Would you recommend Macrium Reflect v6?

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Eggnog, Apr 9, 2015.

  1. Eggnog

    Eggnog Registered Member

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    I've used Acronis True Image in the past but it gets buggy once in a while and I want to look elsewhere. I'm not necessarily looking for a freebie solution. I've looked a bit at AOMEI and EASEUS and they seem okay. But I've seen here and there where people seem to prefer Macrium for, most importantly, reliability. I'll mostly be backing up two desktops and two laptops periodically on a home network drive. What say the good folks at Wilders about Macrium Reflect v6?
     
  2. Mortal Raptor

    Mortal Raptor Banned

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    I used to be an Acronis True Image user for many years until the introduction of GPT disks.......there comes the headache......I had to purchase an addon for Acronis to support GPT disks......fine......I did......... I was able to backup my GPT disk since on Windows 8 it is advisable to initiate the partition as GPT as it takes less time to initialize during boot in UEFI mode. The problem is, I was never successful in restoring an image, it would always fail with an error. So just because you can backup doesn't mean you can successfully restore.

    Since then, I switched to Macrium Reflect Pro (now called Home) and have never been happier.

    Macrium Feflect Home supports MBR, GPT, and even RAID partitions. The beauty of it is, after you install it, click on Other tasks, then select Add Recovery Boot Menu Option, then choose Win PE 5, that way Reflect adds itself as a boot option so if you wanna restore an image, you don't even need to insert the rescue CD, the computer will reboot into the MAcrium Recovery environment and start the restore within a couple of months.

    The speed is amazing it takes me 1 minute to backup my OS partition and 1 minute to restore.

    Their support is also great and they reply within a few hours of posting a concern.
     
  3. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    I've also moved from Acronis TI to Macrium Reflect and never looked back. So far, I've had no problems using it. Restores, that I have had to do, were all problem-free. Daily backups are done automatically and I also didn't have a problem so far. Once I will move to Windows 10, I will upgrade my v.5 to v.6.
     
  4. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    I'd like to make the switch but it's hard to spend $100+ for 2 licenses (4 licenses but I only need 2) of Macrium when the Acronis 3 user license is $45.
     
  5. Eggnog

    Eggnog Registered Member

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  6. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    I have been using Acronis as my main imaging app (as a boot usb), and never had any problems in both backup and restore. For me it's 100% reliability. It's also the fastest and with best compression algorithm.
    There is a reason why Seagate and WD both choose Acronis to be their OEM imaging solutions.
     
  7. pvsurfer

    pvsurfer Registered Member

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    I too use ATI only from the boot disk without any problems, but I do not recommend installing ATI. I found the installed version to be bloated and problematic, so I removed it and continue to use ATI's boot disk, as well as Drive Snapshot (portable).

    pv
     
  8. zapjb

    zapjb Registered Member

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    USA still the best. But barely.
    EaseUS Todo BAS 4.5 ftw!
     
  9. allizomeniz

    allizomeniz Registered Member

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    I've only used Macrium and never had a need to try anything else. Has always worked perfectly.
     
  10. Eggnog

    Eggnog Registered Member

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    The coupon code for Macrium v6 I referenced above at retailmenot does, indeed, work. It really did save me 20% and it's good until the end of April. It doesn't work for upgrades, though, only new purchases.
     
  11. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    To answer the title question: Absolutely!!
     
  12. 142395

    142395 Guest

    I haven't experienced any trouble by both of AOMEI and Macrium v5 (still wondering if I should upgrade to v6 with special discount...).

    Only one thing I found AOMEI have but apparently Macrium don't have (correct me if I'm wrong) is, AOMEI allow you to make individual comment on each differential or incremental backups, while Macrium seems to only allow comments on full backup, at least when you use it from boot CD. But I'm impressed how it's easy to make WinPE boot CD on Macrium. On Paragon or AOMEI, making WinPE boot CD requires you to install Windows AIK, it's a bit inconvenient tho I did and I also can choose Linux boot media. On Macrium, it's almost one or two clicks...
     
  13. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Yuki

    Even if you have a scheduled backup, like hourly running you can take a manual increment and put comments on it. Just a couple of extra clicks. I also have AOMEI, but time differences are huge.

    For me both full take about 15 minutes. Incremental with AOMEI is 15 minutes, Macriim V6 1 minute.

