As time goes by, it gets more and more urgent the need to keep our important files conveniently backed up. However, doing this manually is a hard and time-consuming task that might lead us to accidentally lose critical files. That's why we need to resource to specialized applications such as Acronis True Image Home, which is one of the most powerful backup and sync tools available nowadays.
After you install the program, you need to create an account with Acronis to be able to use its functions. The service includes a cloud drive you can select as a destination for your backup and synchronization jobs. The program's user interface is quite intuitive and can be easily understood by practically any PC user, even those with basic skills. All the program's features are easily accessible through a clear and self-descriptive side menu located at the left side of the window.
The most relevant function is probably "Backup" and it allows you to create copies either of your entire PC, specific disks/partitions or specific files/folders. As a destination, you can select among the mentioned Acronis cloud drive, an external drive or a local folder, and then you can manually execute the backup job. If you are an advanced user, however, you can configure additional options that include scheduling your job, setting it as an incremental/differential backup, excluding certain file types from the job and setting a password for the protection of your backup, among many other advanced options. Whatever configuration you choose, your files are not copied directly but they are packed inside an Acronis True Image file (with .tib extension).
Another very important function of the program is "Archive". It is designed to locate large and too old files that are not vital to your system and move them to an external drive or to the Acronis cloud drive, so you can recover that wasted disk space. Next is the "Sync" function, which allows you to synchronize the contents of a specific folder of your PC with a remote folder located either on the Acronis cloud drive or on a remote computer. For the latter option, you need to also execute Acronis True image with the same account on the remote computer and click the "Join Sync" button on both ones. You can use the same technique to synchronize your folders among multiple PCs and portable devices.
The "Tools" option of the menu gives you access to multiple extra utilities offered by the program like Clone Disk, the Rescue-Media Builder, the "Try & Decide" tool and the System Clean-up tool. Finally, the "Active Protection" section allows you to enable/disable and configure one of the most powerful functions the program offers - the real-time protection against ransomware, one of the most dangerous and lethal kinds of malware that threatens the sensitive data of both individuals and companies nowadays.
In a nutshell, Acronis True Image Home is a very powerful suite of tools that, even though it specializes in data backup and synchronization, it also offers you many additional utilities and options to protect your data effectively. Despite all that functionality, there are other editions of the program - the Advanced and Premium ones -, which offer you, even more, possibilities like electronic signatures and end-to-end data encryption for the data transfers.
v2018.9 [Sep 8, 2017]
- New! Backup Statistics and Activity graphically represents content of a backup, provides statistics for backed-up file categories, such as documents, photos, videos, music, and others. Backup activity streams allow you to track history of backup operations starting from a backup creation, the operation statuses, and to analyze the statistics for successfully backed-up data.
- Improved Media Builder to create WinPE media by using Windows Recovery Environment without downloading the additional component—Windows ADK or Windows AIK (up to 6 GB). You can customize your media in Advanced mode, or use the predetermined settings of Simple mode.
- New! Active Protection Dashboard monitors how many potentially risky processes have been flagged, and the number of files duplicated in cache to protect them from the risky processes. The dashboard provides statistics for blocked, trusted processes and allows you to manage a permission list so your trusted applications could run as normal.
- Improved Active Protection compatibility with Windows Defender and other third-party antivirus software.
- Improved Clone disk utility—You can clone disk on an active Windows system without having to use bootable media. By using the volume shadow copy service (VSS), Acronis True Image allows you to create a snapshot of the active partition and boot from the new disk.
- New! Conversion to Virtual Machine—Convert Acronis backup files to the Microsoft Virtual Hard Drive format to ensure the system will boot starting a virtual machine with Hyper-V. You can also mount a .vhd(x) file as a virtual hard drive.
- New! Faster file and system recovery with the enabled WAN optimization option that increases download speed from Acronis Cloud data centers.
- New! Faster Incremental Backup for disk and partition backups with Acronis Changed Block Tracker (CBT). The Volume Tracker reduces the amount of time taken to perform incremental or differential images by monitoring the changes to an image in real-time mode.
- New! Laptop power setting allows you to pause backup while working on battery to save the battery power. The paused backups will continue automatically after connecting power adapter.
- Usability and other improvements:
* Mobile devices are available in the backup source list.
* Access to backup shortcut menu with right-click.
* Progress bar was updated with application window blurring.
* Fixed issue with the search dialog that did not provide functionality of recovering several files from different backup versions.
* Fixed issue with possibility to move a backup from a password-protected network to a local drive or to another share.
