Acronis has always been one of the leading disk backup and restore applications. Version 10 brings with it a solid selection of tools to let you save all your essential information safely. Let’s take a look at what this program has to offer.

Backup is certainly Acronis’ strong point. You can create a complete disk image of your operating system, applications, user data and settings and backup all your Outlook data (emails, contacts, tasks). Whilst creating a backup you can select or exclude files according to their extension. Acronis also allows you to backup the settings of certain applications.

The detailed wizard interface makes the whole backup process pretty straightforward. If you already have a backup file of all your data, Acronis can create a differential file and update your backup with all the latest changes instead of creating a new file from scratch. The Snap Restore function will allow you to use your system while it is being restored.

Acronis also introduces a “Secure Zone” feature where you can create a protected partition on your hard drive and save sensible information and backups. The “Secure Zone” can be resized at will to accommodate more files.

Let’s move on to the recovery features in the program. Creating bootable media ensures that you have an external solution to reboot your PC in case of a major breakdown. This process is as simple as working with the backup tools. You can choose to create a safe or a full version (twice as big as the safe version), but it is probably best to create both. Acronis offers many bootable media possibilities like FTP, CDR or DVD. You can clone multiple hard drives and add extra partitions to make more space on your PC. If your operating system fails, easily boot and start the recovery process simply by pressing F11.

Naturally, Acronis True Image comes with a scheduling feature to automatically handle these tasks for you. It also offers password protection for your files and folders. The program will log all the actions that you undertake, making it easy to check the last time you did a backup or what files you saved. Overall, we were impressed by the speed, simplicity and choice of actions present in Acronis True Image. The only downsides to it were the lengthy installation process and not being able to handle multiple tasks at the same time.