Poll on Backup software

antspants said:

I’ll be taking a look at another recommendation by hsehestedt tomorrow

Another Disk Imaging Software to Consider

There is another disk imaging program that I used some years ago by the name of "Acive@ Disk Image". https://www.disk-image.com It is very straight-forward to use, has a nice, clean interface, but I had to give up on it years ago when I started to use BitLocker because of its complete lack of...

www.elevenforum.com

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Hi,
Can't imagine why
You can't restore system images on the free version making it pretty much useless
Disk genius sounds better but then again it doesn't have bitlocker support on free version either only the 100.us version so it's back to older reflect free.

@antspants, when I read situations like yours, I'm more pleased with my backup strategy. Because I cannot lose even a minute of my trading logs and my photography, my requirements are to use 3 (three) concurrent and separate backup technologies, one of which MUST be continuous real-time and MUST be offsite.

My backup strategy:
1. Microsoft OneDrive
2. Microsoft File History
3. Macrium Reflect Images

TraderGary said:

@antspants, when I read situations like yours, I'm more pleased with my backup strategy. Because I cannot lose even a minute of my trading logs and my photography, my requirements are to use 3 (three) concurrent and separate backup technologies, one of which MUST be continuous real-time and MUST be offsite.

My backup strategy:
1. Microsoft OneDrive
2. Microsoft File History
3. Macrium Reflect Images

Click to expand...

But who would of thought, uninstalling a backup software would of removed backups from 3 independent drives?
AOMEI is new to me, it was an experiment to find a 2nd backup process.
I am back on my PC with an image as mentioned from Backup and restore.
Personal files are unaffected, I have contingencies and systems for those.

At the end of the day, all it means to me is that I have to try a different backup offering for a 2nd imaging system

ThrashZone said:

Hi,
Can't imagine why
You can't restore system images on the free version making it pretty much useless

Click to expand...

I don't do free trials that are half offerings. I'll buy it and if I don't like it I'll delete it.

ThrashZone said:

older reflect free.

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I've never read so many confused posts or issues for a backup software ever before. I don't have time for any of that.

I switched from Macrium Free to Aomei Family Lifetime for the 3 Win11 Clients.

Same as Macrium a user friendly Backup tool.

To be honest, I'm a bit trepidatious about complicated backup software...,
incremental, differential, coincidental, sentimental...,
high compression, low compression, mid compression, no compression..., (I think there's a lyric in there somewhere!!!)

Feck sakes, I just want to backup C and restore C..., that's all I want to do, really!

I only use EaseUS cuz I got it free about 100 years ago!

IMO there is a reason why 62% of the folks that bothered to respond to this survey indicated that they use MR and it’s not because they haven’t tried other options or are dumb. I have personally used several other similar backup/imaging sw options over the years and have found MR to be fast, reliable, easy to use, and a good fit for my requirements. Doesn’t mean it’s the best for everyone but it clearly seems better than most but of course YMMV.

I just downloaded and tested Macium (Home Trail), Aomei (Free), and EaseUS (Free) on my virtual machine, and made a system backup,

Backup time:
Macium 7:04
Aomei 6:35
and EaseUS 6:18 (winner)

Image size:
Macium 16.5 GB
Aomei 15.8 GB (winner)
EaseUS 19.1 GB

Then I made another incremental backup,

Backup time:
Macium 1:42
Aomei 3:02
EaseUS 1:09 (winner)

Image size:
Macium 2.09 GB
Aomei 200 MB (winner)
EaseUS 214 MB

Although I have not verified the reliability of the restore, there are already many doubts.

1. Macrium currently does not have a free version anymore, and even the trial version requires registering an account, strictly verifying the email address, and entering the verification code during installation before it can be used. The other two can be downloaded and used for free.

2. The interface of Macrium is really unfriendly, which made me confused several times during operation. The other two did not.

3. Macium's backup speed is not fast, and the incremental backup file is 10 times larger than the other two, which I think is completely unacceptable.

