The imaging capability seems to be solid [with Acronis True Image], although I have not had to recover a drive yet so cannot compare. The logs tell me when it is (and isn't) working. The "Cloud Replication" that is supposed to simultaneously replicate the local backup image is perfectly awful and the months of tech support ended with them telling me I had a "VSS issue" on a brand new workstation and that I should just create a separate cloud image. After months of it taking 3-4 DAYS to run, IF it worked, and then failing altogether, I discontinued it. It was even logging (running?) under another separate critical files backup, and forced to use the same encryption password. Setting up a new one failed. The cloud backup of my critical files is still running at kb/sec speeds. The ransomware protection hasn't caught anything yet to my knowledge, and consumes a lot of resources. Changing the settings takes at least 10 minutes to log into the cloud. Cloud storage is tiny and a push to get you to pay more. Will not be renewing.
It helps to manage the mass of computers we use. We use GSS to see where and who deployed software to what computers. This can particularly be helpful when dealing with license usage, and tracking how many licenses we have left, and where those licenses have been used. We are able to use it to manage clients.
Upon a system restore after a crash, the program was able to see my server but was unable to complete the process. However, once I copied everything to a detachable USB hard disk, it had no further problems.
I'd love to see an exact copy of the functionality of Time Machine, except on a PC. Seamless, nearly flawless. It's already pretty decent, though.
Okay, Acronis, you've knocked it out of the park already, but ...it's time to offer some hardware! Develop your own secure version of the Time Capsule that can be plugged into the network. It will only do one thing, and it will be the best at what it does.
Even though Ghost Solution Suite saves configurations, software settings and installation within the image, there is still some manual configuration that needs to be done once the image is complete.
Installing Drivers for specific models of computers. With Ghost Solution Suite, it can be difficult to get the drivers for all the hardware of all the different model computers, so you have to create different images for different model computers. It would be nice to have the ability to have a hardware independent image for all model computers
Image Size. Ghost does have compression to reduce the size of the image, but when you have to store all the drivers within the image it increases the total size of the image you need to manage.
Protect my system from data loss and also can manage multiple devices via online cloud from any where and also can set Multifactor authentication for more secure login access. Archive any backup which will use less space and we can transfer it to any other space also so it is very easy as server admin to manage acronics utilities
I have never had an issue with their software and therefore have never had to reach out to their support for anything. I have however used their online help to answer questions about functionality. I found no issues getting the information I was looking for. It seemed that if their own support didn't have the answer, there was a user on their forums who did.
Acronis fits in with the rest of our software as it saves us a ton of time and money. Usability is incredibly intuitive - and a new employee can be taught the ins and outs in less than 15 minutes. The software is also updated regularly to improve the security and functionality of the suite.
Based on our particular company needs, we selected Ghost primarily for the cost. There are better products out there to deploy new computers. KACE was one of the products tested. I used KACE at a previous company and I can say KACE is a more effective deployment method, but the cost prevented us form going with this product. Also, since we have one single standard image it was very easy to manage Ghost for all our employee computers. We also standardized to one single hardware model computer which also made the decision to use Ghost easier.
The Windows version is generally reliable and only ran into one issue thus far. Restores are easy and there are many features. On MacOS, it's a completely different story. There is significant resource leakage related to the updater app that can bog down part of a CPU core continuously until it is disabled. The mobile backup feature also needs to be disabled via UNIX command line or CPU usage will go up when a mobile device on the same network like an iPad or iPhone's screen is turned on.