Comparaison Acronis True Image Home 2010 VS Norton Ghost 14
Team’s Intro : Seb’s article is published “as is”. Thank you Seb !
… now why have we published this article right now ?! 
.
Why didn’t I pick Acronis 2010 and got Ghost 14 instead..
.
Hi folks, it’s been a while and instead of usual finds as promissed we present our choices of software from our Giveaway Wish. As most of You probably know I’m a photo and backup software freak ;). And since we’ve had a lot of backup software offers in the beggining like Paragon, O&O, or EastTechBackup 2009 etc.
After reading the titile You know I haven’t chosen any of these. If You want to know why and skip all blabbing just go to the bottom and You will know.
Ok, so those who are still reading (or read my conclusion and came back still wondering) will be able to see it from my point of view. Since I don’t need very sophisticated software for backups, as I’m used to creating full drive images, my only and most important needs for backup solution are:
Small image footprint- Speed of image creation
- Speed of image recovery
- Ease of use
- Recovery media
This is probably standard for most people, but some of You may want more from software nowdays. So it offers much more than just simple image backups. You can create differential disks, continous backup, archive Your documents, program settings and single files or directories.
Just to explain in more detail five points above:
- Yes, size matters :), I’m usually keeping at least three images with clean OS, previous and current backup. Every image is created from scratch (no differential or incremental backups) in case something goes wrong. Besides images I’m keeping also notes on programs and configuration changes that have to be done after recovering image and creating new one. In that situation size of produced images really matters with ranges between 5-8GB per image it’s at least 6-7GB or loss when using different software and compression methods.
- In addition to size image creation (always with high compression ratio) matters, it’s not that important since it’s done only once in a while, but can give few minutes more to sleep when You finish all tweaks around 2AM
- Time to recover the data from image is also of high importance, we all are quite busy people that don’t want to waste their time working around problems. I actually found out that it’s much easier and faster to recover from image than to try to fix even small system errors. (considered You keep images updated and it’s fast)
- By easo of use I mean how much time do I need before I can start to create backup and how clear the interface is.
- And of course how can we recover in case of failure. CD/DVD/USB?
Since when it comes to giants of backup solutions (commertial) there are only two Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image I decided to give both a try. Taking into consideration most important points for me I’ve tested Norton Ghost 14 and just released Acronis Home 2010. And I have to say both are very good products depending on Your needs and choosing one of them was really hard.
Why is that?
Interface
As for Acronis True Image 2010 the interface is clean and eye-pleasing, it’s easy to figure out what is where on the spot. And You get quite a bit of tools to use (see below).
Backup
As I mentioned number one priority was backup size and recovery abilities and Acronis does that really well. It created the backup image and checked it in about 15 minutes with OS working. It has a lot of options when it comes to creating backup image like:
- Full Backup
- Differential Backup (wiki)
- Incremental Backup (wiki)
- Non Stop Backup (wiki)
The biggest downside is that it produces quite big files: 7.5GB image (with maximum comression rate) of around 18GB of data might not be considered a lot, but consider that with 3GB of RAM, both swap and hibernation take 3GB each so that gives us around 12 GB of pure data. Still it’s good if You have enough space.
Recovery
I have to admit that I haven’t tested recovery of images with Acronis so I can’t tell much about it, but it should be fairly straightforward (and I have a feeling that we will be able to check how it works actually).
One of interesting features is “Try & Decide”
“
The Try&Decide feature allows creating a secure, controlled temporary workspace on your computer without requiring you to install special virtualization software. You can perform various system operations not worrying that you might damage your operating system, programs or data.
After making virtual changes, you may apply them to your original system. If you make changes that you want to keep, you might want to commit those changes to the system. Among the operations you may attempt with this feature is to open mail attachments from unknown senders or visit websites that might contain potentially troublesome content.
For example, if you visit a website or open an email attachment that puts a virus on your temporary duplicate, you can simply destroy the duplicate and no harm will be done – the virus will not appear on your machine.
“
So it works like differential image that can be applied to working system and in a way it is presented should be brilliant, but if You’re not carefull enough You might loose some important data that “just came in” so You always need to be very aware when using this feature.
