Acronis True Image or Macrium Reflect

bobkn · Jul 18, 2021

CornishRattler said:
I see a lot of members using Macrium to create back ups or clones, my license for Acronis is coming to an end so thoughts between the 2? Macrium has a free version, is it any good?

TIA

I didn't realize that Acronis was offering subscription versions of True Image already. My Upgrade licenses are perpetual. TI 2021 licenses

I have read that Acronis is doing away with perpetual licenses for future TI releases. I presume that I could continue to use 2021 for years. I might switch out of sheer annoyance, though.

CornishRattler · Jul 18, 2021

bobkn said:
I didn't realize that Acronis was offering subscription versions of True Image already. My Upgrade licenses are perpetual. TI 2021 licenses

I have read that Acronis is doing away with perpetual licenses for future TI releases. I presume that I could continue to use 2021 for years. I might switch out of sheer annoyance, though.

The subscription is for TI advanced which includes the cloud storage for back ups.

FredM8 · Jul 18, 2021

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I will stay with Acronis for the time being.
No reason not to.

Should add that I have the paid for version, not subscription.
So, things might change in the future.

sbh7600 · Jul 18, 2021

I used Acronis, to back up Win 10 for a few days ago. but Macrium works better for me

A Guy · Jul 18, 2021

I used Acronis 2010 until I updated to 20H2 and it errored that GPT wasn't supported. I simply make full backups so switched to MR free, and works fine

A Guy

jimbo45 · Jul 18, 2021

johnlgalt said:
CloneZIlla only uses 309 MB on a USB flash drive.

View attachment 3367

The Macrium boot drive I made with the necessary drivers for my motherboard only uses 290 MB.

View attachment 3368

Got a 500 MB Flash drive anyone?

Instead of Clonezilla just download ANY decent live linux distro to a USB stick, have GPARTED and ntfs-3g installed.

Now for disk cloning simply dd if=/dev/disk1 /of=/dev/disk2 bs=4096M status=progress. (Target Disk >= Source disk)

For Target Disk <= Source disk -
1) Gparted to reduce partition size(s) to fit on geometry of new Disk
2) copy partitions either via DD or within GPARTED.

Simple and easy -- I've found the odd problem getting Clonezilla to work and its instructions aren't exactly easy to follow. A lot of live Linux distros look almost like windows and the GPARTED GUI is pretty much identical to standard partition managers one uses on Windows anyway.

There's nothing wrong also for a Windows solution -- reduce partition size(s) of the disk you want to copy, take a Macrium image, and then restore to target disk.

"Seeeemples" however you want to do it.

Cheers
jimbo

johnlgalt · Jul 18, 2021

CloneZilla is just as easy, and with a lot more options than a simple bit-by-bit dd, plus I've used for so long.

The biggest benefit is in booting the same CZ live for use with PXE for imaging multiple machines over a network.

it truly is a one stop shop in terms of both imaging and backup.

bobkn · Jul 18, 2021

CornishRattler said:
The subscription is for TI advanced which includes the cloud storage for back ups.

Ah. I don't do cloud, mostly.

cereberus · Jul 21, 2021

One great feature of Reflect even in free version is the ability to mount Reflect images as a virtual machine in HyperV.

People always ask how you can be sure and image is backee up correctly. For sure, you can use verification but I turn that off now as it was handy back in days of dvd backups but I have never had a failure in years as writing to modern drived is so teliable. I just open the image in Viboot - if it loads correctly, yiu have a total verification.

zViboot is now available for virtualbox and can be used by Home users. It is still a good idea to disable the hyper-v hyoervisor as although vb can now coexist with HV, it is much slower if hypervisor is running.

PS - W10 Home users can get HV working it. Search my posts on W10 forum. Not tested it on W11 yet.

Zardoc · Aug 12, 2021

bobkn said:
I didn't realize that Acronis was offering subscription versions of True Image already. My Upgrade licenses are perpetual. TI 2021 licenses

I have read that Acronis is doing away with perpetual licenses for future TI releases. I presume that I could continue to use 2021 for years. I might switch out of sheer annoyance, though.

