Solved Should I start thinking about other than Macrium

I have been using Macrium Reflect for years and have paid for the upgrade to v8.
Fortunately, I have never had to use it in anger.
However, I thought I would look at alternatives and decided to install EaseUS Todo Backup.
Compared to MR EaseUs has a far better user interface and you get lifetime support.
MR only offers 12 months support.
The technical support provided by EaseUS is excellent - usually within a few hours.
For anyone interested, I have written my own personalised User Guide - see attached file.
Because i have written this for my personal use, parts of it would require modifying to suite somebody else's situation.

geoffL said:

I have been using Macrium Reflect for years and have paid for the upgrade to v8.
Fortunately, I have never had to use it in anger.
However, I thought I would look at alternatives and decided to install EaseUS Todo Backup.
Compared to MR EaseUs has a far better user interface and you get lifetime support.
MR only offers 12 months support.
The technical support provided by EaseUS is excellent - usually within a few hours.
For anyone interested, I have written my own personalised User Guide - see attached file.
Because i have written this for my personal use, parts of it would require modifying to suite somebody else's situation.

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Easeus is fine within its basic limitations but it is slower and does not offer half the features in Macrium Reflect.

The free version does not even offer differential backups.

Frankly Easus Todo has long been surpassed by other tools.

Its one saving grace is it is reliable on all my tests.

When it comes to paid versions, no contest with Macrium Reflect offering so much more.

geoffL said:

Cereberbus: Thank you for your response. I accept what you say but could you enlighten me by briefly explaining what features Macrium Refliect offers that EaseUS Todo does not .

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All you have to do is go to their website to do a comparison (It's our Business to protect your data).
Here's some new features for version 8 of Macrium Reflect.

What’s New​

Instant Virtualization for everyone
Oracle VirtualBox provides an alternative to Microsoft Hyper-V for instant image virtualization.

Automatic partition resizing
Ideal for when target disks are a different size to the original source.

Removable flash media and exFAT support
Backup SD cards and flash memory sticks

Improved UI
High DPI and dark mode support, plus new restore and file-and-folder backup interface.

Windows ReFS support
Increase data availability, improve scalability, all while maintaining data integrity against corruption.

Intra daily backups
Schedule high frequency backups to protect rapidly changing data

Badger: Thank you for the information

geoffL said:

Badger: Thank you for the information

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Also paid version has Rapid Delta Restore (RDR) and extra security for images. RDR is awesome i.e. if you restore an image over existing image, it restores the changes only rather than the whole lot. This can be very fast.

Free version offers differential backups which Free version of Todo does not do.

All versions can create a boot entry so that most of time you do not even need to use a rescue drive (unless hard drive has failed or corrupted).

It has some other neat features like fix boot problems.

Actually gui has improved with V8 but for newbs, it is not that intuitive but it does not take long to get past basics. Lots of exoerience here. @Kari did a survey a few years ago and over 66% use Macrium Reflect.

Not only that, its support is superb, and if a serious bug is found, it is usually fixed in less than a week (sometimes next day or two). Support is only available for paid users but if you go on their forum (read only if free), you can often find answes to to issues. The support service is free for 1st year with option to renew. Most domestic users do not bother renewing it

I any case, the support forum (separate from support service) is always free and paid users can ask questions there. It is like this forum and users reply. I have only used the main support service once ever. The forum usually generates a solution from other like minded users. You often get an answer from Macrium Reflect employees who often participate in forum.

To me the benefits of Reflect make it worth the effort to learn how to use it properly rather than use it as just a basic tool.

I will never use any other tool for image backups.
It has never let me down.

Cererberus: Many thanks for your comprehensive reply.
I do have paid-for MR v8 (as well as EaseUs Todo Home)..
Through lack of knowledge, I am only using MR as a basic backup and restore app (much the same as EaseUS Todo.).
As a novice, I find the documentation and user interface of EaseUS easier to understand than MR.
Following your helpful comments, I will further investigate MR.

geoffL said:

Cererberus: Many thanks for your comprehensive reply.
I do have paid-for MR v8 (as well as EaseUs Todo Home)..
Through lack of knowledge, I am only using MR as a basic backup and restore app (much the same as EaseUS Todo.).
As a novice, I find the documentation and user interface of EaseUS easier to understand than MR.
Following your helpful comments, I will further investigate MR.

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As you have the paid version, you will find the investment in learning how to use Reflect well worth it.
There are some excellent tutorials on Reflect in tutorial session. Users here are only too happy to help you graduate from a novice to an expert :).

geoffL said:

I have been using Macrium Reflect for years and have paid for the upgrade to v8.
Fortunately, I have never had to use it in anger.
However, I thought I would look at alternatives and decided to install EaseUS Todo Backup.
Compared to MR EaseUs has a far better user interface and you get lifetime support.
MR only offers 12 months support.
The technical support provided by EaseUS is excellent - usually within a few hours.
For anyone interested, I have written my own personalised User Guide - see attached file.
Because i have written this for my personal use, parts of it would require modifying to suite somebody else's situation.

Click to expand...

I have and use the paid versions of Macrium Reflect and EaseUS Todo Backup. When I do my weekly backups I use both programs and alternate the USB drives I make the backups on.

Winuser: It's nice to here from somebody else that uses both MR and EaseUS. At the moment, I backup both to the same external drive. If I find that this becomes full to quickly then I will use two drives (as you do).

geoffL said:

Winuser: It's nice to here from somebody else that uses both MR and EaseUS. At the moment, I backup both to the same external drive. If I find that this becomes full to quickly then I will use two drives (as you do).

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Frankly, I cannot really see the point as Reflect is so reliable, and using two tools just wastes space.

You can TRULY test the backup image by mounting it as a virtual machine using ViBoot if you are concerned about reliability if Reflect Image.

However, when it comes to image backups, paranoia is a healthy state of mind, of course.

cereberus said:

Frankly, I cannot really see the point as Reflect is so reliable, and using two tools just wastes space.

You can TRULY test the backup image by mounting it as a virtual machine using ViBoot if you are concerned about reliability if Reflect Image.

However, when it comes to image backups, paranoia is a healthy state of mind, of course.

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Seeing that all my devices are running the Dev builds I feel safer using two different programs and alternating the drives that the images are saved on.

"However, when it comes to image backups, paranoia is a healthy state of mind, of course." @cereberus
Allow me to modify your otherwise excellent comment:
"However, when it comes to image backups, duplication is a healthy state of mind, of course."
Let me partially quote myself from another place: "I have been using both Macrium Reflect and Image For Windows for backups and restores. Though rare, one might not make a backup or do a restore, the other one makes a backup or does a restore just fine -- for any particular session."