Some coaching for a Macrium Reflect newcomer, please

Bree · Feb 13, 2023

kado897 said:
every time the recovery media is updated it wipes everything on the thumb drive.

Buddy said:
.....updating the bootable drive wiping the backups is a solid reason not to add the extra hassle of replacing the backups.

Updating the rescue media does not necessarily wipe the drive. Only if there is no existing suitable partition, or no room to make one, will the rescue media builder format the drive. For a bootable UEFI/MBR rescue usb a Fat32 partition is required, 1GB should be sufficient. It's a good way to re-use any old small usb sticks you may have to hand.

Macrium said:
Rescue Media Builder will first attempt to non-destructively copy the PE/RE files to an existing partition, then non-destructively create a new partition if necessary. If this is not possible then you will be prompt to destructively format the drive.

Creating rescue media - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

Buddy · Feb 14, 2023

OK, I installed Macrium and let it update to 8.1.7378.

Then, I started it and created restore media on a USB drive.

And now two questions:

1 - Every time Macrium starts, Windows throws up the question "do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?" I'd normally expect to see this only during an installation, not for every start of an installed program. Is this normal?
2 - File explorer now shows a drive J: removable disk. This is not my recovery drive, I've removed it. Click on it and it says "please insert media". What is this? Why is it there? Do I need it? Can or should I get rid of it? If so, how?

Bree · Feb 14, 2023

Buddy said:
every time the program starts, Windows throws up the question "do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?" I'm normally expecting to see this only during an installation, not for the start of an installed program. Is this normal?

Yes, completely normal. Any program capable of making changes to your system will see this. You'll see it when opening Regedit, for example.

Buddy · Feb 14, 2023

An update - the J: drive disappeared after a reboot. Hmm...

Am I correct in guessing that this was something Macrium created as part of the process of building the bootable USB rescue drive?

Buddy · Feb 14, 2023

Bree said:
Yes, completely normal. Any program capable of making changes to your system will see this. You'll see it when opening Regedit, for example.

Duh. I was thinking in terms of making a recovery drive or creating a backup. Of course, a restore would be making a system change. And yes, regedit throws it every time.

Bree · Feb 14, 2023

Buddy said:
An update - the J: drive disappeared after a reboot. Hmm...

Am I correct in guessing that this was something Macrium created as part of the process of building the bootable USB rescue drive?

No, not seen Macrium do that. Was the usb the J: drive while it was inserted? I have seen File Explorer not notice when a usb is just removed without using the safe eject.

Buddy · Feb 14, 2023

Bree said:
No, not seen Macrium do that. Was the usb the J: drive while it was inserted? I have seen File Explorer not notice when a usb is just removed without using the safe eject.

No, the USB was F: while it was plugged in.

Guessing this was some sort of transient petition that Macrium set up while creating the rescue. That whole "mount and unmount" business, maybe?

SIW2 · Feb 14, 2023

Guessing this was some sort of transient petition that Macrium set up while creating the rescue. That whole "mount and unmount" business, maybe?

No, the wim file is mounted to an empty folder. I have mounted wims hundreds of times.

kado897 · Feb 14, 2023

Buddy said:
No, the USB was F: while it was plugged in.

Guessing this was some sort of transient petition that Macrium set up while creating the rescue. That whole "mount and unmount" business, maybe?

Can't remember whether it was Macrium or Aomei Backupper but I have seen another drive letter used when creating a recovery drive. I think when the usb stick was completely rebuilt.

Buddy · Feb 14, 2023

OK, next step...

Does anyone have any comments about running a first, one-time, image (not clone) of the full C: drive?

Wanting to see that it proceeds successfully, how much space it takes, how long it takes before setting up a schedule for routine full and incremental runs.

Right now, everything is left on default settings. My plan is to come back later and review settings - on the assumption that no harm is done, no permanent commitment made by this first stand-alone run. Is that true?

The SSD C:\ drive has about 250 GB used. Target is a 6TB desktop HDD connected to a 10 GB/sec USB 3.2 port on the CalDigit dock, which is Thunderbolt to the PC. I'm guessing the main limitation will be the HDD cable and its write speed.

Apologies if it seems that I'm obsessing over obvious details. In the past, I'd just click and go. I've painted myself into a lot of corners doing that, so I'm grateful to have a community to ask if I'm about to screw up.

Buddy · Feb 14, 2023

TraderGary said:
Macrium Images are one of three backup strategies that I run simultaneously. I make a daily complete image of My Computer, System One listed below. I rotate the 5 most recent images directly to a 2TB Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD. It takes about ~ 18 minutes to make an image and I run the Macrium backup in the background while I do other things.

Edit: The new version 8.1 takes only ~ 6 minutes to make a complete image of my 1TB C: drive.

At the moment, I'm backing up from the SSD C: drive to a desktop HDD. My first full backup took 26 minutes. I keep thinking I should also copy the backup image to a second drive, so I'm not vulnerable to a failure of my primary backup drive. If I do that, it's an hour every time I run a full. And that doesn't get me an offsite backup. Hmmm... Things to think about.

