If Macrium Reflect X is too expensive, what will you switch to?

when will paid ver of 8.1 stop working?

Froggie said:

As discussed all over this Forum, v8 FREE can still be had but not from Macrium (maybe that's still possible through special download links).

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There are still direct links for Macrium to get the Reflect Free v8.0 Download Agent (in fact, Reflect Free v7 is still available too). See the bottom of post #1 here for the link: Latest Macrium Reflect 8 updates

Froggie said:

FREE is a bit bereft from PAID licenses in its feature set but is still very useful.

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The features missing from Reflect Free are File & folder backup, Incremental images (Differentials are included), Rapid Delta Restore, Changed Block Tracking, Image Guardian, and ReDeploy. The rest of the features, including cloning and scheduling, are in Reflect Free.

man00 said:

when will paid ver of 8.1 stop working?

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v8.1 and earlier all have perpetual licenses; they were not subscription licenses like vX is.
At some point Macrium may stop issuing any bugfix updates to v8.1; IDK they may already have made this decision.
So it may (not) get further updates, but should still continue to work as is. Just like Window 10 starting October.

man00 said:

when will paid ver of 8.1 stop working?

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Only when Microsoft make a change that breaks it. To my knowledge that has only happened once before, with Windows 10 v1903. At the time v7 was the current build, but Macrium released a patch for v6, even though it was two years after the release of v7, and a year after extended support for v6 had ended. Reflect v8.1 is in extended support and will get patches for a year after the launch of Reflect X, that is until October 2025.

What's New 6.3.1865 - 8th May 2019

Support for Windows 10 1903
This update adds support for Windows 10 1903 and prevents disk images failing with 'Error Code 9'. Please upgrade to this release for support with Windows 10.
Note: We recommend that Macrium Reflect is upgraded to v7 to ensure continued support for Windows 10.

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All versions of Reflect from v6 onwards still work today, even in the latest Insider builds.

Froggie said:

They are no longer selling or upgrading to any v8.x license. As discussed all over this Forum, v8 FREE can still be had but not from Macrium (maybe that's still possible through special download links). FREE is a bit bereft from PAID licenses in its feature set but is still very useful.

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Your wording on your post is misleading "v8 FREE can still be had but not from Macrium"

As Macrium Reflect free Version 8 (for personal use only)
download link is two posts above yours. The link for download is straight from Macrium.com

Froggie said:

They are no longer selling or upgrading to any v8.x license. As discussed all over this Forum, v8 FREE can still be had but not from Macrium (maybe that's still possible through special download links). FREE is a bit bereft from PAID licenses in its feature set but is still very useful.

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Yes, the link for the FREE Macrium Reflect V8 that works PERFECTLY on Windows 11 and 2TB NVMe drives and is STILL FREE (2 posts above) is from / on Macrium.com domain...

Your wording is misleading.
"v8 FREE can still be had but not from Macrium"

I downloaded multiple V8 versions straight from the source the December 27th.

Bree said:

Reflect v8.1 is in extended support and will get patches for a year after the launch of Reflect X, that is until October 2025.

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There is also a v8.1 LTSC version though I don't know much about it, it's supposed to be supported for 3 years, so maybe 8.1 will get fixes until 2027. I cannot imagine the code for LTSC being any different from the Home 8.1

OnesieBackup said:

There is also a v8.1 LTSC version though I don't know much about it, it's supposed to be supported for 3 years, so maybe 8.1 will get fixes until 2027. I cannot imagine the code for LTSC being any different from the Home 8.1

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The LTSC version of Reflect is a product for business customers, it's the Workstation version, not Home. Prices are not published, but custom pricing is available on request.

Macrium Reflect LTSC Edition​

Providing long term stability and security for business customers that want a backup and recovery solution where functionality and features do not change over time.

