Hi Edward,
As with Kari, I've used Acronis for years with good results -- can't recall a case where it has really failed me, except in a very specific situation which I'll mention below.
No failures, if everything was on the same computer, including moving to a larger hard drive on several occasions. I have multiples of a couple computer models. Up until and possibly through XP, I could even replace a bad motherboard in one of these, and still have the restore work. This would have involved perhaps a slightly different or later rev of the same motherboard, but it was effectively the same hardware. With Win 7 or later, the attempted restores were no longer working. I would get into a failing bootup loop of death, with Windows stating that it was having problems booting and would attempt repairs -- which always failed. But I was trying to continue using the 2012 edition of Acronis TI. The 2017 edition claims to have a means of transporting your installed Windows to entirely different hardware (and to have it continue working as before), via an additional module called Universal Restore. This works on the HAL, or Hardware Abstraction Layer. I have bought a license for the later version, but have not tried to use it yet. The documentation looks considerably more complicated. It will require some study, and I may still have to put some questions to Acronis. In the interim, they seem to have become a much bigger international company, they have gone to a subscription model for their software, and it looks like you have to jump through some hoops to avail yourself of their customer service.
I'd like to hear details of your bad experiences, off list if that seems more appropriate.
Jordan
From: Edward Mendelson
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2017 6:28 PM
Subject: Backup software
To confirm: ShadowProtect is unmatched for reliability. (I won’t let Acronis anywhere near my system after multiple bad experiences.)
Add a second hard disk to your system (or attach it via a USB 3.0 port) and set ShadowProtect to back up your entire disk to it, with a full backup once every week or so, and an incremental backup daily (or even more often). I also make a full ShadowProtect backup on a separate USB 3.0 hard disk once every week or so and store it away from the computer.
Restore points are often very useful but they don’t always work (System Restore didn’t solve a problem for me just last week). When that happens, I restore from a ShadowProtect backup; that always works. I use Dropbox to make sure that current versions of my documents are always available.