Acronis True Image Wishlist
@Ekaterina Any ETA on grandfather-father-son? Also an option to automatically remove the oldest set when the target runs out of space would be great.
Task name is not anymore displayed on the systray when mouse is over Acronis Icone (was displayed on the 2019 version).
I'd like to see the ability to define a hard break between .tibx chains. Where a hard break occurs, no file before the hard break would have any effect on files created after the hard break.
As an example, a chain produces a series of files MyBackup.tibx, MyBackup-0001.tibx, MyBackup-0002.tibx, etc. After the hard break, rename to MyBackup_V1.tibx, MyBackup_V1-0001.tibx, etc.
Should be part of the Automatic and Manual cleanups.
Assuming this is doable (and I can't see why not), I would expect many people would just want a hard break on every new Full version.
Given the MMS issue and the major impact it has caused for many people, I would like a push notification to be sent to all users (or if possible, targeted) under certain conditions such as this.
I know it is a delicate issue to announce such an issue to all users, but I believe a notification can be worded in such a way as those not affected would not consider it problematic and those who are affected would be most grateful for the warning. As it is, many users have suffered a lot of aggravation when a timely warning could have been most useful and comforting.
BrunoC wrote:I'd like to see the ability to define a hard break between .tibx chains. Where a hard break occurs, no file before the hard break would have any effect on files created after the hard break.
...
Should be part of the Automatic and Manual cleanups.
Assuming this is doable (and I can't see why not), I would expect many people would just want a hard break on every new Full version.
+1
Actually, +100
BrunoC wrote:Given the MMS issue and the major impact it has caused for many people, I would like a push notification to be sent to all users (or if possible, targeted) under certain conditions such as this.
I know it is a delicate issue to announce such an issue to all users, but I believe a notification can be worded in such a way as those not affected would not consider it problematic and those who are affected would be most grateful for the warning. As it is, many users have suffered a lot of aggravation when a timely warning could have been most useful and comforting.
I have to agree with BrunoC on this one and expand on the idea. Acronis really needs to actively communicate in real-time with it's active customer base on all issues that it is aware of and new issues they know they are going to be creating. For example, just in the last hour, I cannot log into the Cloud Dashboard. I might guess that Acronis is updating their cloud servers to fix the MMS issue (or something else), but none of your customers should be spending time exchanging messages on these support forums or logging support tickets that Acronis Support has to waste time answering (which dilutes support efforts for things they need to work on). It's also a huge waste of your collective customer base's time as well. Actively communicating with you customers is not "airing your dirty laundry". It's simply superior customer support and sets you apart from competitors. I signed up for a "subscription" rather than a discrete TI license expecting to get better support. Sending mass emails to your subscriber base on major issues/pending resolutions, expected down time of certain services, etc. would be a great place to start since that list of emails should be accurate and up-to-date. Maybe this could be another feature to sell more subscriptions (but it really should apply to all customers).
This current policy of not pro-actively, publicly, informing your customer base on known issues and future outages is just not working and quite frankly is insulting to them.
To add to Bruno and Chris' thoughts: Why not publish as maintenance schedule somewhere if there is scheduled work that would be easy to find and look at?
Like the Google pages for outages, but for Acronis Cloud resources that customers connect too (https://www.google.com/appsstatus#hl=en&v=status)?
Additionally, or in lieu of that, post an outage notification on the forum at the top - I saw an alert for Black-Friday deals when I first logged into the forum today so perhaps this could be a way to advise of a major outage?
Subject: Need "Create new backup" & "Import existing backup" buttons
Start Acronis True Image 2020.
On the sidebar, click Backup tab.
"+ Add backup" is very misleading.
It should say
"Create new backup".
There should be a separate button called "Import existing backup" so you see the following together and ALWAYS visible:
"Create new backup" button & "Import existing backup" button
This would make the GUI intuitive.
After you click "Create new backup", the right panel currently has
Source -> Destination
On the Source box, you have to move the mouse over it to see "Change source".
This is not intuitive since it is NOT visible all the time.
It should have a button under the box which is ALWAYS visible which says "Change source".
Thank you for your help.
I would like to be able to edit the Activity Log generated by the Backup process. For instance, erase entries that are no longer relevant, etc. Save the log as a .PDF or Word document.
