Acronis' True Image Home 2010, why it's our A-List home backup suite

Last year's Acronis True Image introduced a user-friendly interface, but hardly piled on the advanced features. This year, Acronis has added several features aimed squarely at the more experienced user.

Full support for Windows 7 is in place, but what's more interesting is what you can do with your backup sets.

True Image 2010 allows you to save backups as virtual hard disk (VHD) files, so you can access your data in a virtual machine on another Windows 7 PC. It also offers Ultimate users the ability to boot directly from the Windows 7 image.

The Task Scheduler has a few new options, but many will choose to set Nonstop Backup running. Enable this and Acronis will save changes every five minutes; you then use the Time Explorer to retrace your steps to the precise moment - presumably limited only by disk space - at which a file went awry.

Meanwhile, the restore part regresses to an explorer tree that's fiddlier than the rest of the software, but the flexibility it brings over Windows' own Previous Versions tool  is tremendous.

The other headline feature is an Online Backup facility, although at the time of writing it wasn't working in Australia.

With no access it's hard to tell how integrated it is with the software, but the menu page gives the impression of it being a simple extension to the backup process. It will support up to five PCs on one account.

The rest is consistent with last year's True Image, with One-Click Backup, Try&Decide and the Secure Zone (for creating a protected area on a partition just for backups).

In all, it's a positive step forward. The Online Backup addition may be overkill for some, but virtual hard disk support and Nonstop Backup are excellent additions to a comprehensive home backup suite.