At the top of the screen are four tabs and, where needed, there are ribbon-style icon bars below these. The interface is clean and easy to understand, with few changes from the 2013 version.

Acronis True Image 2014 Premium: interface It seems that the default compression on backup utilities is not that effective (O&O DiskImage Professional 8 was much the same). Using the built-in compression at its default setting, the lowest of three, it took 29 minutes, but the file size was only reduced by 1.1GB, to 47.1GB. On more conventional, local backups, the program did well, completing a 50GB uncompressed backup to an eSATA hard drive in 20 minutes, with an archive size of 48.2GB. Backing up essential data to a second hard drive is good, backing up to a local network server is better, but sending it offsite to a file server on the Internet is best, if you want to safeguard against catastrophes like flood and fire. This is a comprehensive package for backup and recovery, with all the bells and whistles you could want, including the key addition for this year’s product, online storage. It seems odd to sideline a brand name you’ve worked hard to establish, but look at Snickers.

For consistency, though, we’ll use the more recognisable name. Probably the best known of all the system and fileīackup software tools, Acronis True Image 2014 Premium is now also called Acronis PC Backup & Recovery. The single PC product feels a bit dear the 3-PC version is better value. While we were a bit disappointed with the default level of compression, backups are created quickly and there’s plenty of flexibility in how you set them up and schedule them. Acronis True Image is still the back-up utility to beat and the 2014 Premium product adds online storage to its arsenal of data security utilities.

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