Laptop UHD displays via recoverable media clearly have not been tested :(
Supply more network and mouse drivers for recoverable media please.
Get it working well, stop introducing features nothing to with PC backups (bloatware).
Integrate disk director.
TOP of MY wishlist:
A NEW CULTURE of due diligence and quality assurance at Acronis before rolling out new products !
Any half-decent beta test programme would have found an error where my settings and those of my clients who trust my professionalism are LOST from one iteration of the program to the next ! I have spent HOURS fixing those errors, working without remuneration, of course ...
Whoever is responsible there now SHOULD BE FIRED on the spot due to incompetence and negligence !
Heiner, just to clarify a point here - the settings loss issue was not caused by any code in the ATI application - it affected users with ATI 2017, 2018, 2019 & 2020 - this was a server code issue where Acronis made changes to their Dashboard servers which triggered a reset of settings on clients running the Acronis Managed Machine Mini Service.
I fully agree that this should never have happened and proper testing should have prevented that change from being deployed.
Understood, Steve, - and I thank you for the clarification !
I am delighted to see that we are in agreement nevertheless as far as the end user experience is concerned ...
I would like to see an option for SLEEPING the computer after a successful backup is made. The only options now are to do nothing or shut down.
I want my computer to wake up at a scheduled time and make a backup and then go back to sleep.
Now, my system will wake up and make the scheduled backup, but it will just stay on afterwards. I don't want it to make a scheduled backup and then shut down. I don't even see a use for the everyday user for that option.
Thanks!
Bill, if your power settings are set correctly, then the computer should go to sleep after the defined period regardless of any settings used within ATI (provided a backup task is not active and you have used the settings to not allow the computer to sleep or hibernate while that task is running). That is how my computer works each day when it wakes up to perform a backup then goes back to sleep again afterwards.
I would like to see the possibility to backup files directly to my Microsoft OneDrive account. IOW, being able to select files for backup and then select my OneDrive account as the destination, NOT just the local OneDrive folder on my computer.
Today i use CloudBacko Lite to backup directly to my OneDrive account but it would be great to have the ability to use only Acronis True Image instead of two applications.
I would still use Acronis Cloud to upload files but would like more options since OneDrive is included in any Office 365 subscription.
Full support for Backup Schemes on the MAC ....
My ticket number is 04206586, software does not work, technical assistance is useless and I have been denied a refund, What a company.
David Effio wrote:My ticket number is 04206586, software does not work, technical assistance is useless and I have been denied a refund, What a company.
I'm afraid that does not add much to the wish list. And since this is a users forum without access to any internal Acronis information, your ticket number provides us no information. If you open a new topic describing your problem someone on the forum might be able to give assistance. (We can't help with the request for refund, obviously.)
By the way, although all software has bugs, Acronis software does work for most customers.
David Effio wrote:My ticket number is 04206586, software does not work, technical assistance is useless and I have been denied a refund, What a company.
David, try sending a message to Renata Gubaydullina | Product manager, Acronis True Image to see if she can help in any way?
It would helpful if there was a precalculation of the size of a backup prior to backing up an image, even if it was just an estimated size.
Kind regards,
Michael
The ability to backup data and an Image file to more than one external drive at a time.
I'm not sure if this is already a feature since I'm new to Acronis, but I'd like for file/folder backups to be restorable on different hardware. I'll do my best to explain why without turning it into a help request, since for now I can restore things manually (I think).
I've created a backup with all of the things I want to keep on all my drives, but I've changed hardware. I've imported my backup setting .zip, all my drive letters match and Acronis says that there's nothing to restore, since a backup has not yet been made on this new hardware. It'd be nice if it took into account changes of hardware like this, on the off chance someone like me could benefit from a more seamless restore.
If what I'm poking at is possible, feel free to let me know to make a thread asking about how to do so. This comment could be removed if unneeded also!
Thanks and have a great new year guys.
Dear Ekatarina,
After a long time using other backup programmes I started with Acronis True Image again recently and was disappointed that a feature called 'Konsolidierung' in German was not present anymore. Actually I found later the note that this was discontinued in 2015. Nevertheless I liked it very much because it reduced the demand on space for the backup medium significantly and allowed the user to discard the backups considered least important (that may be in the middle of the backup chain). I suppose that 'Versionskette' should now be the better alternative. But if I understand correctly this will generate 3 full backups + 5 incremental in the worst moment. So this means that the backup medium has to be 3-4x the size of the the disk to be backed up (not counting compression and empty space).
