Solved Should I start thinking about other than Macrium

AOMEI: Free, both backup and clone. Without problem.

Bree said:

Unless you've gone out of your way to turn off Rapid Delta Restore, then you're using it without realising. RDR is on by default. But don't worry, its (literally) a 'life saver' for SSDs, by only restoring the differences between the image and what's on the partition it's reducing those NAND writes that wear out SSDs.


View attachment 3088

Click to expand...

SSD wear outs is an "Old wives" tale now from the distant past and ist generation hardware. Most SSD's will probably outlast any consumer grade spinner . Besides modern laptops tend now to be fitted with NVME type disks rather than "classical SSD's" which is why you can pick up 250 / 512 GB classical type SSD's for almost peanuts these days. Even a 128 GB one (probably good for just the OS so you can separate OS from data and other things probably can be had for under 28 USD/EUR these days.

Cheers
jimbo

Badger said:

Just as I suspected. Thank you for verifying it!

Click to expand...

I can also verify that all is back to normal again now.

jimbo45 said:

SSD wear outs is an "Old wives" tale now from the distant past and ist generation hardware...

Click to expand...

No, they still wear out. Smarter and better wear levelling in the latest generations means it takes longer - is all. Manufacturers still specify the endurance of their SSDs as the total terabytes that can be written over it's lifetime (TBW) before errors will be seen, and the guarantee (where offered) is proportionate to that.

Also, the higher the number of bits held in each cell the lower its projected life will be. 2, 3 and 4 bit MLC are commonplace now, Samsung, for example, use 2-bit MLC in their top end Pro ranges, 3-bit MLC in the EVO range and 4-bilt MLC in their QVO. The TBW for a QVO is half that of the same size EVO, which in turn is half that of the same size from the Pro range. The QVO comes with a 3 year guarantee while the EVO and above come with 5 years.

So, given the choice between writing a few hundred MB to my Samsung EVO 860 500GB with its TBW of 300, or writing the entire half a terabyte I know which I'd choose

Some interesting reading here....

Bree said:

I can also verify that all is back to normal again now.

View attachment 3181

Click to expand...

Yes, I tried earlier today and now works. Thanks for confirming things.

iskenderc said:

AOMEI: Free, both backup and clone. Without problem.

Click to expand...

Tried it earlier in the week for the first time and was unable to create either the Linux or Windows bootable rescue USB. After it successfully reported it had created each successfully neither would boot. I then checked out Macrium and had no such problem whatsoever!

Tried it also, not much of a fan either.

I've also been using Clonezilla versions on a bootable USB drive for years and it is also free. Not at all fancy looking but gets the job done reliably!

Zardoc said:

Tried it also, not much of a fan either.

Click to expand...

AOMEI Backupper immediately didn't instill confidence in me when their util couldn't even create a bootable rescue USB drive. No thanks, I'll pass!

Bree said:

Unless you've gone out of your way to turn off Rapid Delta Restore, then you're using it without realising. RDR is on by default. But don't worry, its (literally) a 'life saver' for SSDs, by only restoring the differences between the image and what's on the partition it's reducing those NAND writes that wear out SSDs.

Click to expand...

I have gone out of my way (it is not that difficult). I had some issues on a restore once when I used it, but I am uncertain whether it was the result of the rapid delta restore. If you are restoring an image because you think you have some corruption, then you should not have it enabled (RDR does not do a sector by sector comparison). As others have said, it takes so little time to restore a full image and it is likely safer for the reason I mentioned.

I have done hundreds of full image restores to my 512 GB nvme SSD, which has 60TB of host writes and I have only used 3% of the erase cycles. I will die before it dies (unless it fails for some other reason). It is 4 years old, so should last 130 years at that rate. Not a life saver really.

I always try out new versions of MR and invariably end up buying them. I think it's a superb and for me essential app.

dacrone said:

AOMEI Backupper is nearly identical to Macrium Reflect in regards to functionality and the Home version is always free. Aside from cloning my PC once a week, I just use xcopy scripts via task scheduler for intra-week differentials... if all you need is files/folders backups...

Click to expand...

Not really enamored of Aomei, generally--several years ago one of their partitioning management programs lost a partition--it simply vanished and I had to rebuild it manually, and that was it for me and Aomei... I've given them a pass ever since. MiniTool Partition Wizard (v12.5) seems to me a much better program of that kind. Cannot complain about MR, though. As good as backups get, imo.

DooGie said:

I always try out new versions of MR and invariably end up buying them. I think it's a superb and for me essential app.

Click to expand...

If I needed the modes that paid-for MR provides that the free versions don't, I wouldn't hesitate buying it--solid program--very nice when you forget to do a system restore right before you decide to do some hair-brained thing or other... It has happened to me, oh yes it has...!

People are right when they maintain that you need never pay heed to the so-called "endurance" figures all NVMe's publish today in terms of TB's written....they are so right, because in all cases you will either expire before your drive fails or else you will simply replace it before it no longer operates due to write wear, imo. Lots of people get suckered by 30-year endurance estimates they hypothesize from their own use cases... Important things with an NVMe drive for me are performance, price, and warranty, and not necessarily in that order. But "endurance estimates" based on estimated TBs written?--that should never be a purchase factor. So here I have an NVMe drive that promises me to never wear out prior to having written ~30 years of TBs--at my rate of writing them--but, gee, it's only warranted for five years? What happened to the other 25 years? That's my take anyway, and right now I must be very bored...

Hi folks

marking this as solved - MF IMO is still the best whether or not you use all its features or not. I went off Acronis years ago, don't like AOMEI and nothing else comes close for quick system imaging. For cloning there's always the venerible DD if other things fail and for DATA (rather than OS) backup I use rsync (or with its GUI - GRSYNC) to back stuff up to NAS and then NAS->external.

I'm still minded about whether Cloud storage needs backup or not -- presumably the cloud servers do all that stuff. The only danger is that if Internet is down you can't get to your data - but IMO if you need "everyday" and frequent access to that data it's not really suitable for the Cloud unless you are using the Cloud itself as a backup.

Cheers
jimbo

Cloud anything = Oh Hell NOPE! for me. I want my stuff on MY computer/external drive, not someone else's. Someone who could go out of business and vanish at any moment or simply get hacked or whatever. Nope! Not to mention it requires internet, which could also fail at any moment. That and --puts on tinfoil hat-- I am convinced all cloud services data mine and/or sell access to that sh#% to the highest bidder.

Quexos said:

Cloud anything = Oh Hell NOPE! for me. I want my stuff on MY computer/external drive, not someone else's. Someone who could go out of business and vanish at any moment or simply get hacked or whatever. Nope! Not to mention it requires internet, which could also fail at any moment. That and --puts on tinfoil hat-- I am convinced all cloud services data mine and/or sell access to that sh#% to the highest bidder.

Click to expand...

I personally don't trust the Cloud stuff and would always opt for local backups everytime.

It is a good practice to keep at least one copy of your important, irreplaceable data off-site somewhere. Not necessarily the cloud. I used to keep a copy (disks) at work. There are some good cloud choices, but somewhat pricey (like Amazon S3 Glacier).

Clouds are for rain, not data.

Well, it invariably rains on every other highway around the world, so why not the Information Superhighway?

I use Mini tool partition wizard version 10 for cloning the hdd. Before upgrading W10 to W11, I did it, but used a spare Seagate 2 1/2 laptop drive which proved rather slow compared to an SSD. The MTPW version 10 is available on line and is preferable to later versions which have had some of their functionality removed. I must get round to partitioning my C drive which uses the full capacity of the 500Gb so that cloning using a smaller spare SSD is easier.