• One-time purchase license
• Based on the tried and trusted Reflect v8.1
• 3 Years Bug Fixes & Security Patches included (5-years available on request)

1 Year & 3 Year Premium Support terms are available. Support can also be purchased separately (Individual or Enterprise OEM)

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The only difference between Home and Workstation is the addition of two extra features, Integrated Windows Event Logging and Bandwidth throttling.

I meant that if there are any serious fixes that need to be applied to 8.1 to continue working, I hope Macrium does the right thing and patches the Home edition also when they patch LTSC, if it stops working or security vulnerabilities are discovered for example.

OnesieBackup said:

I meant that if there are any serious fixes that need to be applied to 8.1 to continue working, I hope Macrium does the right thing and patches the Home edition also when they patch LTSC...

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I know you meant that, and I hope you are right. They do have a track record of patching long after support has ended, v6 got a patch a year after its extended support had officially ended.

But you also said "LTSC ... I don't know much about it..." so I thought I'd fill in the gaps for you

If you look around, there are some great options to Acronis True Image that are ridiculously free.

If you look around a little bit harder, there are some great forum posts explaining how it is possible to use only the bootable Rescue Media thereof, on a Ventoy-formatted USB flash drive, so as to avoid having to keep the program installed on the computer.

And so there is no bloat whatsoever.

And so it isn't bereft of anything that the average home user will typically need.

And so it consistently (and contrary to popular belief) produces more reliable results with verification than choosing to make snapshot-based images of an installation of Windows while Windows is still actively running on the system, as that in fact is also among primary reasons why Microsoft had invented WinRE/WinPE in the first place.

That's right, reliability starts with being able to run the image creation process in an isolated environment (WinRE/WinPE) so as to avoid processes running on the system from being able to interfere with the image creation process, and to avoid the potential risk of unexpected problems with the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and known limitations thereof that are documented by Microsoft, and are documented by Microsoft regardless of who voted on the poll.

So, here's a small suggestion from me. Instead of filling up 11 forum pages about it, maybe, just maybe, there's a small chance that the effort and time it all took would've been better spent on things like reading the official documentation from Microsoft about how VSS works. Just maybe.

Stigg said:

If you look around, there are some great options to Reflect that are ridiculously cheap.

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Cheaper than free?

PCUser said:

Cheaper than free?

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No, but better than ancient.

Also, Hasleo is free and in my opinion, better than Macrium.

antspants said:

Also, Hasleo is free and in my opinion, better than Macrium.

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While Hasleo can match most of the features of paid-for Reflect, except for Changed Block Tracking and Image Guardian, I find its interface a bit too simplistic, not as configurable as Reflect.

When booted from a USB as an independent winPE programme, Macrium 8.1 (paid) has two features I find invaluable. Neither Hasleo nor Aomei have these, at least as yet. (I cannot speak for Macrium 10, but these features are also present in Macrium 7, paid).

1) a menu item to repair C:\ boot problems in a recovered image. It works within 20 seconds and has helped me several times, or more.

2) a menu item for deploying an image for recovery on different hardware to that on which the image was initially done. While this is not necessarily universally reliable, it has worked perfectly for me a number of times.

Hasleo has restore to different hardware which they call universal restore. Aomei has it only in the pro version and higher.

SIW2 said:

Hasleo has restore to different hardware. Aomei has it only in the pro version and higher.

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Yes, and Delta Restore too. I don't think Aomei has that one at all. As far as I can see the only Reflect features missing in Hasleo are Macrium's CBT and IMG.

ian50 said:

a menu item to repair C:\ boot problems in a recovered image

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That’s not a great advertisement that you would even need to do this, surely?

ian50 said:

a menu item to repair C:\ boot problems in a recovered image.

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Are you referring to restoring the MBR? If so, yes, Hasleo can.

Bree said:

While Hasleo can match most of the features of paid-for Reflect, except for Changed Block Tracking and Image Guardian, I find its interface a bit too simplistic, not as configurable as Reflect.

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I’m not a fan of complex, ol’ mate. I just want it to do one job, simply backup & restore an image.