Acronis True Image 2011 Home: What's new?

Nearly a year passed since we got acquainted with Acronis True Image 2010, one of the most popular programs for hard disks. Now we have another version of this program to test - Acronis True Image 2011 Home. Let's see if it can repeat the success of its predecessor.

First, let's look at design and ergonomics.

The acquaintance with the program begins with a greeting screen and it becomes clear that even inexperienced user will find here rather friendly interface. With just a few clicks you can create a backup of system files, documents and other important information. Each step is accompanied by a brief but detailed description, so even if you've never worked with such programs, you hardly will have any problems. To access all the features of Acronis True Image Home 2011 you need to click the window "Tools and Utilities", it is a bit similar to the Control Panel of Windows 7 - the same differentiation tools into groups, links and icons sections are on the white background. Unfortunately, the comments to the tools are not provided, but you can fearlessly click on any of them and read the description in the wizard. Or just read the program certificate.

We saw the main qualities of the interface, and now we move to the functionality of the program.

All Acronis True Image 2011 Home tools (and they are a lot of them) are divided into six groups:

Protection tools. This group consists of powerful features. "Startup Repair" - Launch Acronis True Image 2011 Home to load the operating system to restore its operability. "Secure Zone Acronis» - creates a special secure partition on the hard disk where you can save the backup, it can also instantly backup your system section and create the boot media (floppy disks, USB-flash drives, optical disks, and ISO-images).

Manage your hard disk. Cloning and adding a physical hard disk drives, is useful when you need to connect the new drive to replace the old one, without reinstalling the operating system.

Security and privacy. This group includes Acronis DriveCleanser, designed to remove data from your hard disk permanently, File Shredder, a utility for viewing the current status of drives and a tool for removing garbage from the system followed by purification of free hard disk space (both actions are executed sequentially, and you can not cancel any of them).

Mounting images. It's simple: connection and disconnection of archival reserve copies saved in the form of virtual disks.

Backup copies conversion. Backups conversion from Wndows (VHD) format to Acronis (TIB) format and vice versa. It Makes life easier, when you need suddenly move from standard means backup of Windows means to Acronis tools.

Backup options transfer. You can import and export settings of Acronis True Image 2011 Home in a ZIP-archive, consisting of several files in the format of CFG.

However, this list does not reflect all the features of the program. For example, Try & Decide was not mentioned. It is a safe environment to test new software or visiting potentially dangerous websites. Also Nonstop Backup - automatic backups every five minutes with possibility of quick system backup to its previous state. Despite the potential benefits, Acronis will hardly fit users with old or weak computers, because it needs quite good resources for frequent backups.

Summary
We searched very thoroughly but didn’t find any essential minus in Acronis True Image Home 2011. However, the ideal program does not exist, but Acronis True Image Home 2011 is very close to it.