    Restores AOMEI is about 25 minutes, and with Macrium V6 less then a minute, or at worst 17 minutes.
     
  14. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Yuki, using Macrium while in the LIVE version of Windows, you may comment any and all types of backups (FULL, DIFF & INC). The Macrium Recovery Media is not full featured and as such only allows you to do a FULL image, if necessary (possible copy of damaged system to recover files from at a later time). The Recovery Media's strengths are in its ability to RESTORE images, especially using the new HIGH SPEED Rapid Data Restore (RDR) feature. If the same file system exists when doing a RDR operation, RDR only restores the DIFFERENCES between the file system on disk and the one included in the image you're restoring to. This is a very fast operation compared to restoring the baseline followed by all relevant incrementals/differentials.

    This operation is very similar to the AX64 Time Machine's WARM restore feature, although it's done a totally different way... and this one works very well :D
     
  15. 142395

    142395 Guest

    Good to know Macrium allow individual comment. I only use Macrium from recovery media (I'm very stingy about disk space), but I can make differencial and incremental, only individual comment is my problem.
    Yeah, that v6 feature is very promising! So theoretically it should shorten my time to restore, even for my USB2.0 connetion, right?
     
  16. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    As long as the reference file system is in tact (no benefit for a complete restore to a new disk) you should see a large difference. That RDR feature DEFAULT = ON but you can turn it off if you want to do a FULL COLD restore from the Recovery Media.
     
  17. 142395

    142395 Guest

    That's good. Thanks for explanation!
     
  18. andylau

    andylau Registered Member

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    Acronis' boot media(I use it in WinPE) is better than its installation version
    I think most of Acronis' users have this feeling:D
     
  19. Baldrick

    Baldrick Registered Member

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    Would recommend Macrium v6...have now moved over to the paid version, from AX64 Time Machine, and so far have not looked back.

    The schema setup is perhaps a little confusing at first but I suspect that id down to terminology & the plethora of options that one has but have gotten through that (with the help of the good people at Wilders...especially taotoo :thumb:) and so far I have had no problems using it. Incrementals are, for me, fast...with restores of incremental taking about 3 times the time for the snap itself...as a rough rule of thumb...so 1 min for snapshot/3 mins for restore.

    The very nice thing is that it is very much fire and forget once you have the schema just right...daily backups are done automatically.

    Very nice piece of kit...that can only get better. I will keep an eye out for where AX Time Machine goes as I might still use it on my other systems if they can get their act together and develop it's true potential...but main system is Macrium Reflect v6 protected. :thumb: :)

    Regards, Baldrick
     
  20. Mortal Raptor

    Mortal Raptor Banned

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    one thing to keep in mind remember this

    1) Install Macrium Reflect Home FTW

    2) Launch it

    3) Click on other actions / add recovery boot menu option

    4) once it's done, do not create your first image yet,

    5) right click on Computer / Properties / Advanced / Startup and Recovery

    6) Click Settings

    7) Uncheck "Time to display operating systems"

    if you don't do that, then everytime you start your computer, before Windows loads, you will get a choice of 2, either boot into Windows or the Macrium Reflect Recovery Partition. What we want is just to have that startup entry added so if you wanna restore you can esaily restore but not have it popup each time we start the computer, that's why we had to uncheck that option
     
  21. MerleOne

    MerleOne Registered Member

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    Just a question : if you uncheck this option, how do you get access again to the boot option ?
     
  22. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Check it! :) But when you do, it'll set the BOOT window timer back to 30-sec so you'll have to adjust that.
     
  23. Mortal Raptor

    Mortal Raptor Banned

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    when you hit restore on an image you created, you don't need to do anything, the system will restart and automatically go into the Macrium Reflect recovery environment
     
  24. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I don't know, I kinda like having the boot option there. I actually use it for a couple of things. 1) when I want to run chkdsk, I use it. Run chkdsk from with in macrium and when it runs it stops. 2nd thing is I boot into the macrium restore environment and use the windows explorer to run Drive Snapshot if I want to restore that.

    So it has it uses.
     
  25. Baldrick

    Baldrick Registered Member

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    Thanks but no thanks...quite happy to have that option screen appear on each boot (have reduced the display time to 5 seconds) and in terms of my overall boot times under Win7 it adds very little overhead when compared to having the convenience of the choice. And personally I would recommend that users keep the option as is.

    Regards, Baldrick
     
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