Poll on Backup software

cereberus · Sep 23, 2024

pokeefe0001 said:
Maybe it's time for a new poll.

Feel free to set one up.

namitutonka · Sep 23, 2024

blued said:
My favorite back in the day was Symantec Ghost, DOS on a floppy.

A Ghost user myself, back in the day.

namitutonka · Sep 23, 2024

Bree said:
You only are forced to do that if you selected 'Commercial Use' on this screen:

View attachment 109304

For Personal Use you get a similar optional 'register' screen as you described earlier. Although it's ticked by default you can un-tick 'Register this installation...'. For commercial use that option is missing.

View attachment 109296 View attachment 109297

You would have seen a Trial notification saying how many days left on starting Reflect if that was the case. Also, you can check the install type at any time by selecting About from the Help menu. A trial would say 'Licensed To: Trial User'.

View attachment 109305

Thanks @Bree Yay! Macrium Reflect Free 8.0.7783 registered. Such an excellent product.

I would think that the folks at Paramount Software/Macrium Reflect, would hopefully let most of us casual home users (along with new users) continue to use version 8. I guess for busy businesses or home users who hit the big time, Reflect X is a real time saver. Which isn't real important to a home user.
On their homesite they say, "Reflect X creates a system image in just 1 minute and 29 seconds, a groundbreaking improvement over Reflect 8's time of 8 minutes and 10 seconds." And, "if a backup is interrupted, it can be seamlessly resumed without data loss or having to start over." I'm sure those folks either have staff or hear from someone who is familiar with this long ongoing thread. They've seen their appreciation in this thread's polls, but more meaningfully in our posts.

I hope they continue to let every home user download and use version 8 gratis. Let us ride the coattails of ReflectX.

namitutonka · Oct 11, 2024

Got successful Macrium v8.0.7783 backups of my separate NVMe dual-boot Manjaro/Win11 system. Used "Incrementals Forever" template first with deleting the Shcedule(Mon,Tue,Tuur...9:00AM...), then with keeping the default schedule. NowI'll be getting incrementals forever. Does that mean I need to stay with my keyboard to stay alive? There have been at least two maybe three times when Manjaro failed to boot and I needed to reinstall it. I don't know if there is some interruption or stuttering at boot where BIOS hands off control, but Win11 has reported incorrect times (see HERE) that may interfere with Macrium Reflect's scheduling runtimes, being that my PC is turned off unless I'm using it. The bright side is Macrium is working.

CountMike · Oct 16, 2024

Looking over and trying Hasleo Backup suite. free.

Hasleo provides Windows Backup & Clone, Data Recovery, Windows To Go Creator, and more.

Hasleo Software provides Windows Backup & Clone, Data Recovery, Windows To Go Creator, BitLocker solution and other software to help you enrich your digital life.

www.hasleo.com

Not as polished, versatile or fast as MR but has everything needed for all kinds of backups. Good enough for a free program.

Fabler2 · Oct 16, 2024

CountMike said:
Looking over and trying Hasleo Backup suite. free.

Hasleo provides Windows Backup & Clone, Data Recovery, Windows To Go Creator, and more.

Hasleo Software provides Windows Backup & Clone, Data Recovery, Windows To Go Creator, BitLocker solution and other software to help you enrich your digital life.

www.hasleo.com

Not as polished, versatile or fast as MR but has everything needed for all kinds of backups. Good enough for a free program.

My sentiments exactly.

Jacee · Oct 16, 2024

Using Hasleo, as well!

cereberus · Oct 17, 2024

CountMike said:
Looking over and trying Hasleo Backup suite. free.

Hasleo provides Windows Backup & Clone, Data Recovery, Windows To Go Creator, and more.

Hasleo Software provides Windows Backup & Clone, Data Recovery, Windows To Go Creator, BitLocker solution and other software to help you enrich your digital life.

www.hasleo.com

Not as polished, versatile or fast as MR but has everything needed for all kinds of backups. Good enough for a free program.

Sure it is fine as a basic tool, but none of the free tools have the Macrium Reflect (included in free version as well) partition drag and drop slickness which I use a lot to reorder and resize partitions.

In the end, its like driving a Ford versus a Roller. They both get you from A to B but a Roller does it in style.