Or is there any way in the user-defined scheme to tweak it that it produces less or even only one fundamental full backup?
Best wishes,
Reiner
Reiner Zorn wrote:After a long time using other backup programmes I started with Acronis True Image again recently and was disappointed that a feature called 'Konsolidierung' in German was not present anymore. Actually I found later the note that this was discontinued in 2015.
Assuming the 'Konsolidierung' is 'Consolidation' in English, there is a weak alternative. Define another task to take "full only" backups and run it when you want to create a current consolidated backup. Then delete unwanted older threads.
The very large problem with this technique is that you have to know when you want your consolidated backup. You cannot decide weeks later that you want a consolidation of part old an old chain.
I, too, miss Consolidation ... in theory. In practice, I never got a consolidation to run to completion; it always took too long.
TysonFuryWasRobbed wrote:I'm not sure if this is already a feature since I'm new to Acronis, but I'd like for file/folder backups to be restorable on different hardware. I'll do my best to explain why without turning it into a help request, since for now I can restore things manually (I think).
I've created a backup with all of the things I want to keep on all my drives, but I've changed hardware. I've imported my backup setting .zip, all my drive letters match and Acronis says that there's nothing to restore, since a backup has not yet been made on this new hardware. It'd be nice if it took into account changes of hardware like this, on the off chance someone like me could benefit from a more seamless restore.
If what I'm poking at is possible, feel free to let me know to make a thread asking about how to do so. This comment could be removed if unneeded also!
Thanks and have a great new year guys.
This is already possible but it sounds as if you do not understand the 'how' of doing so. Please open a new topic and we will be glad to help you do this.
Steve Smith wrote:This is already possible but it sounds as if you do not understand the 'how' of doing so. Please open a new topic and we will be glad to help you do this.
Hey there, I figured it out, thanks!
Since ATI is targeted to the home consumer there's a wide array of knowledge of how to properly use backups. Some thoughts to make the program more friendly for those who are less savvy:
- A "Help Me Decide" feature to help users set up their backup schemes.
- A "Restoration Readiness" feature to help users determine if they have the tools they need to successfully restore each backup.
- Acronis Rescue Drive On Hand and Up to Date
- Rescue Environment will work on current configuration
- e.g. Does user need to use Acronis Universal Restore?
- Will the Linux environment load or should the User Create Windows PE instead?
- "Start-to-Finish" restoration videos on YouTube of each type of backup being created and restored and in each Environment.
- Warnings about what to do after a new build is downloaded. i.e.:
- Update Rescue Media
- Create new backups
- Etc.
While the documentation is quite good in my opinion, the average home user lacks the base knowledge and experience to fully understand what they are reading. Also, the home user may not have time to fully read and understand the documentation, and may not know that they need to ask a question on a forum or Tech Support because they don't know what they don't know. Or maybe they are proactive and fully read the documentation when they start using the program, then don't retain it when disaster strikes three years later.
Make the program tell the user if they are ready or not for a failure.
Happy new year everyone,
this is my wishlist, pardon I haven't read through all the others so might contain duplicates.
I my humble opinion 2020 is pretty feature complete. I personally would invest more time into polishing things, usability and user interface.
I welcome all of feature additions in 2020 but do not see many reasons to bring more at the moment.
any users I am connected to, meanwhile think that ATIH does no longer suit their needs as the product is not streamlined enough. You cannot make everyone happy of course.
1. The Windows PE (Linux if really needed, see telemetry) environment needs to be refreshed completely.
Have a look how great the UX is with other products
- Boot menu looks modern and understandable, like original WinRE
- no fiddling with active / inactive partions
- it cannot resize in free version, but also this could be made more intuitive.
- Recovery process has not been touched since 2014 at least and is not so easy as in Windows or as backups.
Use cases: if one does restore partitions on a different SSD / HDD the restore process is very hard for non technical users.
2.- Systray should be running for all backup jobs no matter how initiated so user know when a job is running works by design
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2020-forum/feature-request-atih-2020-systray-running-jobs-started-event
3. Acronis 2021 notification center should show when a Acronis Active Protection was enabled. Only gives an entry when it was disabled.