Ghot · Feb 14, 2023

Buddy said:
At the moment, I'm backing up from the SSD C: drive to a desktop HDD. My first full backup took 26 minutes. I keep thinking I should also copy the backup image to a second drive, so I'm not vulnerable to a failure of my primary backup drive. If I do that, it's an hour every time I run a full. And that doesn't get me an offsite backup. Hmmm... Things to think about.

The trick is to arrange things so there isn't godzillabytes on the Windows drive.

For example. I have approx. 30GB each, on my Windows drive(s).
It takes me 2:30 to make a backup, and 1:30 to restore.
All my big programs are installed on the F:\ drive. And I use Karen's Replicator to copy Disk1 to Disk2.
And... I can still use Windows, while Karen's does it's thing...

Buddy · Feb 14, 2023

Meanwhile, @TraderGary images his 1TB drive daily in 6 minutes. I had already been thinking about getting a Thunderbolt enclosure and a 1TB SSD as my off-site drive. And the PC is a laptop, so all the programs and data will live on the internal drive, although I'll think through maybe partitioning it. Mainly, I hope to avoid a lot of manual processing to use Macrium. I'm already spoiled by my fully automated data backup regime using FreeFileSync and Task Scheduler.

TraderGary · Feb 14, 2023

@Buddy, of the three backup strategies that I run simultaneously, the most important for me is OneDrive. I keep all my data and photos in my OneDrive folder. I turn OFF Files On Demand. This gives me a "real-time" mirror image of my OneDrive folder with my 1TB cloud OneDrive. Very importantly, OneDrive is off-site.

The second strategy I use is Microsoft File History. I still have files and photos that were deleted years ago in my continuous File History backup.

Macrium Reflect is third. MR is my failsafe mountable drive image. I like that I can mount an image in Microsoft File Explorer and copy any files or folders I need.

kado897 · Feb 15, 2023

Buddy said:
At the moment, I'm backing up from the SSD C: drive to a desktop HDD. My first full backup took 26 minutes. I keep thinking I should also copy the backup image to a second drive, so I'm not vulnerable to a failure of my primary backup drive. If I do that, it's an hour every time I run a full. And that doesn't get me an offsite backup. Hmmm... Things to think about.

How likely is it that your C: drive and your backup drive will fail at the same time?

Buddy · Feb 15, 2023

kado897 said:
How likely is it that your C: drive and your backup drive will fail at the same time?

Realistically, not very likely. I'm picturing a major power surge, the house burns down, an earthquake, or a burglar.

Yes, Memphis is near the New Madrid fault, which has a 7+ bang every 300 years or so. The last quake, in the 1700s, rerouted the Mississippi River and rang church bells in Massachusetts. We're now at 50% chance, every day, for a quake sometime in the next 300 years. So, it's tomorrow or in 2323, and there's no way of knowing.

Back to your comment. Maybe the off site copy is more important than the second local drive, since all the risks other than drive failure apply to both local drives equally.

kado897 · Feb 15, 2023

Buddy said:
Realistically, not very likely. I'm picturing a major power surge, the house burns down, an earthquake, or a burglar.

Yes, Memphis is near the New Madrid fault, which has a 7+ bang every 300 years or so. The last quake, in the 1700s, rerouted the Mississippi River and rang church bells in Massachusetts. We're now at 50% chance, every day, for a quake sometime in the next 300 years. So, it's tomorrow or in 2323, and there's no way of knowing.

Back to your comment. Maybe the off site copy is more important than the second local drive, since all the risks other than drive failure apply to both local drives equally.

I think you may be right.

Buddy · Feb 15, 2023

@TraderGary I see how OneDrive is central to your regimen, especially since you have 3 computers that need to stay in synch. And viewing OneDrive (or in my case, Google Drive) as the offsite option probably eliminates the need for physical offsite media, along with the logistical hassles of keeping it updated. That's balanced by the need for internet access (low risk), the ongoing expense of a large cloud space (at least 1TB for me) and the lower speed (higher difficulty too?) to restore a full system, not just selected files, from a cloud-based Macrium image.

Buddy · Feb 15, 2023

OK, some simple questions:
1-When a full image is due to be deleted because it has reached the end of its retention, are its incrementals deleted with it?
2-It looks like creating a definition also schedules the job, correct?
3-I see the Macrium manual comments about Windows Task Scheduler messing up the Daylight Savings changeover. Is it correct to assume that using the Macrium internal scheduler remains the better choice?
4-I set up the email notification for success/warning/fail, using my Gmail. I had searched the User Manual PDF for "notification" and gave up after only finding multiple mentions of email notifications, so I figured that's how they do it. Then, duh. I look in the notifications in the system tray and there's a notification of the successful full test image I did earlier. Is the Gmail notification a bad idea, or just extraneous? Do you prefer it or the system tray?