Table of contents

1. Install2. Create bootable rescue media3. Define a backup plan4. Run the backup5. Test the processNext stepsAdditional resources

Get the industry’s most performant bare metal hosting◦ Fast connections
◦ Setup in under 1 hour
◦ User-friendly API

Bare Metal → Acronis Backup

How to run an Acronis bare metal backup

When disaster strikes—hardware failure, corrupted OS, ransomware—you don’t want to be fiddling with file-level restores or reinstalling an OS from scratch. You want a full system clone, ready to go. That’s where bare metal backups come in. Acronis makes this surprisingly straightforward, but there are a few critical details to get right.

Here’s how to create a reliable bare metal backup with Acronis, step by step.

Explore bare metal

Build now

Step 1: Install Acronis Cyber Protect or Acronis Backup

To do a true bare metal backup, Acronis Cyber Protect (formerly Acronis Backup) is a good option. It’s available for Windows and Linux, and works across physical and virtual environments.

Install the agent on the machine you want to back up. If you’re using the cloud console, you’ll also register the device so it appears in your dashboard.

Step 2: Create bootable rescue media

Bare metal backups are only useful if you can restore them—so you’ll need a rescue boot environment. In the Acronis console, use the Media Builder to create bootable media on a USB drive or ISO. This environment includes Acronis tools that let you restore your backup onto a new or blank system.

Make sure the system you’re backing up supports booting from the media you create (UEFI vs BIOS matters here).

Step 3: Define a backup plan

From your Acronis dashboard, go to Devices > All Devices and select the machine you want to back up. Click Protect to create a new backup plan.

Choose Entire Machine as your backup source. This ensures you’re capturing the full disk image, including OS, apps, configuration, and boot sector—everything needed for a bare metal restore.

Pick your backup destination—local storage, NAS, or cloud—and configure schedule, retention rules, and encryption if needed.

Step 4: Run the initial backup

Once the plan is set, you can kick off the initial full backup manually or wait for the scheduled time. This first run will take the longest, depending on disk size and destination speed.

Monitor progress from the console. After it’s done, verify the backup by checking for success and optionally browsing the contents to ensure it looks complete.

Step 5: Test the restore process

Before disaster hits, simulate a restore using a test environment. Boot a VM or spare machine from the Acronis rescue media, connect to your backup location, and walk through the recovery process.

Choose the backup you created, and select Recover Whole Machine to ensure you’re doing a proper bare metal restore—not just file-level recovery.

This step validates everything—rescue media, backup integrity, storage access, and recovery confidence.

Getting started with bare metal backups in Acronis

Bare metal backups aren’t just for worst-case scenarios—they’re an insurance policy against downtime, configuration drift, and rebuild nightmares. Whether you’re running servers, critical workstations, or hypervisor hosts, having a restorable system image means you can be back up in hours, not days.

When you’re ready to get started, explore Acronis Disaster Recovery with Liquid Web. We’ve combined innovative technology with trusted expertise to minimize data loss and downtime.

We partnered with Acronis to bring you a disaster recovery solution that integrates seamlessly with VMware and is backed by a global network of data centers and industry-leading security measures.

Click below to explore bare metal options or start a chat with one of our experts to learn more.