Slow Backups On Windows 11 Macrium Reflect 8 Home Edition

Hello All

Backing up today to secondary Seagate 8TB drive in USB 3.2 Gen 1 Enclosure from Vantech, always some reason it decided to use File System cache, First drive (Storage drive) took 3 hours, including verifying

Now for Game SSD saying 2 Hours

Am i backing up wrong, should i only be doing the Storage drive with the Important data files, and M.2 Boot SSD and not worry on the Game SSD as those are redownloadable anyways upon clean install.

Did scan system over night or any infections with Defender and Malwarebytes Premium, started Storage drive backup at 8:30am, finished around 10am something lol

Should i just backup 1 time to the Seagate drive 8TB drive, and instead use Western Digital Mybook as Main backup drive? and just store the Seagate off site, and update that one every other week?

Hopefully it would be a bit quicker with the Western digital my book, but will see i guess in a bit here

Any ideas or suggestions

bikemanI7 said:

Hello All

Backing up today to secondary Seagate 8TB drive in USB 3.2 Gen 1 Enclosure from Vantech, always some reason it decided to use File System cache, First drive (Storage drive) took 3 hours, including verifying

Now for Game SSD saying 2 Hours

Am i backing up wrong, should i only be doing the Storage drive with the Important data files, and M.2 Boot SSD and not worry on the Game SSD as those are redownloadable anyways upon clean install.

Did scan system over night or any infections with Defender and Malwarebytes Premium, started Storage drive backup at 8:30am, finished around 10am something lol

Should i just backup 1 time to the Seagate drive 8TB drive, and instead use Western Digital Mybook as Main backup drive? and just store the Seagate off site, and update that one every other week?

Hopefully it would be a bit quicker with the Western digital my book, but will see i guess in a bit here

Any ideas or suggestions

Click to expand...

We cannot adequately advise without knowing how much data, how your pc is setup - post an image from disk management showing all drives including external drives.

Also Reflect Settings should be set to "Intelligent Sector Copying" with recommended medium compression.

Will get that asap here the picture of Disk Management, and Will check Reflect setting as well

Checking Macrium Reflect settings to make sure on intelligent sector copy--Is on Intelligent Sector Copy, Compression Medium

**Only New Thing added to system at Christmas was Pluggable USB A 3.0 2.5gig usb ethernet adapter in the rear, taking up 1 of the 4 rear usb 3.0 ports, using the 1 free port for external drive. I can uninstall this device if needed and resume using built in ethernet lan port, and just forget accessing full Comcast 1gig internet overprovisioned bandwidth**

Last Clean install on Windows 11 system was September 2022, when i had Bluetooth error i couldn't solve at the time no matter what i did

All drives heathly i think

bikemanI7 said:

Will get that asap here the picture of Disk Management, and Will check Reflect setting as well

Checking Macrium Reflect settings to make sure on intelligent sector copy--Is on Intelligent Sector Copy, Compression Medium

Click to expand...

OK, you are only using 100 GB on C drive. That should take around 30 mins or so. However, if you have select "copy full partition" that would take ages as it would copy all 465 GB and that would take 5 times as long.

So check settings , and then next thing I would try is imaging disk 2 to an internal drive and see how long that takes.

There could be something wrong with usb speeds - e.g. a driver issue and you are only getting usb 2 speeds.

cereberus said:

OK, you are only using 100 GB on C drive. That should take around 30 mins or so. However, if you have select "copy full partition" that would take ages as it would copy all 465 GB and that would take 5 times as long.

So check settings , and then next thing I would try is imaging disk 2 to an internal drive and see how long that takes.

There could be something wrong with usb speeds - e.g. a driver issue and you are only getting usb 2 speeds.

Click to expand...

Ok Will check settings, and go from there...

i did test before posting this backing up with the Macirum Reflect recovery usb, and unforuately was still slow with this Seagate drive in it's external enclosure. I haven't done the first backup yet on the newer WD My Book drive, as wanted to update the Seagate drive this week lol.

So if it was still slow i think in Windows PE version of Macrium USB Recovery disc, don't believe a Windows issue itself possibly lol. I did order a newer enclosure for the Seagate drive at Christmas with my one gift card--i'll see i guess if any improvements once drive put into that enclosure

Upgraded to Windows 11 over a year ago as i'm the type that upgrade or clean install to a new OS immediately soon as released

Check the device Policies in Device Manager while you have that drive attached. Make sure the write cache is enabled. If not, it will run very slowly. Then in Macrium do a write test using the option at the top under the Backup Tab to have the app set the most efficient method.

f14tomcat said:

Check the device Policies in Device Manager while you have that drive attached. Make sure the write cache is enabled. If not, it will run very slowly. Then in Macrium do a write test using the option at the top under the Backup Tab to have the app set the most efficient method.

Click to expand...

Ok Write Cache Enabled for the Seagate External drive, System restarted, Macrium write test completed and here is the results (phone taken with Samsung Galaxy S22 Phone)

Actually, 484 mb/s is not a bad speed for that drive arrangement in the enclosure. Direct I/O is common for external drives. Was the cache enabled before, or did you just do it? Since you restarted, I'll assume you just did it. Just curious.