In case you didn't know 2017 is the same as 2021 except no cyber protect junk :wink:

Dru2 · Aug 23, 2021

Zardoc said:
In case you didn't know 2017 is the same as 2021 except no cyber protect junk

There's actually a far more significant difference to be aware of which could make reading 2017 backups a bit confusing with ATI 2020 and beyond since the backup format has changed from .tib to .tibx...

Introduction

Acronis True Image 2020 introduced a new backup format - .tibx, which is even more reliable and convenient. The .tibx format is used for disk backups created to internal drives, external drives, network storage.

One of the changes in the new backup format is that incremental backups are written to the same file as the full backup, until the next full backup is created - compared to previous versions of Acronis True Image where a separate .tib file was produced each time the backup was run.

Due to the fact that all incremental backups are written to the same .tibx file as the full or differential backup that they are appended to, it may be hard to evaluate how many backups were created and how many restore points are available.

Source: 63445: Acronis True Image 2020: how to view and manage backup versions in new backup format

I'm still running ATI 2018, so no tibx here.

Anyway - 63498: Acronis True Image 2020-2021: new tibx backup format FAQ

Zardoc · Aug 23, 2021

I’m sorry. I was referring to the cyber security. I have all versions and I have not seen much difference. 2017 has no cyber security options

But this is what Acronis says:
The new archive format is faster files/folders backup and browsing operations, e.g. the performance improvements, especially for cases when a huge amount of files/folders (2 millions+) is saved in the backup. Also, I think that 2021 uses backup 12.5 and compresses a bit more.

Now, I also said that there is a way that you can run 2021 without the cyber security options.

Here, you can see that only the scheduler is running, everything else is disabled.

badrobot · Aug 23, 2021

As a free Macrium user, I can also ask the same question. Is Acronis any good?

hsehestedt · Aug 23, 2021

badrobot said:
As a free Macrium user, I can also ask the same question. Is Acronis any good?

Opinions have already been supplied to that question in this thread, but if you are still looking for more, why not download a trial version and form your own opinion?

Zardoc · Aug 23, 2021

I have been using Acronis since Drive Image was bought by Symantec 2009 or something like that ( I forget). No issues whatsoever. Unfortunately in 2018 they added cyber protection which in my case is a pain. However, I know how to get rid of it and it works like a charm. Price wise, I think Macrium seems to have an Edge but I don't know how fast it backs up or if it has gui restore from Windows.
So, if your satisfied and don't want to pay, stay with Macrium.

However, there is a free edition of Acronis if you buy a WD or Sabrent drive. The latest WD version is crap but I have an older version that works very well

Dru2 · Aug 23, 2021

Zardoc said:
I’m sorry. I was referring to the cyber security. I have all versions and I have not seen much difference. 2017 has no cyber security options

Yeah, I was simply replying to this unedited quoted post...

Zardoc said:
In case you didn't know 2017 is the same as 2021 except no cyber protect junk

In which my point is that's not the only difference between 2017 and 2021. And it's a major one.

Zardoc · Aug 23, 2021

Dru2 said:
Yeah, I was simply replying to this unedited quoted post...

In which my point is that's not the only difference between 2017 and 2021. And it's a major one.

Yes, you are right like I said, and I also mentioned that I have all the versions from 2009-2021 and between 2017 and 2021 unless you have a million files (I don't) I haven't seen any difference. I actually install 2017 on my laptop. instead of 2021. unless you use recovery consoles, I haven't seen anything that makes me convinced that 2021 that has anything better than 2017. But hey, who am I to keep someone from buying 2021.

Wynona · Aug 23, 2021

hsehestedt said:
Opinions have already been supplied to that question in this thread, but if you are still looking for more, why not download a trial version and form your own opinion?

I did . . . A long time ago. I choose Macrium Reflect 8 paid version.

Zardoc · Aug 23, 2021

Wynona said:
I did . . . A long time ago. I choose Macrium Reflect 8 paid version.

Hi Wynona, does the 8 version paid have an onboard GUI to restore directly from Windows?

I might just try it. :wink:

bobkn · Aug 23, 2021

Zardoc said:
Hi Wynona, does the 8 version paid have an onboard GUI to restore directly from Windows?

I might just try it.

I'm not Wynona.

How would that work? Windows over-writing itself?

I suppose that there could be a utility that is launched from Windows, that would then reboot the PC to complete the operation. I've only seen that done for some BIOS updaters, so far.