4. Acronis 2021 notification center should eventually not only work as a logging instance but showing live events (eventually replacing the systray icon when a backup job has started / progress
5. tibx limitations should be removed, especially the ability to convert tibx to vhdx
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2020-forum/virtual-environment-support
6. email notifications in job options and cloud email notifactions should be grow together, many users don't know that they can setup email notifications in cloud for all devices.
7. Acronis Survival Kit is great but should prompt users to update after ATIH has been upgraded or updated. Currently users need to learn that they have to start ATIH (unlikely in a fire and forget scheduled backup jobs) they ever would start up the GUI. The fact we get update notifications without opening ATIH was a big step forward, thanks!
8. Job option to toggle between tib and tibx
9. Acronis UX should be compatible with Windows 10 DPI awareness, I know and understand you use QT and not C++ to develop a unified product across OS.
Currently support is per System according to Task Manager, it should be supported per-screen
However, especially WinPE does a bad job on certain high-DPI screen (cut off menus and captions). This is not WinPE specific to be honest.
10. Bitlocker Support in WinPE,
Competitor have this feature with or without saving a recovery key into the backup (this is unsafe imho).
11. UI changes as proposed in the UX interviews in 2018 / 2019
Especially the tools section could be less cluttered and make "other tools" link to a legacy start menu unneeded. It is easy to do imho.
12. Other UI improvements as proposed by other users in 2018.13. Keep your used 3rd party tools updated and secure.
- Qt, in use 5.6, current 5.12
- d3dcompiler_47.dll is unneeded in Acronis directory as part of the OS
- OpenSSL 1.0.2p is heavily outdated too - that supposingly is securing cloud communication and telemetry, I have informed the team about this times ago.
Reference from OpenSSL: Note: The latest stable version is the 1.1.1 series. This is also our Long Term Support (LTS) version, supported until 11th September 2023. All other versions (including 1.1.0, 1.0.2, 1.0.0 and 0.9.8) are now out of support and should not be used.
14. 64bit native application
Please prepare to compile all ATIH processes and services in 64bit, no matter if this can be optimized or not. A first step would be recompiling it in 64bit.
I think we can expect that 32bit support (SysWOW64) won't be around forever. See Windows 10 Core optimizations / current iOS and MacOS that support 64bit apps only. Microsoft won't keep up this old stuff forever if Apple can afford to cut off strings.
15. Compatibility with older OS
This should not be the key to prevent decisions to move on technically.
If users want to use ATIH on unsupported OS they can use previous versions. I disagree that ATIH 2021 should be developed to support Windows 7 or 8.0.
16. Network backups explorer in Windows but especially in WinPE
Network backups via SMB still encourage to use legacy and insecure SMB1 network neighbourhood. That does NOT mean that Acronis does not use SMB 3.1.1 it does, just the explorer / browser implementation is not up to date. SMB 2/3 does not support network neighbourhood for good (security, broadcast, netbios).
legacy authentication protocols using a legacy username / password scheme. instead of email address (Microsoft Account)
I bet Ned Pyle (MSFT) will praise you for dropping SMB1 support in ATIH 2021, which also improves security and speed.
Thanks for anything on this thread coming true.♥
17. ATIH installer, configurable services / features and bonjour
I read many feedback in german forums that users complain about ATIH for having too many unneeded services, that these cannot be configured optional in the UI.
This includes the "must-have" installation of Apple Bonjour, not sure if this also meets #12
It would be sad to see these users not using recent versions or other products for this reason.
Imho, polishing the product and usability can be a great buying motivation for many that are still using very old releases as they basically do not miss critical features.
1. Data transfer speeds. Every other program has this but Acronis, and it would have been really helpful for the last half dozen years.
2. More accurate estimates of when the cloning/restore event will finish. Acronis is the WORST program for estimates out of any software I have ever used in 25+ years. There's several different algorithms to use when doing data transfers, and I have no clue what code Acronis uses because its just nonsensical. So many times, I've thought about writing an app to capture the Acronis estimates and then plot them against the actual time to see how far apart they are.
As an example, I'll see something like "7 minutes", and then 5 minutes later it will say "8 minutes" and then 10 minutes later it will say "13 minutes"... Other times, I'd start off a restore, it'll say 50 minutes, I come back in 90 minutes and its still going.
