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One Click Backup — As Simple as It Gets

November 15, 2008

Complete Transcript of Stephen Lawton — Acronis Interview on Let′s Talk Computers Host Alan Ashendorf November 15 2008

Alan: If you have a computer system, one thing you really need to think about — it′s not a case of if your computer is going to fail — it′s a case of when your computer is going to fail. So what we need to be concerned is how can we minimize this when it happens? Our guest today is Stephen Lawton, Senior Director of Strategic Marketing with Acronis. Welcome back to Let′s Talk Computers, Stephen.

Stephen: It′s always a pleasure to be back here, Alan.

Alan: We can think of our computers just like we think about our car. It doesn′t make any difference what brand you buy or how much you pay for it; at some point in time it is going to fail. Stephen, why is it that we can make this statement with absolute certainty?

Stephen: It is absolutely certain because it′s a mechanical device. But in using the car analogy, you still have to maintain the car and you still need to make sure that the tires are filled correctly and that you have the right fluids; otherwise it will fail either quicker.

Alan: Well, with a car you have a lot of technology that goes into designing that car in order to make it run. But, you also have to have a lot of technology with that to make it stop when you need to stop. To me, the stopping is probably more important than the running. Likewise, with a computer system, the computer has a lot of technology behind it that makes it run and it runs fast and efficiently; however, it will run and run until it doesn′t run anymore.

To me the backup of a computer system is just as important as the running of the computer system. Because when your computer system stops then you don′t work anymore, do you?

Stephen: No, you don′t and there are a lot of problems that could occur in a computer that you would never think of in other types of devices.

In the case of the computer, when the operating system decides to stop and it will stop right now. It′s not like a car where you can close all the windows and open them back up again and see if it will still work. You have to make sure that you haven′t lost anything important like your data.

Alan: At the PC Group, we ask all the time, "How often do you back up? Do you back up at least once a week?" We get very few hands up on that. "Do you back up once a month?" We get we will get maybe a few more hands up. "How many of you have not backed up the last year?" Most people people′s hands are raised; and they just don′t realize they need to back up.

When you lose a program, you can always reinstall it. When you lose your data; it might be pictures of a wedding or a vacation — it′s gone, isn′t it?

Stephen: It′s gone forever. Think about the music that you buy from iTunes - iTunes lets you download the music one time. If you lose your data and that includes your iTunes music you are going to have to completely buy your collection once again. That could be very expensive. However, if you lose something really important like financial records, videos, family pictures or important documents — those can′t be replaced.

Alan: When I ask, "What is the main reason your do not back up your computer on a regular basis?" Most people come back and say, "It′s too complicated and even when I think I′m backing up, I′m not really sure I am backing up. I want a one-click solution." And now you have this with the Acronis True Image Home 2009. How does that work?

Stephen: It′s a brand new product and it′s just arriving on store shelves this month of November and we do have a new interface with the product and the ability to do "one-click protection."

You start up the Acronis True Image Home Product and after the installation; the program will automatically take stock of the entire computer storage devices. If you have enough free space, you create the Acronis Secure Zone. That′s a partition, which is a place that you can store data on your system and it will be protected from viruses.

The system will then ask you if you want to create this Secure Zone. So, right away you are already taking the first step to having secured backups. The system will automatically do a backup, right then and there. It will say, "Do you want to do a backup right now?" Click "Yes," and you are protected. You now have one-click protection.

Alan: So, you don′t have to go through all these different menus and answer, whether I really want to do this? Do you think you want that? Okay, now we have to set this up for a certain speed or a certain bandwidth. We just basically click and everything is going to happen?

Stephen: You still have the opportunity and the ability to configure the backup the way you want, but if you want to just do a backup right now, you just install the produce and you want to back up your system so you know you are protected — click and go - and you are done.

Alan: How do we handle that fact that most computers now come with large hard drive and it′s a "C" hard drive and that′s the one that we want to back up?

Stephen: Now, we get back to the question of the Acronis Secure Zone. The Acronis Secure Zone is a partition; the operating system can′t see it. The computer knows it′s there, but Windows will not be able to write to it.

The Acronis True Image will take a piece of the free space on your "C" disk and it will create this special partition and put your backups on that special partition. The good news is that if you get a virus or if for some reason the operating system fails, even if your operating disappears from your computer — you can still boot your computer using the Acronis True Image and restore that image. The only time that won′t work is if your hard disk "physically breaks," physically, as a head crash, or drive physically burns up. For that reason you also have the ability to store to a second location like an external drive.

Alan: So, we could write to like an external USB drive or an ISATA drive or any type of drive that is hung off the computer?

Stephen: It could be connected directly into the computer and if you have a home network, you can save to another computer on the network. You can save to external storage. You can even save over the Internet, using the file transfer protocol, FTP. You have all of these abilities with the Acronis True Image Home 2009.

Alan: Normally, when we back up our hard drives with backup software; it always stores it in some kind of proprietary format that we always have to have another program to read. Can we get around that, now?