Extras and Recovery Media
As mentioned above Acronis implemented set of usefull (more or less) tools into it’s backup solution. As I couldn’t test these I can’t say anything specyfic about these tools, but most of them are self explainatory.
When creating recovery media we can choose any device connected to our PC (external hard drives don’t seem to count). And I really have to say “bravo!” for adding support for USB drives, who nowdays wants to run around with cd/dvd when we have smaller and faster flash drives in every pocket?
Summary for Acronis
- Clean, easy interface,
- A lot of backup options,
- Good compression level
- Create recovery on USB natively,
- Compatybile with Windows 7.
So … what?
What about Norton Ghost 14?
Interface
Before You can even use Norton Ghost 14, Windows 7 poups up with a box that says there might be compatybility issues, but You can calm down I haven’t experienced any and same beloved microsoft says it’s all ok since it actually IS compatibile (both 32 and 64 bit versions). Check it out HERE .
Ghost 14 is now qute old (was released in 2008) and it doesnt present itself as well as ATI (hmm..) 2010. Still it gives You most important information when You launch it.
So it’s not a looker, but let’s check what it can offer when considering backup methods..
..well not much, You can create one point backup, no differential or incremental images and Files/Folders backups.
BUT when it does create the image it uses only 4.5GB ! How is that possible? No idea, 
but every Ghost version has always skipped hibernation and swap files when creating backup images, and I’m not sure about Acronis. It also takes very small amount of time to create image - around 12 minutes.
Recovery
As I have a bit more experience with Ghost I decided to try recovering my drive and it’s really fast takes just few minutes (on a laptop PC). And I can confirm (saw it) that it takes literally 3 minutes to recover whole system on normal PC when file is on external hard drive using esata (my friend’s tests). Ghost like Acronis creates recovery media, but allows to create it on CD/DVD. To create it on USB flash drive You need to prepare it Yourself ( as described by krisrowland ).
”
Boot the SRD disc on a machine that has an optical drive.
- Insert USB stick (may have to do this before booting SRD, depending on how your machine behaves)
- Open a command line (under one of the menu options)
- Run the diskpart command line app. (Type: diskpart)
Enter the rest one after the other:
- list disk, to find the drive number of your usb stick.
- select disk #, to select the usb disk (put the number you found in the previous step in place of the # – be absolutely certain you have the right number!)
- clean
- create partition primary
- select partition 1
- active
- format fs=fat32
- assign
- exit
Now simply copy the contents of the SRD disc over to the USB stick root directory. That’s it! Now, provided you can boot from a USB stick easily enough, you can boot the SRD straight from the USB drive.
“
Extras and Tools
This part I also consider better prepared by Acronis than Symantec. True Image tools allow You to do much more than this basic set by Symantec. Here we can only convert drives to Virtual Drives for VMware. (but Acronis allows to create Windows virtual drives that work “out of the box” with Microsoft’s newest OSes).
Summary
- Easy, but limited interface,
- No advanced backup methods available,
- GREAT compression rate,
- Creating USB recovery media requires some command line work,
- False (?) compatybility issues information in Windows 7.
So if You compare these lists it’s easy to see that..
- Both are easy to use (Acronis has better interface),
- Both are really fast (here I’d give Ghost more credit in this field, but can’t confirm recoveries with Acronis),
- Acronis offers more and better features,
- Ghost has much better data/image ratio,
- Overal usage is better for Acronis (Ghost’s compatybility box and USB recovery creation) and it’s cheaper.
But it all doesn’t matter..
..because depending on Your needs it’s all You will ever need. Only thing You really need to consider if You have ever used drive imaging program is how You used it. Do You need all features that Acronis provides or are You just drawn by it’s sparks and whistles. True, Ghost is older, doesn’t allow to do as much, and is 20$ more expensive, but if You’re like me and need a simple and fast program to do only complete backups from time to time and don’t want to loose precious disk (around 3GBs per image) space and command line doesn’t scare You, You will know why I chose Norton Ghost. On the other hand if these few gigabytes aren’t important and You feel like You can use features of new Acronis release then grab it and it will be really happy with this solution.
As I wrote in the beggining it all depends on Your personal preferences and what matters most for Your case.
Hope You enjoyed this article.
Sebastian
.
