Macrium Reflect

Awesome!

 

Awesome...indeedy doody...can hardly wait to give this most excellent development a spin.

 

That's not always the case at all. Many pre-packaged USB3 HDDs (single units) use low-end HDDs (5900rpm or slower) in their manufacture. If you carefully spec these devices, you can find more speedy 7200rpm HDDs included in the device. I use SATAIII > USB3 docks exclusively for all my external System connections (and <1> old portable 1tB USB-powered device for interSystem work) and they are very quick when using very quick devices in them. Using standard modern Seagate Barracuda devices in them, they match internal SATA speeds at about 180mB/s... more than speedy enough for an HDD-like solution (not SSD).

 

The "internal disk" solution (keep the images in an internal disk) is not a general solution at all. The vast majority of people use computers that can´t have several internal disks.

External USB disks can be reasonably fast, even if normal 7200 rpm disks are used. I can create a full system image in 4-5 min., although not using Macrium, which is slow in these operations.

And the new USB 3.1 Gen. 2 interface will increase the speed.

 

In addition to Froggie's and Robin A's comments above, while I can understand that people want a "speedy" backup capability, that issue ranks far below confidence in the reliability and stability of a backup and recovery utility's primary functionality on my own list of priorities, especially since its major operations can be scheduled during idle times.

I've already seen far too many sacrifices of sound design concepts and production management principles to be anxious for more hastily conceived and superficially attractive add-on gimmicks for "marketeering" reasons. My own choice of any product or methodology, whether it's a backup and recovery utility or a method for protecting my system against malware/ransomware, is made on the basis of best results for its primary intended purpose.

IMO, Macrium should be focussed on meeting their existing commitments, including (among many others) their promises to update the download agent for both v6 and v7 to use the PE v10.1703 base in their rescue media "wizard" so that more than a single partition can be created and used on USB drives, for example. But, of course, marketing and "product differentiation", no matter how incidental its alleged contribution to primary functionality, must take precedence over any wishes and useful suggestions that originate with users themselves.

 

I have to agree with Richard in his above statement at the 100% level. The PRIMARY function of Macrium Reflect is to backup and restore your Systems at the most reliable level possible, the stated goal of that product since its inception. Although I have always felt that the product achieved that goal (to the best of its ability) with the release and maturation of v6, that has not been the case with v7 (and Windows 10). There has been and continues to be issues with that release, as well as important, promised additions that have yet to appear. The CONTINUOUS INCREMENTALS (along with CBT) feature has always been a feature craved by Server Admins... an easy to use feature to allow them small slices of time to be able to return their Systems to in the case of disaster... this group is a large part of Macrium's customer base. We have not seen this yet. The update of PE10, mentioned by @Arvy above, is another... and there are still Windows Task Scheduler issues with missing tasks as well as duplicate tasks, most likely due to Windows 10 and its "crafty" new features, Windows Task Scheduler v2 and startup options. These all need to be fixed before RansomeWare protection is offered... what good are protected backup images if you can't generate them properly in the first place.

Sure, there are many of you who don't have any immediate issues with your use of v7... and to those, RansomeWare protection for your images is a neat additional feature. But that doesn't solve Macrium's bruised image from the v7 release... bruises are healed by fixing all the issues causing the bruises to begin with.

I like this company a lot, but they have taken a beating since late February 2017 and they, themselves, are feeling a different kind of bruising caused by user feedback associated with the v7 release and continued maturation process. That bruising has caused them to be a bit sensitive at the moment. The solution is exactly the same for both the Company's image bruising and the Development team's bruises... concentrate on and FIX the outstanding issues. If so, the pain disappears and now new and exciting features may be added to the product... making everybody, users as well as Developers feel really good about what they've acquired.

