With Symantec Ghost being used in the industry, you'd think it'll be just as good for the average home user or freelance techie. Unfortunately that isn't the case.

Some of Symantec Ghost's limitations include not being able to recognize USB storage devices (not without the BIOS's help anyways), can only write image files to file systems that DOS recognize (FAT and FAT32 only), and is hard for the average user to use (such as setting up network drivers).

Acronis True Image aims to make their drive imaging program much simpler to use, while adding features that freelance techies and your average end user would find useful.

What is Acronis True Image?
Like Symantec Ghost, this program does everything any backup jobs can possibly need. Instead of just backing up files, it backs up the entire drive or partition sector-by-sector. With CD-Rs and DVD-Rs, you can just create an image of your HD, and burn it on a DVD. Too big? True Image has the ability to split the image into chunks into the size you specify. True Image also compresses the data as it creates the image so it can cram more data into a portable storage device such as optical discs, USB flash drive, or even to a smaller external HDD. The image files are usually smaller than the total used drive space.

Different Ways to Image Your Hard Drive
Unlike Symantec Ghost, True Image doesn't really have too many ways for you to create an image. Then again, the majority of True Image users will be using an external USB storage device (such as hard drive) or their PC's DVD recorder. There really isn't any way to image over the network so corporate help desk environments wouldn't use True Image to deploy hard drive images to several machines.

True Image uses a proprietary OS (probably Linux-based) when using their boot-up image recover and create program. They include drivers that recognize USB storage devices as well as CD and DVD recorders. True Image will be able to image a partition or entire drive to another drive or partition (as long as you are not trying to tell it to write to the partition it is reading). It can also write the image directly to your removable drive or CD/DVD recorder. Ghost does not support writing directly to a CD or DVD.

Just like Ghost, you can create the image on another internal hard drive on the same machine. You can always install an internal hard drive temporarily just for this purpose. This is the fastest way to image the hard drive since it uses the internal ATA or SATA controller to shuttle data.

Unlike Ghost, True Image does not support imaging to another PC via the parallel port. This doesn't seem to be a huge issue for most users, however, as most modern computers have done away with them.

Because of the lack of network support (and lack of deployment features), it True Image is better off for freelance techies to do one-off backups of individual client's machines. Thanks to the ability to recognize USB storage devices and CD/DVD recorders, it also makes life easier for this purpose over Symantec Ghost.

There is another feature that Ghost does not have: Acronis Secure Zone. This creates a hidden partition on the hard drive that allows Acronis True Image to store the hard drive image. This is great for freelance system builders as it allows for a big-box-like way to restore a customer's computer. On boot up, the customer sees a "press F11 to restore". If they don't press the F11 key, the PC boots as normal. If they do hit F11, it goes into Acronis's recovery program to let the user restore their computer to the original pristine state. The only flaw with this (and other big-box companies who use this as their only method of restoring) is that if the hard drive dies, the image goes along with it, since it is stored on the same hard drive. It is best to use this feature as a convenience, but also create a separate media (such as a restore DVD) for those times when the hard drive becomes faulty.

In Use
The interface for True Image mirrors Windows, so it will look familiar. In fact, some may mistakenly believe that they are still in Windows! The interface looks very much like the full-fledge Windows-based interface as well. It is wizard-driven, but it still doesn't feel dumb down, giving access to all of the features you'd expect.

In one view, you can see that True Image offers the user the ability to backup, recover, clone, or add a new disk. It also allows you to manage your Acronis Secure Zone.

Creating a backup image is simple and easy process thanks to the wizard-driven interface. It asks for the drive or partition you wish to image, asks where you want to store the image, and then allow you to pick the level of compression. It then allows you to write a brief description of the image. Finally it allows you to create the image.

The steps to create the image is also the same when you are creating a Acronis Secure Zone. The only difference is that it will not ask you for a file name because you won't be making an image file.

Recovering is also easy. It asks where the image file is located, and then ask which hard drive you wish to restore to.

You an also clone one hard drive directly onto another. This is perfect for clients who are upgrading their hard drive, but don't want their computer to feel and act the same after the upgrade. This feature also allows you to choose whether or not the original hard drive gets wiped when the cloning is successful. I rather not just in case it wasn't (but Acronis thinks it is).

Getting at the Files
Just like Symantec's Ghost Explorer, Acronis include a program for Windows to open up True Image files and allow you to browse the folders and files as if the image file was an archive (think ZIP or RAR file). Just like an archive file, you'd have to extract the files before you can use it. You can also mount the image so that Windows will assign a drive letter and the image will act like a hard drive.

Some Limitations
Like Ghost, Acronis True Image has it's share of limitations. However, the funny thing is that what Ghost lacks, True Image picks up. But where True Image lacks, Ghost picks up!

While Ghost includes network support for Multicast, True Image does not. Multicast allows you to send a single image file to multiple machines. It's perfect for deploying many machines of the same build or model such as an office environment. Instead of giving network support in the box, Acronis sells another product called Acronis Snap Deploy for this purpose.

Conclusion
If you are just a freelance techie, your best bet would be Acronis's True Image due to the flexible way it works with older PCs that doesn't support USB storage devices via the BIOS, and the more refined on-boot-up program. True Image lacks the ability to broadcast an image to multiple PCs which is sorely needed in a help desk environment.

They are made for different purposes even though they both are disk imaging programs.

In a nutshell, if you image many of the same model of machines, Symantec Ghost is your best friend. If you back up PCs on an individual basis (like a freelance techie), your best bet is Acronis's True Image.

Recommended: Yes