Related posts:
- Acronis True Image 10 Personal Edition Free Promo (Outdated)
- O@O Disk Image 3,5 Professional Edition - 4 Free ( Updated )
- Macrium Reflect FREE Edition
- East-Tec Backup 2009 - 4 Free ( Outdated )
- Titan Backup 1.5 is For Free
- Free Advanced WindowsCare Professional And Titan Backup + Other Free Sharewares ( Outdated )
- Paragon Rescue Kit 9.0 Express - A Freeware Among All Paragon Promotions
- Backup4All Lite Free Promotion
- Paragon Hard Disk Manager 9.5 Special Edition - 4 Free ( Outdated )
- Titan Backup V 2.5 ( LATEST ) Free Full Licence Key ( UPDATED )
I have Acronis True Image 10 installed, and I had recovered my system several times using its recovery. All I can say is, it worked very well for me, but took long time to recover (about half an hour, and my system is about 30G, 14G after compressed as Acronis True Image 10 image). So I consider Acronis True Image 10 is quite reliable for me.
After reading this article, I’m thinking maybe I should give Ghost 14 a try. I had been using Ghost quite a long time ago, then switched to Acronis True Image since it worked better than Ghost at the time.
Thanks for the great article!
Thank you seb for this instructive review.
I wish you included Paragon Drive Backup in your comparison… Still, datas I could give wouln’t be consistent with yours, but I always was very happy with it (both in backup and restoration!)
Thanks again
Nice article Seb!
Congrats !
1 point
Hi Keith !
Very interesting way of comparing the two backup jewels.
Thank you Seb !
Nice article!
I’ve been using TrueImage 11 for awhile and have been using to create a very lean and stable XP system partition. Point being, I have had no problems with repeated restores from images.
Haven’t tried Ghost but I find it very interesting that it can make such small image files.
In the future, you might also want to take a look at StorageCraft’s ShadowProtect. I recently tested it and found it extremely fast (less than 3 minutes to backup a 10 GB system partition at normal compression => 6.5 GB file) Didn’t test it’s performance at max compression.
Again, nice review. Thanx
2 points
Thank YOU Jelson !
Great article Seb. Personally I am using the Paragon Hard Disk Manager given from 4 Free and it does everything I could ask for. Before that I used Macrium Reflect Free Edition which I also found excellent.
2 points
Thank you!
I’m using Macrium Reflect for my backups, works well under Win7 also. The free version lacks more advanced features like incremental backups though. But usually I use it to image a clean installation of the OS, so that’s not an issue for me.
I’ve tried Ghost some years back, can still remember the need to reboot and boot from floppy disks. There weren’t that many choices for customers back then, and Ghost was my choice due to its speed. I’ve also used True Image previously, and like its user-friendliness and ability to backup from within Windows itself. I still keep a copy on my hard disk just in case.
Thank you, Seb! Is it right that the Ghost 14 boot CD cannot create images, just restore them? #1 Wei: are you talking about ATI 10 Home or ATI 10 Personal?
2 points
Hi!
Paragon has just released Paragon Backup and Recovery 10 Free Version……it is very quick and the only one I have been able to backup and restore Windows 7.
Can be downloaded from Paragon home page.I.highly recommend it
Kindest Regards,
BillyT
3 points
Hi Billy!
Of course we have seen it!
Regards !
Wow !! That was really great comparison ! Congrats Seb !
I think both are top notch products and have their own
merits and demerits. As you said it all depends on their own
personal preferences. Thanks for the informative review !
Really helpful !!
Hi Seb,
Thanks for the article. I have been curious about backup strategies that people use. I currently follow somewhat a different practice, but am not fully satisfied with what I do.
Here are my requirements:
1. ~500 GB of data to be backed up. Lots of family pictures and videos.
2. Maintain two identical hard-disks where one is dedicated to image-based backup of the other.
3. No compression. Recovery implies physically swapping the SATA connectors of the hard-drive, and that’s it.
4. Taking backups means full replication of hard-drive. Vista introduced an unnecessary complication because of which backup requires a fix before it could boot.
5. As a rule, never take backup of one hard-drive on the same hard-drive.
Complications:
1. I use two internal hard-disks, but leave the backup one disconnected so that it remains untouched unless taking a backup. This implies that I have to open the box to take backups! This is what I hate about it.
