Original author(s) Platform IA-32 and x86-64 | Development status Active | |
Stable release 2016 release / August 17, 2015; 17 months ago (2015-08-17) Operating system Available in English, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Korean, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, Indonesian, Portuguese, Dutch | ||
Acronis True Image is a software product produced by Acronis that provides data protection including, backup, archive, access and recovery for Microsoft, OSX, iOS and Android operating systems. As disk imaging software, True Image can restore the previously captured image to another disk, replicating the structure and contents to the new disk, also allowing disk cloning and partition resizing, even if the new disk is of a different capacity. The backups are in a proprietary format which saves using a .tib filename format. Acronis was launched in 2003 and has over 5 million consumers and 500,000 businesses as users.
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Editions
Several editions of Acronis True Image are available. Acronis True Image Cloud is a subscription-based software plus service offering that allows both local and online backup with unlimited cloud backup, and offers backup for a selection of mobile phones and tablets. Acronis True Image 2016 is the local backup edition of the product. Both editions are available at retail outlets.
Operation
Acronis True Image can make two types of backups: file backup and disk backup. Apart from being able to back up select groups of files on a disk, it can create full system images, which are exact snapshots of an entire disk drive sector by sector. The program can back up a system hard drive while the OS is running. Acronis True Image can browse the contents of backups and restore them partially or entirely. It can also mount a disk backup as a virtual disk, thus allowing the user to access them as he would normally do from a real read-only disk.
Although backups can be restored when the system is running, a major purpose of backup is to restore the system when it fails to start. Therefore, Acronis True Image can install Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (ASRM), a computer program that helps restore backups at boot time. Additionally, Acronis True Image can create a copy of Acronis Rescue Media, a bootable disk that contains a copy of Acronis True Image and can restore backups to a computer when the contents of the entire computer are lost.
The Acronis True Image Cloud version allows cloud users to also back up their mobile devices. iPhone and Android smartphones are supported, along with popular iPad and Windows tablets. This edition also brings back the, "Try and Decide" option which lets users perform potentially risky actions such as the installation of un-trusted software with the option of returning to the system function before the action if any problems occur.
Acronis True Image Cloud allows multiple devices to be backed up, managed and archived on the Acronis Cloud from the online dashboard, enabling users to access rarely used files from any of their devices without needing to use personal storage.
Supported file systems
Acronis True Image supports multiple file systems including NTFS, FAT32, ext2, ext3, ext4, ReiserFS, and Linux Swap.
In addition to the officially supported file systems, Acronis True Image also provides raw sector backup and restore options for all other file systems. 'Raw' mode provides support for a file system that is corrupt, or that isn't officially supported, by capturing a complete image of all sectors on the disk.
History
Acronis began in 2001 as a division of SWsoft and in 2003 became a separate company and continued to release the Acronis True Image software. Prior to 2010, True Image name was applied to all platforms from Home to Corporate. A re-branding of the product line would see the Acronis True Image name be used for the home version, while the business tools would be re-named.
File format
Acronis True Image provides backward compatibility for image files (with the .tib extension) created with a single previous version, that is, images created with an immediate previous version can be successfully restored. Backups are created to be compatible between different editions of Acronis True Image within the same version (Home, Enterprise), e.g., between former Acronis True Image Echo Workstation and Acronis True Image Echo Enterprise Server, or between Linux and Windows versions. Compatibility is not guaranteed between products that are not within the same version. Guaranteed cross-version compatibility is documented.
Format conversion
VMware Converter by virtualization company VMware supports converting .tib files created by former Acronis True Image Echo 9.1 and 9.5, and Acronis True Image Home 10 and 11 into a virtual machine. However, reports about failure to recognize Acronis True Image 2013 .tibs were met with the response "unfortunately VMware Converter doesn't support current Acronis True Image versions".
Acronis True Image has an option to convert backups between its proprietary .tib and Microsoft's VHD backup format, more widely supported, and documented under the Microsoft Open Specification Promise.
Partnerships
Acronis has licensed custom versions of Acronis True Image to certain hard disk manufacturers, including Western Digital's Acronis True Image WD Edition, Intel Data Migration Software and Seagate DiscWizard. Such editions are free to download and use, but only with that manufacturer's hard drives.