Is Acronis True Image 2012 worth upgrading to from 2011?

Hi, StevenAus. Since I napped earlier and just found your post, I'll endeavor to give it due consideration.

I think the basic question is, "Does your current edition satisfy your needs?" and secondarily, "Do the improvements justify the expense of updating/upgrading?", as there will always be bugs to one degree or another. "Will they impact me?"... hard to say. I think if you have specific questions regarding the most used of your programs or the ones you think will be problematic, the best address for them is http://www.acronis.com/support/ .

You can read a truly excellent review here:  http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/windows/Acronis-True-Image-Home-2012-Review-232888.shtml

Their final take was:

The Good
The suite brings to the table everything a regular user requires to keep their system safe. Besides the regular backup options it also makes available continuous backup option that come with file versioning possibilities. Flexibility is visible when it comes to scheduling choices, as well.
Backups are automatically detected on the disk and you can view the comments for each one, for better identification.
True Image is still strong when it comes to methods to preserving the system in a certain state at the same time allowing its alteration. Try&Decide, Secure Zone, backup conversion to VHD and Boot Sequence Manager may not be tools for the average user, but using them is definitely a breeze.
The Bad
Synchronization is not among the best features in the package. There are better solutions on the market that work much better, and many of them are free of charge.
NonStop Backup gave us trouble on two of our test systems and did not work correctly during our tests, causing crashes and sometimes skipping backup jobs.
The Truth
Acronis True Image Home 2012 is a reliable backup solution that keeps extending its functionality by adding new features. The new options have not matured just yet and need further polishing.
But overall, the package consolidates its position as one of the best and most complex, in terms of features, backup solution on the market.

StevenAus, thanks for valuing my opinion. I hope this answers your question, or at least points you in the right direction. 

I do appreciate your trust.

That's quite alright. :)  Since you seem to recommend TIH highly, I figured you would have some good tips.  Is VHD conversion only available in 2012?

Since Acronis 2010, Acronis tib's could be changed to vhd's and vice versa.

I don't know if that answers your question, but if not I'd certainly give that Acronis support email addy in reply #1 a try... I've never tried to back up a virtual drive...

I've just successfully restored an Acronis 2011 Boot Drive Image for Windows 7 Pro 32-bit, and also restored an image of my data and programs partition.  It's certainly very handy being able to restore a (recent) image of an OS partition (made only a few days before my old drive stopped working)!  My old hard drive carked it, and I've replaced it, however I got a slower (Green) hard drive since the floods in Thailand have dramatically increased the prices, especially of Western Digital hard drives.  (WD Black Caviar was about $AU330 for a 2TB, whereas the slower Green Caviar 2TB was about $AU170.)

Might want to read this guys. http://forum.acronis.com/forum/25521#comment-82828

There seem to be quite a few issues. Glad you found this, Steve.

Got the patch now, fixes some issues especially with nonstop backup. How that totally unfunctional sync got through QA and in the 1st place and why I would need that one over SyncBack and other really good solutions is totally beyond me though... Even the free version of SynCBack can do more. Totally useless feature.

Wow. That thread WebGizmos linked to as a lot of VERY useful information regarding Acronis and their current problems. Thanks, mate!

Indeed it does, and Seagate's backup software on their HDD's does not bode well for Acronis.

I have used Acronis products for many years. In fact, I used to do beta testing for some of their products, thus I'm somewhat familiar with them. They are generally very good and reliable. However, over the past 4 years or so, the Q&A of their new releases has been rather "questionable". In an effort to capture more of the market, Acronis has focused more on adding new features (a downfall of many software developers) rather than improving already existing features which are most used. So, the initial release of their new versions has had a bad track record; lots of 'bugs' which evokes negative feedback from the customer base. But Acronis does address most of the problems in later incremental updates. To be fair, no backup software is going to work 100% for everyone due to the vast differences in systems, configurations, user customizations, etc. If something works for you then it's a winner.

Bottom line.... Acronis True Image Home is a very good product but there are other alternatives which are nearly as good if not as good or better. Some you may want to take a look at are "ShadowProtect" and "EaseUS Todo Backup", which has a FREE version (v. 3.5) that will provide all that most people need for backuping up a complete system and/or data and it includes the ability to do Bare Metal/Universal Restore, i.e., the ability to restore a backup image to a PC with different hardware.

Just my 2 cents!