 

You sure got that right. I can certainly understand and even sympathize with that sensitivity in large measure, but not to the extent that it excuses their apparently ignoring inputs and direct questions from long-time users like yourself, much less outright selective censorship of such inputs and questions. Mr Sills is certainly doing no favors for himself or for the Macrium team with that kind of "leadership" and I'd be willing to bet that questioning some of his recent judgment calls isn't confined to us users alone.

 

WOW, Thank You ALL:

However, IF I did get a SATA to USB 3 Enclosure with a great 7200 RPM SATA III HDD, and ONLY used it for full Images, then what backs that up? I mean, this never seems to end. I see this ISDONIX...iDD-U3108-SV...but did someone here say that MR will not write a full image to a USB 3 drive or is it just that MR will not Image a USB drive?

 

Great. This looks great as well and even has a FAN. Sabrent EC-DFFN

 

I wonder if the new "Controlled Folder Access" Windows 10 feature announced for the Fall Update this year will work well enough to make all this type of software unneeded for the general user. ... And perhaps indicate a waste of resources on Macrium's part adding this capability to Reflect (or creating a standalone product) to protect their own backup files. It'll be interesting to see how this progresses. Whatever the case, I'm happy software developers are seeing the need and rising to fill the hole.

I think I've posted before, but I started running Win10 as a regular user (instead of admin) and backup to a local disk to a folder with only write rights (hehe) for SYSTEM and ADMIN users. I also copy my Reflect backup files to an external drive every so often for disconnected and off site storage.

 

Yeah? Makes me wonder what percentage of MR users aren't on a MS OS that will receive the "Controlled Folder Access" feature. Since I believe they're still supporting WinXP it must be a relatively high percentage. Good point.

 

So that's what it's called. My mistake. I'm definitely going to try that on Windows File History, which seems more convenient than Reflect for non-image backups (and I'd rather not setup all over again).

 

I have a an scheduled incremental backup which is set to run a full backup weekly (on Sunday) every 2 weeks, and incrementals otherwise - but it runs the full backup weekly.

Is this a bug or have I got my settings wrong?

 

You should have two schedules in your backup definition file. The first should be a full and specify to run "weekly" every 2 weeks on Sunday. The second should be an incremental and specify to run "weekly" every 1 weeks on Sunday AT THE SAME EXACT TIME as the full. The full would trump the incremental every other week thus running alternating full and incrementals every Sunday.

 

Thanks @Gorkster. I should have been clearer. Yes, I do have it like you describe, except the incremental is daily at exactly the same time. I am just surprised that the full runs weekly, even though I had set it to every 2 weeks, hence my question.

 

What are your retention rules set at, and are they set to be performed before or after the backup? If there isn't a full to append an incremental to a full will be created.

 

See attached.

Full - keep 2 backups
Incremental - keep 30 days

The full ran last night, and task scheduler shows it will run again next Sunday, instead of in a fortnight.

I could try and delete this .xml, anfd recreate it, but if it's a bug I would get the same result. I was just wondering if anyone else had ecountered this.

 

@paulderdash - it's not an XML issue, its a scheduling issue. Don't delete and re-make the XML, just delete the FULL schedule item from the existing DEF, save it, then edit once more to re-create the FULL item. See what happens. This may be a Windows 10 WTS v2 issue with Reflect v7... see what happens.

 

...and he followed up earlier today with the following statement...

"Macrium Image Guardian will be a feature of v7 and not available of as a standalone installation. It will only be available in the paid editions of Reflect 7. Image Guardian protects by preventing unauthorised access to all Macrium Reflect backup files."

 

@paulderdash - also take a look at the Windows Task Scheduler entries, not just what the Reflect UI shows you... you just may have some leftover scheduled item that needs to be removed from the scheduler.

 

Could that free space threshold caveat be causing any problems? I mean, could existing fulls be being erased because of it? I only look at possible options beyond a software bug because Reflect schedules are running fine for me with a somewhat similar schedule setup.

 

Thanks Froggie, I am still on V6 though. But I will do as you suggest.