2. Takes 2+ hours of running time to create the backup. Fixing time is more, about 0.5 hours. Since backup operation happens while rebooting, do not know how to view errors if something goes wrong and the system reboots during the backup operation without completing backup. So I generally stay around and do something else while periodically monitoring.
3. Unlike your method, the process of taking backup kills the backup first. This means that if something goes wrong “during” the backup process, all data could be gone.
4. Backup software is generally complicated. Always requires reboot.
Solutions:
1. Does Norton Ghost fit my case?
2. External hard-drive instead of internal?
3. Am considering online backup in addition. Do not know how much it would cost for 500 GB.
4. Need some method of differential backup so that changes could be backed up more frequently.
Comments? Proposals?
Pretty moronic you didn’t test recovery, as this is the ultimate test, where many backup softwares fail. The whole reason for making backups, is the possiblility of recovery, after a data disaster. The creation of an image is a means to an end, it has no merit of its own.
2 points
Hi gh!
You have a point there. The article is comprehensive, nevertheless.
Regards!
Nice review Seb; I guess I’ll try both and see which one I keep (most likely Acronis).
Thanks for taking the time to test and write the review!
2 points
Thank YOU Gonzo !
Personally, I haven’t tried Acronis 2010. I don’t like Symantec very much but at least they do
have an uninstall tool. Removing Acronis from your computer is quite a task!
Nice article, thought.
2 points
Thank YOU
I use Power Quest Disk Image 2008 it’s fast and gives you 3 choices of compression .
But alas Norton bought up the competition and sacked it no more Disk Image but you can still find it on ebay. I did luck out and get a copy of Shadow Protect before they shut the site down thanks to those on Ray’s site. I don’t know if Drive Image works on Win 7 but it does work on XP. I did try Shadow Protect on win 7 but didn’t have the room on my drive to complete it but I will try it again and report back.
Bill S.
Interesting point of view Seb !
Like Franck says I would have loved to see Paragon in this comparaison.
Regards !
I own both ATIH v10 (on a laptop) and v11 (on a desktop), and have been running them for about 1 and a half years. [Note: I believe that ATIH 2010 is really v12, for comparison.] During that time I have restored the full disk image to the laptop twice with no problems whatsoever and individual files to the desktop multiple times (also without any problems). I’m thoroughly pleased with both versions. FYI, my experience with backup software and devices goes back to 1996 when I bought my first tape drive and includes enterprise-level software/hardware systems (I was an IT manager in the late 90s).
On both the laptop and desktop (both of which are Windows XP systems), I have used ATIH to create a hidded partition on the drive and saved a “clean” system image there (this is what I’ve used to restore the laptop both times; in both cases it was my solution to restoring the performance of the laptop, which had gotten junked up with downloaded apps that my daughter had installed). I save a second full backup to an external USB HDD, then use incremental backups to keep things current. On the laptop, this is a single backup (as there’s only one HDD); on the desktop, I actually have separate (system) and (data) backups, as I keep all data and Windows “User Settings” on .
I also avoid the swapfile backup issue on the desktop by placing the swapfile on a separate partition on the first HDD (i.e., it has its own drive letter). Consequently, it’s not included in the system backup. With regard to ATIH v10 and v11, there’s no way to exclude the swapfile or hybernation file from a full-disk image that I can see. You could, however, define a “files and folders” backup that would included everything but those files, I would think (that would be extra work, but as long as you saved it as a scheduled backup, you should have to do it only once).
As for my backup sizes on the desktop (the laptop is currently in pieces due to hardware repairs):
* System size on is 28.9 GB; backup size is 5.5 GB (”normal” compression).
* Data size on is 21.7 GB; backup size is 8.7 GB (”normal” compression; so data files are benefitting less from the compression).
I’m puzzled why Seb didn’t get better compression from ATIH 2010 than he did, as he reported about the same compression ratio (2.4:1) on his full drive image as I got on my data drive image (2.5:1), reportedly while using “maximum” compression (which is two steps above the “normal” compression that I was using). His compression ratio was significantly worse than what I achieved on my system drive image (5.3:1). Possibilities: (1) The 6 GB of swapfile and hibernation file is relatively uncompressible or (2) his data files are much less compressible than mine.
