Macrium Reflect vs. EaseUS Todo Backup Home

cereberus · Apr 21, 2022

trevo said:
A good analogy... I took advantage of the generous giveaway of EaseUS.
I tested it, but after three failed attempts to create restore media, I lost confidence and gave up.
I will continue to use Macrium which I have used on several occasions to successfully restore.

What saddens me is Easeus was a solid tool before they introduced the new gui.

I have also been testing AOMEI Backupper Pro and whilst its gui is not that much more advanced than Easeus, it does what it says on the tin, and has a good file sync feature (not even in Reflect).

hsehestedt · Apr 21, 2022

Responding to those who noted that they cannot recall the last time they actually had to restore a backup...

Isn't there a Murphy's Law that applies to this scenario? Something like "the better quality or up to date a backup you have, the less likely it will be that you need it. But have no backups or a poor, outdated backup, and you are guaranteed to need it".

OldNavy · Apr 21, 2022

With Easeus seeming to be going backwards have a look at R-Drive Image. It's been around for yonks and is absolutely solid.

A great No 2 so to speak behind Reflect.

badrobot · Apr 21, 2022

pparks1 said:
It's funny, I was discussing some backup imaging software the other day at work and a coworker asked me,
"How long has it been since you have actually needed to restore an image backup of a system because of a problem you experienced on your computer?"

I don't have a regular schedule for creating image backups. Not every 3 months, nor 6 months. I make image backups when I hear of problems with latest updates. You need a good reason to make image backups. Not because the calendar says so. You may not need it after the update, but don't go to a war without a weapon.

cereberus · Apr 21, 2022

badrobot said:
I don't have a regular schedule for creating image backups. Not every 3 months, nor 6 months. I make image backups when I hear of problems with latest updates. You need a good reason to make image backups. Not because the calendar says so. You may not need it after the update, but don't go to a war without a weapon.

And if a problem arises that you have not heard about?

badrobot · Apr 21, 2022

cereberus said:
And if a problem arises that you have not heard about?

I still have my previous image. I don"t delete them until I have a new one.
That is what backups are mainly for. For unforseen problems.

Haydon · Apr 21, 2022

badrobot said:
I don't have a regular schedule for creating image backups. Not every 3 months, nor 6 months. I make image backups when I hear of problems with latest updates. You need a good reason to make image backups. Not because the calendar says so. You may not need it after the update, but don't go to a war without a weapon.

I used to do 'backup on an as needed basis' but I found that in the long run I tend to neglect the backups > now I do both weekend backups and on an as needed basis backups during the work week.

There are folks here who do their backups every night. That's too rich for me for one thing, but another thing is that I may want to do some test restores depending on what I see, at least in the weekend backups with the various tools that I use. So, I can't really automate that.

Whatever floats your boat

badrobot · Apr 21, 2022

Haydon said:
Whatever floats your boat

I am assuming we are talking about OS image backups. Not data backups. That is a totally different story. I have also my data separate from my OS.

Haydon · Apr 21, 2022

Ah, I meant both full disk backup (1 tool) and user data backup (3 tools). All 4 tools on weekends and whatever tool(s) I deem appropriate during the work week (it won't be all 4)

Edit: I care (much) more about my data than the OS and apps.

badrobot · Apr 21, 2022

Haydon said:
Ah, I meant both full disk backup (1 tool) and user data backup (3 tools). All 4 tools on weekends and whatever tool(s) I deem appropriate during the work week (it won't be all 4)

Edit: I care (much) more about my data than the OS and apps.

I care about fast running PC. My data is taken care of separately.
My data drive synchs to my NAS in RAID 1.

Haydon · Apr 22, 2022

I experimented with Storage Spaces, which is MS version of RAID. I didn't like it at the time, but may/will revisit it from time to time.

Yeah, one of the reasons I disliked it is that I always felt that I still needed additional backup with the 2-way mirror that could only survive a failure of 1 of the 2 drives.

A 3-way mirror could survive the failure of 2 drives. I don't think I would then still feel the need for additional backup, but it requires 5 drives.

If I can afford 5 fast SSDs (including the cage) to experiment with (and use them as paper weights if I don't like the results) then I will LOL

pparks1 · Apr 22, 2022

RAID is never a replacement for a backup. Always have a backup. And if at all possible, keep at least one backup offsite. My sisters house burned down, onsite backups there didn't help.

The-Hive · Apr 22, 2022

Trouble is any corruption gets synced as well, hence the reason I use Macrium

Haydon · Apr 22, 2022

pparks1 said:
RAID is never a replacement for a backup. Always have a backup. And if at all possible, keep at least one backup offsite. My sisters house burned down, onsite backups there didn't help.

For me, Storage Spaces with sufficient redundancy would be sufficient backup (provided I like the rest of it, there are pros and cons)

I don't have off-line (conventional) backup either, don't feel the need.

Edit: Rod and I posted at the same time. Somewhat true what he said, but a backup (with Macrium Reflect or some other conventional backup software) of a corrupted file/folder/system is also a corrupted file/folder/system. What is true is that with sync, there is more trouble. The nice thing with Storage Spaces is that you only have to make extra effort if a drive fails. There are pros and cons, as I said, there are more, could go on forever.

pparks1 · Apr 22, 2022

Not going to belabor the point, but RAID is for redundancy and it's not a backup. There is even a website dedicated to explaining why

RAID is NOT a backup! · RAID is NOT a backup!

As long as you are okay with potentially losing the data, RAID alone is just fine. But it's not the same as a backup.

hsehestedt · Apr 22, 2022

Haydon said:
For me, Storage Spaces with sufficient redundancy would be sufficient backup (provided I like the rest of it, there are pros and cons)

I don't have off-line (conventional) backup either, don't feel the need.