Why do so many people vote for Macium? Is there something wrong with my testing method, or has macrium changed so much in the last 2 year?

Photographer_K said:

1. Macrium currently does not have a free version anymore,

Click to expand...

I believe there is still the free prior version, v7 available on Major Geeks

antspants said:

I believe there is still the free prior version, v7 available on Major Geeks

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My version is 8.1 from macrium.com

Photographer_K said:

My version is 8.1 from macrium.com

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Maybe so. But you said there isn’t a free version anymore. Which isn’t apparently factual. I also hear the difference between the editions is negligible. You’ve spent the money, you should utilise it. Can never have too many backups! Choice is good, variation even better.

antspants said:

Maybe so. But you said there isn’t a free version anymore. Which isn’t apparently factual. I also hear the difference between the editions is negligible. You’ve spent the money, you should utilise it. Can never have too many backups! Choice is good, variation even better.

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Well, my description is not very rigorous. But the official version no longer provides a free version.

antspants said:

I know what I wont be using again, as I discovered today, I really dislike AOMEI Backup Software.

I uninstalled it last month for whatever reason, and because I never visit the drives that I create my AOMEI images on, I failed to notice that uninstalling AOMEI actually removed the images it created. I can’t work it out. I have no other explanation as to how they would all be gone off 3 separate 500GB SSD’s

It was just lucky I had a backup and restore (Win 7) image from the same date (I record the dates on file) of which I have just re-loaded.

I’ll be taking a look at another recommendation by hsehestedt tomorrow

Another Disk Imaging Software to Consider

There is another disk imaging program that I used some years ago by the name of "Acive@ Disk Image". https://www.disk-image.com It is very straight-forward to use, has a nice, clean interface, but I had to give up on it years ago when I started to use BitLocker because of its complete lack of...

www.elevenforum.com

Click to expand...

There is a possibility that while you deleting the task, you manually checked the box “also delete the backup file”.

Photographer_K said:

There is a possibility that while you deleting the task, you manually checked the box “also delete the backup file”.

Click to expand...

Possibly.

Photographer_K said:

There is a possibility that while you deleting the task, you manually checked the box “also delete the backup file”.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. I may reinstall, create an image and see what I wasn’t paying attention to. Cheers.

Photographer_K said:

I just downloaded and tested Macium (Home Trail), Aomei (Free), and EaseUS (Free) on my virtual machine, and made a system backup,

Backup time:
Macium 7:04
Aomei 6:35
and EaseUS 6:18 (winner)

Image size:
Macium 16.5 GB
Aomei 15.8 GB (winner)
EaseUS 19.1 GB

Then I made another incremental backup,

Backup time:
Macium 1:42
Aomei 3:02
EaseUS 1:09 (winner)

Image size:
Macium 2.09 GB
Aomei 200 MB (winner)
EaseUS 214 MB

Although I have not verified the reliability of the restore, there are already many doubts.

1. Macrium currently does not have a free version anymore, and even the trial version requires registering an account, strictly verifying the email address, and entering the verification code during installation before it can be used. The other two can be downloaded and used for free.

2. The interface of Macrium is really unfriendly, which made me confused several times during operation. The other two did not.

3. Macium's backup speed is not fast, and the incremental backup file is 10 times larger than the other two, which I think is completely unacceptable.

Why do so many people vote for Macium? Is there something wrong with my testing method, or has macrium changed so much in the last 2 year?

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This is good. There are a few things to consider though.


1. Image backup compression method if any
2. Each VM has to start exactly from same point in time with no internet to avoid any updates.
3. Each backup software size has to be taken into account, since it backs up itself if installed on system.
4. Each test should be ran multiple times to get a more impartial number.
5. There are multiple ways of backing up drives, these differences has to be taken into account
6. Is exact filesystem information retained?
7. Each backup should be restored multiple times from both full backup and incremental backup to get impartial metrics

Edwin said:

Feck sakes, I just want to backup C and restore C..., that's all I want to do, really!