Seb, I’m tempted to encourage you to partition your HDD and put the swapfile (at least, and the hibernation file if possible) on the second partition. If your test system has two internal HDDs, then put that extra partition on the drive (for performance reasons; most reports on this technique state that performance improves if the swapfile isn’t on the same physical disk as the system files). If nothing else, this would eliminate the swapfile from your system drive image, giving you significantly smaller backup images regardless of what imaging software you use.
One last note: I looked into upgrading to ATIH 2010 about 3 months after it was released, and decided not to do so based on the high number of problem reports about 2010’s stability and restore reliability on Acronis’ online support forum. Many upgraders reported reverting to v11 (or even v10, in a few cases) after having major problems with 2010. I would recommend checking the support forum to see if the problems have been fixed by an update before committing to 2010; if the reports are still negative, see if you can find a copy of ATIH v11 on sale online–it’s outstanding.
8 points
Thank you for the very comprehensive comment.
Regards !
To #17 bethel95: ATIH 2009 is v12, the current ATIH 2010 is v13 — seems that Acronis, unlike Microsoft (Office 12 —> Office 14) and Symantec (Ghost 12 —> Ghost 14) is not superstitious…
3 points
Thank you!
Hi Seb&4 Free !
Thank you for this interesting post !
The later versions of acronis don’t seem to have the uninstall problem.
I tried/removed it on my win7 system; it did not leave stuff behind, most notably the scheduler services. I currently use paragon backup & recovery, which is free, and covers my backup needs just fine. Windows 7 also does have an image backup solution, which can also be restored via a bootable recovery cd. No compression, alas, but otherwise it works fine. It does exclude system files like the page file.
3 points
Thank you for the detailed comment.
Regards !
Hey, thanks for all comments now some replies..
@Alok
If You don’t want to compress images and keep all data on another harddrive maybe think about RAID 1 setup? Only downside is that second drive will be running all the time and it will backup also system partition (in case You dont want that) also You will loose capacity if one drive is bigger than other.
Other solution and I think better might be Synch software (there’s a lot free and shareware). I haven’t used any of those methods so I want to ask community about their experience in this field.
Anyway in Your case I think going for disk imagining software is a bit of overkill.
@bethel95
About Your case if I had that kind of compression ratio on normal I’d go for Acronis, really. I have no idea why these differ so much from what I’ve tested. I only have programs on C partition all documents etc. are elsewhere. I will try to test it again in nearest time.
@gh
Yeah I should do recovery as it’s essential case in that kind of software, although here I was counting more on our community since all I was after where average times how programs were managing with recovery not if it was running smoothly. In that kind of high level software it’s taken for granted that it works as expected. Check out bethel95’s comment about recoveries.
Nice review. I have older version, (version 9) of Acronis and I am pleased with it.
1 point
Thank you!
I checked into the issue of moving the hibernation file off of the drive–every forum that I turned up via Google (including MS’s) state that this isn’t possible.
Of course, if you’re not using hibernation, you can always turn it off in the Power Options control panel (see the “Hibernation” tab in XP; not sure where you’ll find it in Vista or 7). Turning off hibernation eliminates the file (which will be as big as your installed RAM, regardless of whether you use it or not).
3 points
Thank you!
@Alok
As Seb said you can go for RAID 1array. In case you don’t
know - RAID is not a backup strategy !! Its a Disk Mirroring
concept !! The data is mirrored between 2 HDD’s (i.e) the
data is written at the same time in both the drives(one drive
is exact copy of other drive). So if one fails, the other one is
there to rescue. The main disadvantages are high disc
overhead and write time is longer.
The other best possible solution would be to use external
devices such as USB HDD, eSATA or NAS devices. If you
want faster data write then these external HDD’s are
the best.
Personally i wont recommend you online backup. There
are many disadvantages. There is no assurance that the
company you have chosen would be still in service
in the coming days. Its very expensive for large amount of
data backups. Moreover if the internet connection fails you
will not be able to access the data and off course you need
faster internet bandwidth.
Cost is the main issues in all these solutions. But as you
say its about family photos and videos…. memories are
priceless !!
Hi Seb! You should repeat your test since Ghost 15 has been released…
1 point
Good article. Thanks for sharing.
Regards,
image restoration
Hi !