Acronis True Image: Creating a copy of your entire hard disk

Try & Decide

Create a safe portion of your hard disk where you can install new software, open questionable emails, surf the web, or do other tasks without putting your computer at risk; save what you want, delete what you don't want

Backup Your System State

Protect Registry, boot files, as well as important system files from system crashes

Acronis Drive Cleanser™

Protect your sensitive data when you are discarding a hard drive or returning leased system by securely easing the whole hard drive

File Shredder

Wipe private or confidential data in individual files using latest multi-pass algorithms

Preserve files and folders during restore

Make sure your newly entered important data would not be overwritten by recovering from older backup

Set and Forget

Configure it once and you don't have to care about your backups as long as traffic light indicator shows green

Search and Explore archives

Easily search for and recover particular files from all your known backup images

Message-level Outlook and Outlook Express restore

Quickly locate and recover your important messages from mail backup

And many more...

Back up directly to FTP; continue to use your system during live backups; incremental and differential backups; Backup Scheduler; Acronis Recovery Manager; PC cloning; adding a new hard disk, etc.

Acronis True Image: Creating a copy of your entire hard disk

Acronis True Image is the backup product of choice on more than 2 million computers. Well, our best just got better! With the newest version of Acronis True Image Home, protecting your family photos, home videos, music collection and important documents has never been easier.

Creating a copy of your entire hard disk is virtually meaningless if you can't restore it. Acronis True Image provides multiple ways for you to recover your data, from restoring the entire image to restoring selected files and folders to picking specific e-mails. Flexibility, reliability and usability are Job 1 at Acronis True Image.

Copy your entire PC,

including the operating system, applications, user settings, and all data using our patented disk imaging technology

Backup

your music, video, and digital photos, as well as your system state and application settings for dozens of programs

Backup your Outlook e-mails,

contacts, calendar, signatures, news folders, e-mail rules and user settings with just a few mouse clicks!

Restore all the settings

for Microsoft Office, iTunes, Windows Media Player and dozens of popular applications!

Acronis True Image 11 Home combines simplicity with flexibility to ensure that you are fully protected and can recover from unforeseen events such as viruses, unstable software downloads, and hard drive failures. And when you want to delete data or repurpose an old hard drive, Acronis True Image privacy protection applications can ensure that your old data will never be retrieved and your identity fully protected.

Important consideration - Installed memory:

The more installed memory your laptop has, the more applications you can run at once, and the better your laptop will perform. Ease of access aside, upgrading memory in a laptop is a bit trickier than with a desktop, so buy as much memory preinstalled as you can afford. Laptops with 512MB or 1GB of RAM are optimal.

Important consideration - Processor:

The CPU determines how quickly a laptop runs applications and performs on-screen tasks. Core 2 Duo processors are good choices for speedy processing.

Important consideration - Screen size:

The specified size of a laptop's LCD screen represents a diagonal measurement. The larger the screen, the higher the maximum resolution and the more information you can view at once. At this point, most laptops are widescreen models; if you want a laptop with a standard-aspect screen you'll have to search a bit, but they are still available.

Somewhat important - Hard-drive size:

The larger the hard drive, the more data you can keep on your laptop. Most people don't need more than 80GB. If you plan to work with spreadsheets, databases, or digital photo or video files, opt for a large drive.

Somewhat important - Expansion bays:

The more expansion bays, the more options you have for switching in new optical drives or other storage drives. However, switching drives takes time. Though high-end ultraportables typically have no extra bays, you can purchase external drives for them.

Somewhat important - Optical drives:

Most manufacturers offer laptops with rewritable DVD drives, which give you the most flexibility. Alternatively, you can purchase a laptop with a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, to save money.

Laptop Shopping Tips

Are you ready to buy a laptop? Here are specifications that will fit the needs of the average user.

A 1.73GHz Core Duo processor: For everyday work - word processing, spreadsheets, email - you don't need the latest, greatest processor, but thankfully, with the Core Duo, you get strong performance and great battery life.

512MB or more of memory: Anything less will slow your work.

Supplemental battery: If you want more time away from a power socket, buy a higher-capacity supplementary battery when you purchase the laptop, or buy a laptop that has a modular bay capable of holding a supplementary power pack.

A 14.1in widescreen: A screen larger than 12.1in eases eyestrain. Unless you're really pinching pennies, bigger is better.

A 80GB hard drive: Unless you generate multi-megabyte music or database files, or install more than one office suite, 80GB is plenty of storage space.

Touchpad pointing device: Pointing devices are a matter of taste. Most people, however, find a touchpad easier to use than a pointing stick. For people who can't decide between a touchpad and an eraserhead pointing device, some laptops include both.

Multiple USB ports: Many laptops now come with two or more USB 2.0 ports, useful for connecting more of the latest peripherals.

All-in-one design: Unless you need a lightweight laptop, opt for one with an internal bay for the optical drive. This design enables you to swap in other devices, such as an extra hard drive or a second battery.