Continuing on with our in-depth discussions on

backup solutions, this article will review Acronis True Image
version 8.0. This will be the final article in our 7-part series,
stretching back almost 1 month to date:

• 
  
  Choosing a Backup Solution: An In Depth Look
• 
  6 Key
  Elements for any Backup Strategy
• 
  Backup
  Made Easy: A Six Point Guide to Buying Backup Software
• 
  Genie
  Backup Manager Review
• 
  System
  Restore and similar Registry Reverting utilities - pointless?
• 
  The
  results are in: which Disk Imaging Backup software is best?
• 
  
  Acronis True Image 8.0 Review
  

  RE: Disk Imaging software versus Regular File Backup

  Regular file backup programs such as
  
  Genie Backup Manager are fantastic for backing up personal files
  such as downloads, documents, emails, pictures, bookmarks, and the
  like. And as we learned previously,
  
  Regular file backup is also a great way to archive files onto a
  more permanent location (such as CD-Recordable) in order to save
  space on the hard drive.

  The flipside of the coin is that regular file backup is not
  capable of backing up the Operating System. In other words, if your
  hard drive crashed or if Windows suddenly became inoperable, the
  only way to resolve the issue would be to:

  • format [erase] the hard drive
  • 
    reinstall Windows and download all the updates
  • reinstall all your programs
  • reinstall the backup software
  • restore your data that you backed up

  In all, that might take 6 to 8 hours
  to complete (at best) - not fun.

  I personally use
  
  regular file backup to archive my most critical files on a
  regular basis; but, for those truly disastrous situations [often as
  a result of a Spyware infection, Virus, or something that I
  downloaded recently that didn't install / uninstall properly], I
  also use a Disk Imaging software to backup and revert my entire
  system to a previous healthy state… often
  within minutes.

  Introducing Acronis True Image 8.0: True Disaster Recovery

  Recently
  
  voted best disk imaging solution by our Readers, some of the
  features provided by Acronis True Image v8.0 include:

  [Acronis
  True Image 8.0 Review (In-Depth), continued]

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