I used to find the older versions to be much more accurate. If it said 8 minutes, it was +/- 5 minutes and I was pretty happy about that. But these new versions are just off by hundreds of percent and useless more often than not. This has been a pain point for me for years when using Acronis True Image, and I won't be upgrading to 2020 or 2021 until I see improvement on these estimates. ANY improvement will make a difference from the current estimates.
Florian wrote:ability to prevent the first backup-version from being deleted in cloud backups (as its possible for local backups)
This definitely. And as a optional component.
BCITMike wrote:1. Data transfer speeds. Every other program has this but Acronis, and it would have been really helpful for the last half dozen years.
2. More accurate estimates of when the cloning/restore event will finish. Acronis is the WORST program for estimates out of any software I have ever used in 25+ years. There's several different algorithms to use when doing data transfers, and I have no clue what code Acronis uses because its just nonsensical. So many times, I've thought about writing an app to capture the Acronis estimates and then plot them against the actual time to see how far apart they are.
As an example, I'll see something like "7 minutes", and then 5 minutes later it will say "8 minutes" and then 10 minutes later it will say "13 minutes"... Other times, I'd start off a restore, it'll say 50 minutes, I come back in 90 minutes and its still going.
I used to find the older versions to be much more accurate. If it said 8 minutes, it was +/- 5 minutes and I was pretty happy about that. But these new versions are just off by hundreds of percent and useless more often than not. This has been a pain point for me for years when using Acronis True Image, and I won't be upgrading to 2020 or 2021 until I see improvement on these estimates. ANY improvement will make a difference from the current estimates.
As for the data speeds. I'd love to see this as well. But I'm wondering if this can be done SAFELY with lil snitch or similar app ?
Ekatrina, I'd love to be able to configure a Backup scheduled for later in the day/week and then Exit TRUE-IMAGE 2020 without losing all my options.
OK, it's not a deal-breaker but it'd be nice not to lose all one's settings unless immediately starting the backup.
Perhaps I'm mis-informed but that's the way it seems to me.
David Annis wrote:Ability to easily choose a backup scheme that alternates between multiple copies. I want to have a backup A, B, and C so that I can have a copy offsite, the current copy, and the copy that is next.
I agree with this method. A primary backup to disk 1,and at least two offsite backups, disks 2 and 3, that are rotated.
WmPv wrote:Ekatrina, I'd love to be able to configure a Backup scheduled for later in the day/week and then Exit TRUE-IMAGE 2020 without losing all my options.
OK, it's not a deal-breaker but it'd be nice not to lose all one's settings unless immediately starting the backup.
Perhaps I'm mis-informed but that's the way it seems to me.
WmPv, welcome to these public User Forums.
This is available to do now today. When you finish configuring your new Backup task, simply expand the options behind the Backup now button and select to Backup later instead. That's it!
Hello,
i would also like to have the option to toggle between tib and tibx. There are Backupstrategies, where it is important to have seperate Backupfiles for every Backup.
Thanks
B. Haberstock wrote:Hello,
i would also like to have the option to toggle between tib and tibx. There are Backupstrategies, where it is important to have seperate Backupfiles for every Backup.
Thanks
+ 1
Something that is essential to me: for the Backups of huge amount of data stored on local USB Disks I need for Incremental and Differential Backup Versions an option or the possibilty (at least for File/Folder Backups) that will not store in the Backup those Files that have not changed (but whose content have merely been subjected to a Defragmentation or to a Windows 10 SSD Trim).
With the current ATI 2020 logic, incremental Backups (and probably also Differential Backups - I have not tested that) of the huge amount of Foto-Files (around 800 GB of foto file data)) stored on a SAMSUNG T3 SSD resulted after a Windows 10 Trim (or was it after a Defragmentstion?) in a tib File of 350 GB (even though only few files had been updated or created after the initial Full Backup version) . This does not work for me - just much too much DASD Space wasted on my Backup disk.
What ATI currently calls a "File Backup" does not deserve to be called "File Backup" --- the current solution seems rather to be a poor "hybrid of Volume backup and File backups"
Ability to create ESP/MSR Partition
B. Haberstock wrote:Hello,
i would also like to have the option to toggle between tib and tibx. There are Backupstrategies, where it is important to have seperate Backupfiles for every Backup.
