Maybe this will help you decide victor in Acronis/Macrium debate (revisited)

cereberus · May 9, 2023

pokeefe0001 said:
Boring, yes. But I can't help but add to the boredom ... and everything I say about Acronis is 3 years out of date, but I'll proceed anyway.

First, establishing my credentials:
I was an Acronis True Image user for over 10 years - 2009 to 2020, I think - and a very satisfied user for many of those years. I participated three Beta programs - 2018, 2019, and 2020 - was very active on the True Image customer forum, and (quite inappropriately) was made a forum MVP in 2020. Being in the Beta programs and in the MVP group discussions was an eye-opener that left me with a very negative impression of the Acronis company. Here are some of those impressions:

The Acronis development created a new release every year and the release date was not moved due to any problems found in the beta testing. Major bugs were fixed or documented if found early enough but bugs that should have been show-stoppers were included in the initial releases.

Design flaws reported by the beta testers were ignored.

Customer complaints reported in the forum were ignored - Acronis developers had no presence on the forum.

Customer problems reported through their official Customer Support system were often ignored. Many forum postings described customers never getting beyond "Level 1". The level 1 tech reps were untrained and were (apparently) not allowed to deviate from whatever script they decided applied to the custom's problem.

On the other hand, there were some extremely helpful and deeply knowledgeable people on the forum that provided the support that the official Acronis team would not or could not.

One event during the 2020 beta test turned me completely against Aconis. There was some change in the product that made some long established backup techniques no longer usable. I don't remember the details, but, while not impacting most users, some user's backup schemes would simply stop working. Whatever the new scheme was, it worked perfectly well along side the old scheme. Acronis could have announced that old technique would be removed in a year. Instead, Acronis was going to remove the support for the old scheme at the end of the beta test. Beta testers that used the old scheme had a few months to adapt but general customers were going to be blind-sided. The beta testers argued loudly that this removal should should be announced but implementation should be delayed for a year.

I stopped using Acronis True Image the day the beta test ended.

Macrium behaves differently:

It produces a new release when the code has been well tested and (usually) stable.

I have not been part of a Reflect beta test, but from discussions on the forum it sounds like the developers pay attention to the testers.

Some of the developers are regular forum readers and posters. They directly interact with posters, helping them and gathering their feedback.

The Macrium support team is very knowledgeable and helpful. Problems that don't require design changes are often fixed within days.

Reflect has a very active forum with several very knowledgeable people (and the developers I mentioned above).

Both products do the job, but Macrium has a culture of caring about it's customers and proividing a quality product. I'm not sure what Acronis cares about. Money, probably.

Sigh - will the boredom ever cease? You have have just repeated all the stuff on previous posts.

hdmi · May 9, 2023

pokeefe0001 said:
Both products do the job, but Macrium has a culture of caring about it's customers and proividing a quality product. I'm not sure what Acronis cares about. Money, probably.

As boring as this may sound, I got an error message in Macrium Reflect telling me that my choice of a target folder in which I wanted to create my new image should not be located on any partition that is a part of my source selection. So it failed to do the job, boringly so, when culture and especially internet tears culture was irrelevant to the type of (also boring) job I was having in mind.

RD Mercer · May 9, 2023

pokeefe0001 said:
I'm not sure what Acronis cares about. Money, probably.

My guess is every business on the planet cares about money, was there a message here? :ROFLMAO:

hdmi · May 9, 2023

RD Mercer said:
My guess is every business on the planet cares about money, was there a message here?

jimbo45 · May 9, 2023

RD Mercer said:
My guess is every business on the planet cares about money, was there a message here?

Without money or some other incentive e.g power etc then usually there's no motivation for people to do anything. Does one imagine that even in the most communistic of states like N.Korea money doesn't play a role even if 99% of the population doesn't have any. China even in the days of Chairman Mao was always at heart at least economically if not politically hugely capitalist. Just look at Alibaba (Epic code : BABA) traded on US NASDAQ exchange -- is the chinese equivalent of Amazon and the owner is one of the wealthiest people on earth.

Capitalism might have its faults - especially these days with rapacious customer service, subscriptions everywhere, terrible regulators and terrible contracts such as energy and broadband saying increase of xxx% a year PLUS inflation, but it's still better than anything else that's been tried. A more social democratic model is IMO a lot better but to get the balance right is a huge task especially without taxing people up to the hilt-- one only has to look at the incredible division Brexit in the UK caused (and is still causing) and Donald Trump hasn't exactly united the USA either. However the solution to this lies with the politicians and their electors so that's all I can say about that - apart from the fact if you don't go out to vote even in a local election you haven't really got a ground to complain.

Anyway this isn't really the place for this stuff.

Cheers
jimbo

Bree · May 9, 2023

pokeefe0001 said:
I have not been part of a Reflect beta test, but from discussions on the forum it sounds like the developers pay attention to the testers.

I have not been part of a Reflect Beta test either, but I once had the pleasure of being one of the first to report a new obscure bug. It really was a pleasure to work with the developers and test a fix, which was then released as a patch a few days later.