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So, what you'd really want, what you really really want (As the Spice Girls would say) is something like this.



Darn it, I missed off the S

Photographer_K said:

1. Macrium currently does not have a free version anymore, and even the trial version requires registering an account, strictly verifying the email address, and entering the verification code during installation before it can be used. The other two can be downloaded and used for free.

Click to expand...

Macrium have removed all links from their website that pointed to Reflect Free v8.0. However it's still on their download server if you know the right url to download it. See the 'Downloads' section at the bottom of post #1 here:

thecaretaker said:

So, what you'd really want, what you really really want (As the Spice Girls would say) is something like this.

View attachment 91115

Darn it, I missed off the S

Click to expand...

Photographer_K said:

I just downloaded and tested Macium (Home Trail), Aomei (Free), and EaseUS (Free) on my virtual machine, and made a system backup,

Backup time:
Macium 7:04
Aomei 6:35
and EaseUS 6:18 (winner)

Image size:
Macium 16.5 GB
Aomei 15.8 GB (winner)
EaseUS 19.1 GB

Then I made another incremental backup,

Backup time:
Macium 1:42
Aomei 3:02
EaseUS 1:09 (winner)

Image size:
Macium 2.09 GB
Aomei 200 MB (winner)
EaseUS 214 MB

Although I have not verified the reliability of the restore, there are already many doubts.

1. Macrium currently does not have a free version anymore, and even the trial version requires registering an account, strictly verifying the email address, and entering the verification code during installation before it can be used. The other two can be downloaded and used for free.

2. The interface of Macrium is really unfriendly, which made me confused several times during operation. The other two did not.

3. Macium's backup speed is not fast, and the incremental backup file is 10 times larger than the other two, which I think is completely unacceptable.

Why do so many people vote for Macium? Is there something wrong with my testing method, or has macrium changed so much in the last 2 year?

Click to expand...

Hmm these tests do not match my general results.

Speed wise I always found Easeus to be slower (tested 2024 version a few days ago).

I do not understand why incremental should be so big on MRH [whilst others are so small (too small - I wonder if they are right).

Where Macrium Reflect Home blitzes compared with others is on restore with its Rapid Delta Restore (Free version of Hasleo has this).

Regarding gui, it is true the Reflect gui is perhaps less user friendly to beginners but I assure you it is far more flexible allowing to to change partition orders and sizes.

The main reason people used Macrium Reflect is its high reliability plus bugs are fixed very quickly (we even have had some fixed over major holiday periods).

None of the other tools offer such excellent customer support. Ok free users were not entitled to customer support but I have never saw a case where the paid version had a bug fixed without the free version also being fixed.

TBH most bugs are not directly related to backup and restore. The core part of the package is very reliable.

So it may not be the fastest, easiest (for beginners) to use but it has a great track record of reliability and customer support second to none.

None of the other tools have proper customer support anyway. Obviously, as tools are free, one can hardly expect anything else.

Only Acronis (paid) has proper support (but many including me found it to be poor often not fixing bugs until you bought next version).

Hasleo has quite an active user forum, and developers actively participate.

In the end, you have to look at the whole package not just a couple of random benchmarks. That is why Macrium Reflect is a firm favourite of this forum.

Regrettably, with advent of the free version no longer being supported, some users may take the view to change which tool they use.

If your only requirement (like @Edwin LOL but I am not sure he is not joking a wee bit) is to do full backups of C drive only and full restores, then any of a number of tools is adequate.

However, the MOST important point is to select a reliable tool.

To this end, I reiterate what I have said many times:

Do not put all your eggs in one basket and use a secondary back up tool now and then in case something glitches with your primary backup tool.

I use MRH twice a week at least and Hasleo maybe every two weeks for C drive (and hidden partitions), accepting in worst case I may have to do some updates or reinstall a program or two.

My data is stored elsewhere and backed up different tools.