Go ahead and do a backup with 484 and direct i/o.

f14tomcat said:

Actually, 484 mb/s is not a bad speed for that drive arrangement in the enclosure. Direct I/O is common for external drives. Was the cache enabled before, or did you just do it? Just curious.

Go ahead and do a backup with 484 and direct i/o.

Click to expand...

Just Enabled the Cache for that drive, as before it was not enabled, and will do backup with this setting---It started out at 484 mb/s, then kept going down til it was at like 190mb/s or lower, cancelled it for now.

Unforuately i don't have all day to wait to get to other tasks on this Desktop, will retry it later on. Game SSD was drive i was trying to finish that time. M.2 Finished in about an hour on previous setting, and Storage drive took 3 Hours

Does it Make a Difference on Desktop Machine i do have Core Isolation turned on/Memory Integrity setting in Windows Defender


Laptop that setting is not on, but for Desktop i was like yeah i'll increase security since system supports it, but if it makes a difference, i can follow the steps to disable that, and see if any performance improvements with the backups, and other tasks

Core isolation and other security settings should have no measurable effect on the backup throughput.

Oh ok, well back to drawing board lol, will eject drive for now if Windows stops saying its in use lol--Though always does with this external enclosure for some reason-- and try again later on i suppose, or try with Western Digital My Book, and Forget this Seagate drive for now

Well still kinda slow with the newer Western Digital MY Book 8TB drive, directly connected to the 1 available rear usb 3.0 port. Transfer rate 355 Mb/s, 59 minutes remaining, Full image Game Ssd, (last drive to do for today)

Guess best I'm gonna have, and will just to live with how system performs. Unless one of these days I take time to do clean install of Windows 11 Pro x64, just not sure when as yet though.

Though on this system was slow on Windows 10 as well, so not gonna downgrade to 10 Pro, as once I upgrade or clean install I stay on newer Os

You might consider backing up to a faster drive. I'm doing a complete Macrium Reflect image of my terabyte C: drive backing up 350 GB of actual data to a portable Samsung T7 Shield 2TB SSD drive.

Click to expand...

typical backup time with my current drives is anywhere 2-3 Hours, Though sometimes it goes a little faster, and C Drive finishes in 30 minutes or less--but that is rare

Game SSD
and Storage Drive--Usually 3-4 Hours most times i do backups with either the Newer Western Digital my book or Seagate 8TB drive in it's external enclosure

Gonna have to look into getting a External SSD in the future, do i need a huge one--like 8TB or just like 1TB-2TB, right now i try to backup each system to the current 8TB Drives, unless it's better i get seperate drives for each system, and see if it works better

I just scrolled back to see what you're backing up. Good Grief! You're backing up some huge drives! I'm only backing up my 1TB C: drive and that's it.

Am i backing up too much lol? my C Drive is only 500GB, Game SSD 1TB and 4TB Storage Drive

Suppose i can change my backup strategy if need be
But Guess why takes forever, originally the 4TB Internal WD Black Drive was gonna be the external backup drive in Enclosure,

But plans changed in January 2019 when i won the Seagate 8TB in the Twitter CES Contest at the time---So Removed my WD Black 1TB Internal from Desktop, and installed 4TB Internally, and made the 8TB Seagate External. Perhaps i should've left the WD Black 1TB Internal, and still made the 4TB External

(Then maybe i'd store less stuff Internally lol)

((WD Black 1TB internal stored in Anti Static bag that 4TB came in currently, used with Hard Drive Dock to Store another copy of music folder on at times)

Maybe these days i got too many drives as well lol

Internal Main Desktop
500GB Samsung 970 Evo Plus NvMe
Samsung 860 Evo 1TB Game SSD
and 4TB WD Black Storage--(Purchased Christmas 2019)


Externals Currently
Western Digital My Book 8TB--Purchased Christmas 2022
Seagate 8TB-Won in Twitter Contest--January 2019
Western Digital My Passort Red 2TB
Western Digital My Passport Blue 2TB
Toshiba 2TB (Occasionally used in Hard drive Dock)
WD Black 1TB used in Hard drive dock at least once a month--(Purchased Christmas 2018)

I can replace anything but my photos and data.
My backup strategy is to run 3 separate backups concurrently.
1. Microsoft OneDrive (data only and importantly is off-site and real-time)
2. Microsoft File History (data only including changes and deletions)
3. Macrium Reflect (daily complete drive C: images)

Yeah my Photos i know i can't replace, and other data like Purchased Music Folder /free Albums i got years ago when i had a Windows Phone, and grabbed the 30 days of Free Music Albums at the time from Microsoft Store when i had Windows 8 ((that is stored on OneDrive, and 3 Offline copies on Externals

C Imaged usually 1st of the Month, then again before Patch Tuesday Updates, and sometimes End of the Month
*Along with the Game SSD (guess i don't really need to Image that drive, as i can redownload those easily*

Storage Drive--is mostly very little Document files, a Few Pictures, Game Save Data in E:\Users Folder, but thats about it, same Game DVR'd videos of some games, so i can rewatch later on and go back and do better in the games, Some of those saved to Onedrive if spectular crash happened in one the games lol, or something i wanna keep


Game & Few Other Photos Stored on OneDrive some of them, and some are stored on other Externals

Documents very little done with most days, but important ones on WD My Passport usually

One of the things I like about Macrium Reflect is you can click on "Hide" and go about doing other things while the backup happens.