Bree said:
I've just updated two different machines from Home v7.2.5107 to today's release of v7.3.5281.
On selecting eject for a USB HDD from the taskbar they both consistently crash with the BSoD error APC INDEX MISMATCH

New Macrium Reflect Updates [2] - Windows 10 Help Forums - post #1264

Bree said:
I love Macrium support, they're so fast to respond. They've just asked me to test an updated driver and it fixed the issue in my v7.3.5281. So expect an update shortly....

New Macrium Reflect Updates [2] - Windows 10 Help Forums - post #1272

RD Mercer · May 9, 2023

Since I'm by far no computer guru, I have a "hopefully" a good question. Why doesn't Microsoft incorporate a backup into their OS? I'm not talking about "restore" or anything they have had in the past, I'm talking someing along the lines of any of today's backup software. Acronis can be installed into the windows OS's this is the way I used it when I first started using it in 2009, now I use it with a flash drive on boot. I have the one version that you have the option to use the cloud with encryption, but never have used it yet. The one I'm using now is the 2015 version, not one issue "yet". And yes, it's getting boring, probably has already crossed over into the Twilight Zone, but hopefully all this will be a benefit to some new members, plenty discussion here, with everything a person could ever want or need to know about backup software.

kgarrett67 · May 9, 2023

I have subscriptions to both and find nothing wrong with either software packs. But I'm just a novice really, so who am I to debate the topic. I currently use Macrium.

hdmi · May 9, 2023

RD Mercer said:
Since I'm by far no computer guru, I have a "hopefully" a good question. Why doesn't Microsoft incorporate a backup into their OS?

For the average user:

About Windows backup and sync settings - Microsoft Support

Windows backup and sync settings sync the settings you choose across all your Windows devices that you've signed in to with your Microsoft account.

support.microsoft.com

For organizations:

Data Protection Manager

DPM overview article that explains the workloads and types of data you can protect with DPM.

learn.microsoft.com

As for merely creating an image of a whole disk or of selected partitions, the DISM (built-in command line tool) lets you do that─even though it's tedious so not really a recommended choice for the average user. I suppose they could make it more user friendly by adding an optional GUI to it and adding some extra features to make it a more viable choice of course, but then, why should they try to reinvent the wheel?

cereberus · May 9, 2023

RD Mercer said:
Since I'm by far no computer guru, I have a "hopefully" a good question. Why doesn't Microsoft incorporate a backup into their OS? I'm not talking about "restore" or anything they have had in the past, I'm talking someing along the lines of any of today's backup software. Acronis can be installed into the windows OS's this is the way I used it when I first started using it in 2009, now I use it with a flash drive on boot. I have the one version that you have the option to use the cloud with encryption, but never have used it yet. The one I'm using now is the 2015 version, not one issue "yet". And yes, it's getting boring, probably has already crossed over into the Twilight Zone, but hopefully all this will be a benefit to some new members, plenty discussion here, with everything a person could ever want or need to know about backup software.

There is one but it is unreliable. It is a deprecated feature. MS recommend 3rd party tools.

Frankly, I do not trust MS here as backups are mission critical, and I trust good quality 3rd party companies more here as their livelihood depends on it.

In general, the major imaging tool suppliers fix bugs in days or low number of weeks. MS will take 6 months to even admit there is an issue.

MisterEd · May 9, 2023

Acronis True Image had been slowly getting better until they made a big mistake by incorporating security with Active Protection. It made the program slow and bloated. They also seemed to care more about the security part than spending the time to fix problems with the backup function.

pparks1 · May 9, 2023

RD Mercer said:
Since I'm by far no computer guru, I have a "hopefully" a good question. Why doesn't Microsoft incorporate a backup into their OS?

i think that is a solid question. It's certainly one thing where I think Apple has really gotten things better. They have time machine and it's drop dead easy to setup, and it does image based backups as well as file based backups automatically. When you get a new Mac, you can restore it right from time machine and you are right back up and running..

I think the 3rd party solutions are perfectly fine, and should always be a choice if you want more bells/whistles/options., but the complete lack of something built it has always had me scratching my head. It's probably a monopoly thing, if they include it, 3rd parties go crazy that MS is impeding upon their business.

cereberus · May 9, 2023

pparks1 said:
i think that is a solid question. It's certainly one thing where I think Apple has really gotten things better. They have time machine and it's drop dead easy to setup, and it does image based backups as well as file based backups automatically. When you get a new Mac, you can restore it right from time machine and you are right back up and running..

I think the 3rd party solutions are perfectly fine, and should always be a choice if you want more bells/whistles/options., but the complete lack of something built it has always had me scratching my head. It's probably a monopoly thing, if they include it, 3rd parties go crazy that MS is impeding upon their business.

There is a backup even though it is unreliable.

pparks1 · May 9, 2023

cereberus said:
There is a backup even though it is unreliable.

