Backup Anytime

My favourite software product ever.

This came up in a conversation in a respectable but unnamed public house last weekend. I was there. Five geeks of varying levels of geekage having a quiet drink on a Saturday night and someone asks all present and nobody in particular, “What’s your favourite software product ever?”

This is a question nobody present had asked or been asked before. The possibilities are endless and it does require some thinking no matter how vast or moderate, good or bad your software experience.

Initially, nobody could give a straight answer. Then, some answers were given with initial confidence and soon retracted on the recollection of a bug or bad experience or the consideration of another even more impressive product.

We left with no definitive answers and an agreement that we would all have our answer next Saturday. I have mine.

I have thought about this for some time. The answer is Acronis True Image Echo Workstation Universal Restore. This is a component of a the Acronis suite. I have long used Acronis products and have long been impressed. Universal restore is something special and given the company and family of products it comes from, it is from good stock.  

So, whats the big deal. There is a multitude of different backup software options out there. 

The difference is that Universal restore allows you to do a bare metal restore on a different specification system with the important distinction that it succeeds thus avoiding the blue screen of death.

Most data backup software and system offerings (including our own) allow you to restore data to any system. The Acronis Universal restore feature does not require a reload of Windows before you run your disaster recovery. This too is common but the Acronis Universal restore will allow you to do a bare metal restore on a different specification system. No other product I know allows a bare metal restore on a different specification system in a manner conducive to being able to rely on it for this specific function. The problem for all other products I know is that Microsoft intentionally makes this type of operation difficult because of the closeness of the operation type to a piracy attempt.

I do not know if Acronis have used technology to explain to the Windows registry that there is no infringement attempt or if the technology fools windows in to not asking but I can attest that it works and in my experience it works every time.

So, how much does Acronis charge for this component? It must be very expensive indeed. Something that only the elite corporate backroom boys can  have.

Not so. It retails for $29

There are two things in I.T. life you can’t avoid. The blue screen of death and faxes. Looks like the blue screen of death has been given the boot by Acronis.

Backupanytime have no affiliation with Acronis and have neither been encouraged nor rewarded for this article. It is placed here on merit as a consequence of our positive experience in using the product.