Edit: Rod and I posted at the same time. Somewhat true what he said, but a backup (with Macrium Reflect or some other conventional backup software) of a corrupted file/folder/system is also a corrupted file/folder/system. What is true is that with sync, there is more trouble. The nice thing with Storage Spaces is that you only have to make extra effort if a drive fails. There are pros and cons, as I said, there are more, could go on forever.

With a proper backup plan, you would have multiple backups. For example, you might have a scheme such as a full backup once a month, differentials once a week, and incrementals daily. This way, even if you discover some sort of corruption, you can work your way back to the point in time before the corruption was introduced. On top of that, you would have multiple copies of the backup, at least of your really important data. Hopefully the really critical stuff is only a small part of your total data and won't need that much space.

One of my most common rants on the forums is regarding proper backups. I dealt with storage for a living for many years, so I've worked with people who lost data because of some stupid flaw in their backup schemes. Worked with one small business that lost over ten years of absolute business critical data. Worked with a major bank that literally lost tens of millions of dollars due to a data loss due to sheer stupidity.

Sometimes you can get lucky and pay big bucks to retrieve data from a data recovery service, but not always.

So, you simply need to ask yourself how important your data is.

In my opinion, if you cannot afford the cost of hardware and software to create a proper backup solution, then you have placed your priorities in the wrong places. Just my opinion

.

Haydon · Apr 22, 2022

pparks1 said:
Not going to belabor the point, but RAID is for redundancy and it's not a backup. There is even a website dedicated to explaining why

RAID is NOT a backup! · RAID is NOT a backup!

As long as you are okay with potentially losing the data, RAID alone is just fine. But it's not the same as a backup.

Well, by the same token, I could also say:

As long as you are okay with potentially losing the data, backing up corrupted files/folders/systems with Macrium Reflect is just fine.

Of course, they are not the same, they are different things with pros and cons.

Then there are other things that can be either pro or con or neither, depending on how you look at it. One example is that Storage Spaces is VERY picky wrt to the drives, a very minor defect is flagged and you throw out a near perfect drive, but you can be certain that a drive accepted by Storage Spaces is in perfect health. Another example is that Storage Spaces is VERY stubborn on holding on to its presence including its configuration on the host machine, I have in fact responded in the same vein in a parallel thread.

Frankly, I could write 10 websites on this topic

Haydon · Apr 22, 2022

hsehestedt said:
With a proper backup plan, you would have multiple backups. For example, you might have a scheme such as a full backup once a month, differentials once a week, and incrementals daily. This way, even if you discover some sort of corruption, you can work your way back to the point in time before the corruption was introduced. On top of that, you would have multiple copies of the backup, at least of your really important data. Hopefully the really critical stuff is only a small part of your total data and won't need that much space.

One of my most common rants on the forums is regarding proper backups. I dealt with storage for a living for many years, so I've worked with people who lost data because of some stupid flaw in their backup schemes. Worked with one small business that lost over ten years of absolute business critical data. Worked with a major bank that literally lost tens of millions of dollars due to a data loss due to sheer stupidity.

Sometimes you can get lucky and pay big bucks to retrieve data from a data recovery service, but not always.

So, you simply need to ask yourself how important your data is.

In my opinion, if you cannot afford the cost of hardware and software to create a proper backup solution, then you have placed your priorities in the wrong places. Just my opinion :).

Oh, don't worry about me, at present I use 4 backup tools on 3 different backup media. But if you want to play the numbers game, I could use 3 backup tools on 2 different backup media besides Storage Spaces. Perhaps that's more to your liking, not necessarily mine, though :)

Edit: I find myself defending Storage Spaces, although I have not made up my mind about it, and in fact, when I experimented with it a few years ago, I decided not to go with it at that time. Although, I will likely revisit Storage Spaces as the economics get better and better.

Perhaps, what I can say for now, is that Storage Spaces deserves better credit than what folks have posted in this thread.

badrobot · Apr 22, 2022

pparks1 said:
Not going to belabor the point, but RAID is for redundancy and it's not a backup. There is even a website dedicated to explaining why

RAID is NOT a backup! · RAID is NOT a backup!

As long as you are okay with potentially losing the data, RAID alone is just fine. But it's not the same as a backup.

It is a hardware backup method. When one drive fails, you still have the other and have the chance to rectify the issue before you lose anything. My RAID setup has been running for almost 10 years now. I replaced the drives 2 years ago when one of them is showing signs of failure. All good up to this point No data lost. Just be proactive when you see signs of problems. Don't wait for it to become a full blown problem before doing anything.
Any backup drives can fail. Even the backup of backups can fail. It is just a matter of getting on top of things.
The more frequent you make your backups, the more stress you are subjecting into your drives to cause it to fail.

pparks1 · Apr 22, 2022

badrobot said:
It is a hardware backup method. When one drive fails, you still have the other and have the chance to rectify the issue before you lose anything. My RAID setup has been running for almost 10 years now. I replaced the drives 2 years ago when one of them is showing signs of failure. All good up to this point No data lost. Just be proactive when you see signs of problems. Don't wait for it to become a full blown problem before doing anything.
Any backup drives can fail. Even the backup of backups can fail. It is just a matter of getting on top of things.
The more frequent you make your backups, the more stress you are subjecting into your drives to cause it to fail.

But lets say you have a system that gets infected with ransomeware and hijacks your files. Well, no matter which level of RAID you are running, your data would most likely need to be restored from a backup and RAID isn't going to save it

I work in enteprise IT and have for about 25 years. I just knee jerk respond when somebody mentions RAID in the same discussion with backup. They are 2 very different things.