for everyone. Best practices will suffice for many, although it is difficult to argue about safe.