Thanks
Absolute Zustimmung !!
Gruß,
Horst
google translation:
Absolute approval !!
Greeting,
horst
Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:1. Grandfather, father, son scheme that allows for the use of mixed Inc and diff options in one backup task. For instance... 6 daily Inc, 1 weekly diff, repeated 4 weeks and then a full again.
Like Steve mentioned above, diffs should be 100% independent of any other incremental or differential for any backup .tib navigation or recovery.
2. Include UR in the interface for easy access to download and have automatic update notifications when new versions are out.
3. Native log viewer
4. Ability to split .tibs in the Mac version
5. Prevent all existing .tibs from adding to the console on reinstall by default. This is way too messy. Instead, ask the user if they want to include any locations to scan for existing .tib files and allow this to modified as needed to update new locations or remove existing ones.
Hello everyone. Interesting thread, thanks for the useful information.
David P wrote:BCITMike wrote:1. Data transfer speeds. Every other program has this but Acronis, and it would have been really helpful for the last half dozen years.
2. More accurate estimates of when the cloning/restore event will finish. Acronis is the WORST program for estimates out of any software I have ever used in 25+ years. There's several different algorithms to use when doing data transfers, and I have no clue what code Acronis uses because its just nonsensical. So many times, I've thought about writing an app to capture the Acronis estimates and then plot them against the actual time to see how far apart they are.
As an example, I'll see something like "7 minutes", and then 5 minutes later it will say "8 minutes" and then 10 minutes later it will say "13 minutes"... Other times, I'd start off a restore, it'll say 50 minutes, I come back in 90 minutes and its still going.
I used to find the older versions to be much more accurate. If it said 8 minutes, it was +/- 5 minutes and I was pretty happy about that. But these new versions are just off by hundreds of percent and useless more often than not. This has been a pain point for me for years when using Acronis True Image, and I won't be upgrading to 2020 or 2021 until I see improvement on these estimates. ANY improvement will make a difference from the current estimates.
I can only agree here. The estimates are completely off.
Affects Windows / Linux / WinPE restore and backup
Even more Secure Disk Deletion < I've made my suggestions how to solve this long ago.
Please eliminate the need for all backups to be present when restoring from a "full" backup.
Also, make optional the numbering ( currently it is -0001, -0002, etc), and provide the ability to add a date on the name of the backup.
I believe many have already suggested "independent backups".
It makes no sense to have full backups dependent of previous ones.
George, there are no backup image options tied to the backup image name.
Any backup file is capable of being used independently within the constraints of the type of version chain being used, when used with the Acronis Rescue Media.
When using the ATI GUI, then it is the backup task that connects the options to the file name as it must in order to work correctly.
The most important things to me would be:
1) The ability to run operations concurrently. I have some backup operations which take 15+ hours, pulling data from network shares and putting them in a common location. I'd like to be able to schedule a local backup while the first operation runs, or multiple other backups simultaneously. Not having concurrent operations prevents me from making ATI my only backup software. I need to ensure that some operations begin at a set time.
2) The ability to specify a day of the week for the full backup. For some of my large or full backups, I need to run them on the weekend, when the system is lightly used. If I miss a weekday backup for whatever reason, I might not have time to reschedule it that same day. This ends up throwing off the schedule, causing large operations to run while the system is in use. What I'd like to see is ATI just ignore that failed backup and run the full on the day I specify.
3) The ability to copy a backup to another location after the backup completes. I realize ATI sorta has the ability, but it involves running another backup operation. That means the two backups aren't exact copies of each other, and leads to the problem described in #1, above - ATI becoming a bottleneck. It also leads to more system resources usage for compression, etc. I'd rather dedicate the resources to other operations while the backup is copied elsewhere at a lower priority.
Because of the above issues, I have to use multiple backup programs. Norton Ghost has all the features requested but doesn't run on Windows 10. I'm actually still clinging to Windows 7, partly due to backup software concerns.
David
Acronis Cyber Protection may be able to do many of the things you want. Backup task can involve both incremental and differential backups. You could download a trial version and see if it meets your needs.
You can copy ATI true image backups, just not from within ATI. However, given the file interdependencies you may have to copy the all files in the task each time you do a backup - not particularly helpful.
Ian