View attachment 59772

But who wants to use an unreliable backup? Microsoft has had plenty of time to to make a backup that works. Apple has had this functionality forever.

cereberus · May 9, 2023

pparks1 said:
But who wants to use an unreliable backup? Microsoft has had plenty of time to to make a backup that works. Apple has had this functionality forever.

Comparing oranges and bananas.

Windows works across a huge range of hardware (and software) compared with Apple. It is easy to make a tool robust with a closed hardware/OS system.

Even if MS brought out a new tool, it would take up to 2 years (if ever) for MS to fix a bug as they do not have a proper tech support feature (feedback is not tech support).

Who would you report a bug to?
A proper tech support team issues you with a reference number and follows up the reports.

Using feedback hub to report a bug is like finding a piece of hay in a needlestack.

cereberus · May 9, 2023

To make reliable backups in Windows, you can use dism of course

Create Windows 10 ISO image from Existing Installation

How to create a Windows 10 ISO image for clean, in-place upgrade and repair install

www.tenforums.com

or use ffu

DISM - Clone and Deploy using FFU Image

How to use DISM to clone and deploy or restore a Full Flash Update image

www.tenforums.com

CornishRattler · May 9, 2023

pparks1 said:
But who wants to use an unreliable backup? Microsoft has had plenty of time to to make a backup that works. Apple has had this functionality forever.

I use macOS at home as well as Windows, believe me I would never rely on Apple Time Machine to offer a reliable back up. It’s way too limited and frequently fails.

It also cannot be likened to either Macrium or Acronis as it does not offer a complete OS back up.
I use Carbon Copy Cloner on Mac for this

cereberus · May 9, 2023

CornishRattler said:
I use macOS at home as well as Windows, believe me I would never rely on Apple Time Machine to offer a reliable back up. It’s way too limited and frequently fails.

It also cannot be likened to either Macrium or Acronis as it does not offer a complete OS back up.
I use Carbon Copy Cloner on Mac for this

Interesting - just googled it.

How to use Time Machine on Your Mac for backups [2022]

Want to know how to use Time Machine to backup your Mac and restore it? What about how to use Time Machine for new Macs? We’ll show you how to do it all.

setapp.com

The crucial paragraph is this:

"Time Machine is Apple’s method for backing your Mac up, and it’s a solid choice. It’s reliable, fairly easy to use, and can keep your Mac backed up on a routine schedule. For some users, Time Machine doesn’t cut it, because it won’t allow creating bootable backups, it’s impossible to change the backup schedule, and the backups can occupy too much space."

As far as I can tell, it is a bit like making incremental backups so you can move back or forth in time (hence name of course), but unlike most Windows tools, it does not backup the initial base installation.

What if your OS drive failed - would you need to use clean install, and then use time machine to install all backups?

Does it need to always be on?

Am I interpreting this correctly? I would really be interested in knowing how it works?

pparks1 · May 9, 2023

CornishRattler said:
I use macOS at home as well as Windows, believe me I would never rely on Apple Time Machine to offer a reliable back up. It’s way too limited and frequently fails.

It also cannot be likened to either Macrium or Acronis as it does not offer a complete OS back up.
I use Carbon Copy Cloner on Mac fo

cereberus said:
Interesting - just googled it.

How to use Time Machine on Your Mac for backups [2022]

Want to know how to use Time Machine to backup your Mac and restore it? What about how to use Time Machine for new Macs? We’ll show you how to do it all.

setapp.com

The crucial paragraph is this:

"Time Machine is Apple’s method for backing your Mac up, and it’s a solid choice. It’s reliable, fairly easy to use, and can keep your Mac backed up on a routine schedule. For some users, Time Machine doesn’t cut it, because it won’t allow creating bootable backups, it’s impossible to change the backup schedule, and the backups can occupy too much space."

As far as I can tell, it is a bit like making incremental backups so you can move back or forth in time (hence name of course), but unlike most Windows tools, it does not backup the initial base installation.

What if your OS drive failed - would you need to use clean install, and then use time machine to install all backups?

Does it need to always be on?

Am I interpreting this correctly? I would really be interested in knowing how it works?

I have a dedicated 1TB external SSD that I use for my Time Machine backups. I don't leave it connected all the time, only when I want to run a backup.
I plug in the drive, open time machine, and tell it to "Backup Up Now". It backs up everything that has changed since the last full backup.

To restore, you can just press and hold the power button (on my newer M1/M2 Mac). You will then get into the recovery setup screen, and can point at the time machine backup and restore it.

cereberus · May 9, 2023

pparks1 said:
I have a dedicated 1TB external SSD that I use for my Time Machine backups. I don't leave it connected all the time, only when I want to run a backup.
I plug in the drive, open time machine, and tell it to "Backup Up Now". It backs up everything that has changed since the last full backup.

To restore, you can just press and hold the power button (on my newer M1/M2 Mac). You will then get into the recovery setup screen, and can point at the time machine backup and restore it.

So it acts like differential backups rather than incremental backups - not very space efficient depending on how many you do?