Stephen: Acronis gives you two choices — we also have our own proprietary format and it′s called, a ".tib file," for True Image Backup. But, if you are doing an image of your hard disk (a complete image) the backup will be stored as a .tib file.

But, let′s say you decide just to back up your music and you just want to back up your documents or your videos, something like that. We give you the ability to select the types of files that you want to back up and you can store these back ups as a Zip file. It is a very common, very popular compress Extension.

There are lots and lots of products out there, some free, some that you have to pay for that can create and open Zip files. We do give you the ability to store your files in that very popular format, as well. That is for a file backup.

Alan: And of course, Microsoft XP and Vista allows you to open up Zip files right inside of their operating system, now.

Stephen: That they do. You have the ability to look at Zip files right in the operating system with Vista; you have the ability to use a third-party product. There are so many choices now that it just makes it easier to not only create backups, but also to view your backups.

Alan: So, talking about "viewing your backups," a lot of big companies are finding this out the hard way. You do a backup and as long as you have the program that makes the backup, if this file is not encrypted or password protected, you do not have a complete copy of everything that is on the hard drive. Can we now encrypt this?

Stephen: In the current version of Acronis True Image, we now have the ability to do a data encryption. This is something that we have not incorporated in earlier products in the past, but now you can encrypt the files, using a very sophisticated encryption algorithm so you can be assured that no one else can open your files and read them.

Alan: And nowadays, hard drives are just ultra-cheap. You can get a 500 Gig hard drive; a 750 Gig hard drive; or even a terabyte hard drive for just a couple of hundred dollars and put it on the backend of your computer and use that as a backup storage device. And now using your one-click method we will always have a current backup.

Stephen: You know that′s exactly what I do with my home computers. I have a computer; my wife does; my kids each have computers. We have these computers connected to a home network and I have a terabyte external storage device, purchased at one of the retail outlets. They are very inexpensive these days and I save all of my backups over my network to this external storage.

Alan: Stephen, usually when you are going to back up your hard drive, if you are not making consistent backups, backing up all the time on some schedule and now you are looking at it and your hard drive is making noises or something is flaky on your computer, you may not have a really good copy of everything on the hard drive. And now we are trying to back up and salvage what we can and in the past we got to a certain point and it comes back and says, "Hey, I can′t go any further, bye! I′m gone to lunch."

Stephen: Well, that has been an issue in the past. One of the ways that we have engineered the new Product is that you now have the ability — let′s say that you do come across a sector of the hard that has become corrupt and you get an error message, saying, "There is a bad part of the hard disk."

We now have the ability to tell the software, "Acknowledge the fact that this is a corrupt sector and let′s continue with the backup." That way, you can at least recover the data that is on that machine — even if part of that data is corrupt, you can still get a complete image of that hard disk before it dies, completely. There are times when having 99.9% of the data that is on your hard disk is a whole lot better than having 0%!

Alan: And usually if you are trying to recover from a system crash, in most cases it will be the operating system that′s going to crash; it′s not going to be the data files that are going to give you the trouble. And the data files are more important than the operating system, because the data files are irreplaceable.

Stephen: That′s right. You can always reinstall an operating system; if you have programs that get corrupt — that happens sometimes. You can reinstall the programs. The key here though is the data.

The way we here at Acronis look at backup — and there are a lot of backup products. Backup is not new. Backup has been around from the beginning of computing. What we focus on is being able to take that backup that you have and recover your data. The recovery part is most important to us.

What we try to focus when we come out with a new product; certainly we want the backup to be as easy as possible. But, we want the recovery to be as complete as possible.

Alan: And what are we looking at as far as the price?

Stephen: Acronis True Image is priced at the same price today, as it was when it first came out in 2000. It′s priced at $49.99 US List. But, you can also look it up at resellers and retail outlets and many of them sell the product for significantly less than the list price.

We also have corporate products that you can find at the Acronis Website.

Alan: Stephen, if someone would like to find more information about the Acronis True Echo Home 2009 where would they go?

Stephen: http://www.acronis.com.

Alan: Stephen, we′ve run out of time and we didn′t even get a chance to talk about what you call the most important part about backups — the restore function. I′m looking forward to picking up this conversation, next time.

Stephen: I look forward to coming back soon. Thanks so much, Alan.

About Acronis

Acronis is a leading provider of easy-to-use disaster recovery and data protection solutions for physical, virtual and cloud environments. Its patented disk imaging technology enables corporations, SMBs and consumers to protect their digital assets. With Acronis' disaster recovery, deployment and migration software, users protect their digital information, maintain business continuity and reduce downtime. Acronis software is sold in more than 90 countries and available in up to 14 languages. For additional information, please visit www.acronis.co.uk. Follow Acronis on Twitter: http://twitter.com/acronis.

Press contacts:

Steve Webster
Birnbach Communications for Acronis
617-512-8635
acronis@birnbachcom.com

Lucy Millington
Acronis EMEA
+1(781)782-9181
BenedicteC@acronis.com