CountMike · Oct 17, 2024

cereberus said:
Sure it is fine as a basic tool, but none of the free tools have the Macrium Reflect (included in free version as well) partition drag and drop slickness which I use a lot to reorder and resize partitions.

In the end, its like driving a Ford versus a Roller. They both get you from A to B but a Roller does it in style.

My needs for backup are simple, Just OS disk once a day. The rest (2-5 folders) is backed up manually by copying to another disk.

KevTech · Oct 17, 2024

cereberus said:
Macrium Reflect (included in free version as well) partition drag and drop slickness which I use a lot to reorder and resize partitions.

R-Drive Image has now added this in version 7.
You mouse over a partition then hold down left mouse button and you can drag it to whatever partition you want to.

A new, completely redesigned wizard interface with improved graphical controls, drag and drop object manipulations, and visual source and target binding.

cereberus · Oct 17, 2024

KevTech said:
R-Drive Image has now added this in version 7.
You mouse over a partition then hold down left mouse button and you can drag it to whatever partition you want to.

I just downloaded the trial version to a clean install of the Release Preview Ring and made a backup at a fastest speed and it gave a file size of 13 GB, and it took 38 seconds (when setting it to high performance). I did the same backup with Macrium Reflect VX, and it created a 14 GB backup in 22 seconds. AOMEI took 1 min 15 secs for 14 GB backup.

So first impressions are that it is pretty nippy but still almost twice as slow as MR VX. I am not sure I would personally pay £45 for it - even Reflect V8.1 only took 27 seconds (and I have perpetual licences for those paid years ago).

However, if you do not have any Macrium Reflect paid version, it could be a reasonable purchase - I would need to do more tests to see how it pans out on restores, incrementals etc.

I guess my main reticence is having confidence in it as it is not as well known as AOMEI, Hasleo, Easeus, Veeam all of which have basic free versions.

KevTech · Oct 17, 2024

cereberus said:
So first impressions are that it is pretty nippy but still almost twice as slow as MR VX.

I was not pointing at speed but rather just pointing out other software that now have the same features as Macrium.
I was using R-Drive Image but am now using Terabyte IFW which I am liking more than I ever did Macrium 8 Home.
Will not be getting X as I do not do subs.
I trialed X but nah other software just as good without the paying every year crap.

cereberus said:
I guess my main reticence is having confidence in it as it is not as well known as AOMEI, Hasleo, Easeus, Veeam all of which have basic free versions.

I tested R-Drive Image 7.3 and it's still my go-to Windows backup program

With added support for S3/S3-compatible online storage services, R-Drive Image is gaining features with a vengeance, however, reliability in the new features isn't what we're used to.

www.pcworld.com

cereberus · Oct 17, 2024

KevTech said:
I was not pointing at speed but rather just pointing out other software that now have the same features as Macrium.
I was using R-Drive Image but am now using Terabyte IFW which I am liking more than I ever did Macrium 8 Home.
Will not be getting X as I do not do subs.
I trialed X but nah other software just as good without the paying every year crap.

I tested R-Drive Image 7.3 and it's still my go-to Windows backup program

With added support for S3/S3-compatible online storage services, R-Drive Image is gaining features with a vengeance, however, reliability in the new features isn't what we're used to.

www.pcworld.com

Sure. Actually, I think I prefer R-Drive over Terabyte but in the end we are really preaching to the converted.

It does not really matter which tool one uses, so long as one uses a tool.

Of course, virtually none of my friends/family/colleagues have any idea about even doing simple backups let alone image backups. That is the real challenge!

antspants · Oct 17, 2024

cereberus said:
Of course, virtually none of my friends/family/colleagues have no idea about even doing simple backups let alone image backups. That is the real challenge!

Amen

OnesieBackup · Oct 26, 2024

My picks for FREE backups (I tried many):

Veeam Agent
Hasleo (if you are ok with a company located in China)
Macrium 8 FREE (still gets the job done just fine)

Paying a one-time fee once in a while, on your own schedule, to support a company is fine, but no reason for an expensive subscription when there are so many other free alternatives.
Macrium may be faster than the rest, but does it really matter when you schedule backups at 2am?

namitutonka · Oct 27, 2024

For me, Macrium Reflect doesn't work as it should. I sucessfully created an Incrementals Forever task which did create a full backup AND the schedule does run at the specified time, when the PC is running in the early morning. It always fails.

