Everyone has different experiences, but mine (based on a few decades of experience) are these: 1. After some really awful experiences, which matched other people’s similar experiences, I won’t let anything named Acronis anywhere near my computers. I don’t want to use backup software that requires me to be careful, to verify, etc., etc., etc. I want the software to be careful for me. I want backups to be invisible and effortless. 2. ShadowProtect has never failed me, and I’ve done some tricky hardware-independent restores with it. After a hardware-independent restore, Windows 10 finds the drivers it needs. When I did a hardware-independent restore of a Windows 7 system many years ago, Windows didn’t have a network driver that the new machine needed, so I installed the driver from a CD that came with the machine (or I could have downloaded the driver from another machine). I wouldn’t even think of trying this with Acronis. My blood pressure couldn’t handle it. 3. The current ShadowProtect version (now called SPX) has a confusing interface, but anyone who can manage XyWrite can figure it out. I sometimes gnash my teeth if I forget some detail while setting up a backup or exploring a backed-up image, but that’s the worst that happens; I simply go through the procedure again, remembering what I should have remembered the first time The point about ShadowProtect is that you can set it up and then forget it for years, until you install a new system and have to set it up again (which I did last week, hence the brief one-time-only teeth-gnashing). Again, this is my experience only. If you’re happy with Acronis, and if you find that Acronis offers benefits that justify the care and attention and verification that some contributors to this list say it requires, then don’t let me discourage you from using it forever. Everyone’s tastes are different.