I have a 150GB system partition, but the occupied space on that partition is only 80GB. What will Acronis True Image 2015 include in a backup? - By default, Acronis True Image 2015 copies only the hard disk sectors that contain data, so it will include only 80GB in a backup. You can also choose the sector-by-sector mode. Note than such a backup mode is required only in special cases. For more information see Image creation mode. While creating a sector-by-sector backup, the program copies both used and unused hard disk sectors and the backup file will usually be significantly larger.
Will my system disk backup include drivers, documents, pictures, etc.? - Yes, such a backup will contain the drivers, as well as the contents of the My documents folder and its subfolders, if you kept the default location of the My documents folder. If you have just a single hard disk in your PC, such a backup will contain all of the operating system, applications and data.
I have an old hard disk drive which is almost full in my notebook. I purchased a new bigger HDD. How can I transfer Windows, programs and data to the new disk? - You can either clone the old hard disk on the new one or back up the old hard disk and then recover the backup to a new one. The optimum method usually depends on your old hard disk partitions layout.
I want to migrate my old system hard disk to an SSD. Can this be done with Acronis True Image 2015? - Yes, Acronis True Image 2015 provides such a function. For procedure details, see Migrating your system from an HDD to an SSD
What is the best way to migrate the system to a new disk: cloning or backup and recovery? - The backup and recovery method provides more flexibility. In any case, we strongly recommend to make a backup of your old hard disk even if you decide to use cloning. It could be your data saver if something goes wrong with your original hard disk during cloning. For example, there were cases when users chose the wrong disk as the target and thus wiped their system disk. In addition, you can make more than one backup to create redundancy and increase security.
What should I back up: a partition or the whole disk? - In most cases, it is better to back up the whole disk. However, there may be some cases when a partition backup is advisable. For example, your notebook has a single hard disk with two partitions: system (disk letter C) and the data (disk letter D). The system partition stores your working documents in the My documents folder with subfolders. The data partition stores your videos, pictures, and music files. Such files are already compressed and backing them up using Acronis True Image 2015 would not give you significant reduction of the backup file size. In this case, it may be better to use a local sync for the data partition files and a separate backup for the system partition. However, we also recommend creating at least one whole disk backup if your backup storage has enough space.
Could you tell me how to clone: in Windows or after booting from the rescue media? Even when you start cloning in Windows, the computer will reboot into the Linux environment the same as when booting from the rescue media. Because of this, it is better to clone under rescue media. For example, there may be a case when your hard disk drives are detected in Windows and not detected in Linux. If this is the case, the cloning operation will fail after reboot. When booting from the rescue media, you can make sure that Acronis True Image 2015 detects both the source and target disks before starting the cloning operation.
Can I clone or back up and recover a dual boot machine? Yes, this is possible in most cases. If your systems are installed in separate partitions of the same physical hard disk drive, cloning or recovery usually proceeds without any problems. If the systems are on different physical hard disk drives, there may be some problems with bootability after recovery.
Does Acronis True Image 2015 support RAID? - Acronis True Image 2015 supports hardware RAID arrays of all popular types. Support of software RAID configurations on dynamic disks is also provided. Acronis Bootable Rescue Media supports most of the popular hardware RAID controllers. If the standard Acronis rescue media does not "see" the RAID as a single volume, the media does not have the appropriate drivers. In this case you can try to create WinPE-based rescue media. This media may provide the necessary drivers.