MAYBE, this is the problem:
I don't keep my PC on except when using it. When I boot it during the latter part of the day or evening and manually run Macrium Reflect, after the program starts, it always takes several minutes "Analyzing Disk1 Partition 1". Perhaps this delay is too long for whenever the Macrium Reflect 'Incrementals Forever' task starts.

At least I have a couple of good Macrium v8.0.7783 full backups. Also, Macrium successfully cloned my C: drive. I tested the cloned drive and it boots and works exaclty as its 'parent' drive. For incremental backups I'm using MiniTool ShadowMaker Pro Ultimate 4.5.0 (Validity:Lifetime). The "lifetime" part beats Macrium Reflect X's subscription model.

namitutonka said:
Got successful Macrium v8.0.7783 backups of my separate NVMe dual-boot Manjaro/Win11 system. Used "Incrementals Forever" template first with deleting the Shcedule(Mon,Tue,Tuur...9:00AM...), then with keeping the default schedule. NowI'll be getting incrementals forever. Does that mean I need to stay with my keyboard to stay alive? There have been at least two maybe three times when Manjaro failed to boot and I needed to reinstall it. I don't know if there is some interruption or stuttering at boot where BIOS hands off control, but Win11 has reported incorrect times (see HERE) that may interfere with Macrium Reflect's scheduling runtimes, being that my PC is turned off unless I'm using it. The bright side is Macrium is working.

namitutonka · Oct 27, 2024

OnesieBackup said:
My picks for FREE backups (I tried many):

Veeam Agent

Hasleo (if you are ok with a company located in China)

Macrium 8 FREE (still gets the job done just fine)

Paying a one-time fee once in a while, on your own schedule, to support a company is fine, but no reason for an expensive subscription when there are so many other free alternatives.
Macrium may be faster than the rest, but does it really matter when you schedule backups at 2am?

Do you leave your PC on all night whenever you want your Macrium schedule to run? Or is there some way for Macrium to boot up the PC in the similar way Macrium has the option to shutoff the PC when a backup is finished.

Oh wait, I see in Macrium's setting (Reflect Default Settings; Schedule Settings): A checkbox to "Use the Windows SYSTEM account to run scheduled tasks". Is this how you do the 2AM backup?

OnesieBackup · Oct 27, 2024

I never turn off my computers, laptops included. I let them do their backups and things at night.
But if I did, I'd schedule during the day or whenever I think it's most likely to be on.
In Veeam I think I saw an option to run the backup when the computer starts if it missed a scheduled backup.
I'm sure there are also apps that could help you turn it on/off at certain times at night, but not sure it's worth the complication.

cereberus · Oct 27, 2024

OnesieBackup said:
My picks for FREE backups (I tried many):

Veeam Agent

Hasleo (if you are ok with a company located in China)

Macrium 8 FREE (still gets the job done just fine)

Paying a one-time fee once in a while, on your own schedule, to support a company is fine, but no reason for an expensive subscription when there are so many other free alternatives.
Macrium may be faster than the rest, but does it really matter when you schedule backups at 2am?

I never schedule backups at 2AM. I leave my devices off to minimise risk of hackers accessing pc.

The funny thing about all these posts listing alternatives - they simply do not state their limitations compared with Macrium Reflect VX.

Reflect VX is as Tina used to sing "Simply the best, better than all the rest".

That is clear fact based on the overall flexibility of the tool.

Some of the others have some of the features, but not one has all Reflect's features - end of story.

PS - I use all the features.

OnesieBackup · Oct 27, 2024

Yeah it really depends what features you care about and use. All I want is full + incrementals. Don't care too much about a backup taking 5 min. vs 10 min. or a restore taking 2 min. vs 8 min. (as per Macrium X latest video) -- restoring is a very rare event

so it doesn't really matter.
Reliability matters of course, it goes without saying.

Poll on Backup software

Which imaging program do you use for backups?

Macrium

EaseUS todo

Aomei

Windows 7 system imaging in Windows 10 or 11

Acronis

Ashampoo

Paragon

Cloud based

Other (please post to explain)

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