Macrium Reflect

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Stigg, Nov 23, 2013.

  1. jimb949

    jimb949 Registered Member

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    Thanks JP for your help.
     
  2. V3nuo

    V3nuo Registered Member

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    MiniTool ShadowMaker should be an alternative to this, it has updated to version 2.0.
    Home Page.
     
  3. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Fraid not, at least when I last tested it
     
  4. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    As a FREE tool it somewhat compares... it allows for Incremental and File'n'Folder imaging which REFLECT does not, but it does not allow for Disk imaging (non-System disk) which REFLECT does.

    As a PAID version, it misses the same feature that many other imagers do ('cept IFW)... it does not provide for any DELTA (difference) restorations, an important feature allowing REFLECT to produce very speedy restores.

    Otherwise it looks to be an adequate backup/restoration tool of which there are many in the field at the moment. Of course this opinion is based purely on what I read concerning the feature set.
     
  5. V3nuo

    V3nuo Registered Member

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    When did you last time review this? The latest version is available now. You may see if it works anyway.
     
  6. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Here is a simple test for you. If you have it installed build the recovery CD. But if it still just uses the disk serial number, than it's still a total failure. Note also until you test a restore you haven't really tested it.
     
  7. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Never heard of MiniTool ShadowMaker, but the fact that the product page claims "The 2018 Best Backup & Restore Software" without identifying who gave it that designation immediately raises my suspicions.
     
  8. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Last edited: May 17, 2018
  9. bjm_

    bjm_ Registered Member

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    any idea?
    2842.png
    Macrium Free 7.1.3196 -- W10 Home 1703
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2018
  10. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    That's a SOURCE disk error on your C: volume... it may be going bad. I would try a Chkdsk on that volume with the /f and /r switches, it will take a while as the /r will try and repair that error. If it doesn't work, I would image the entire disk after setting the following option...

    Reflect defaults/Backup/Advanced/Advanced backup options/Ignore bad sectors when creating images

    That should at least get you all the data (including any bad sectors) which is a lot better than no DATA at all.
     
  11. bjm_

    bjm_ Registered Member

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    1) ran chkdsk with /f and /r switches (.5 hour)
    1a) differential
    2843.png
    2) ran chkdsk /r (3.5 hours)
    2a) differential completed successfully
    2b) full completed successfully

    "C: volume... it may be going bad" > #6406.
    Thanks
     
    Last edited: May 18, 2018
  12. jolt2

    jolt2 Registered Member

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    Question about checking a cloned disk files. Is there a way to check the files on the cloned disk to know that the files are the same as the source disk? I used Macrium Pro ver 5.3 to clone a 3TB drive to a new 4TB drive with the verify option. All went well with no problems. I then did a checksum on the files on both disks. A few of the files have matching checksum's but most do not. Is there a better way to check the clone disk to make sure all the files are good and match the source disk? Why would the checksum of the files different?

    Thanks for any help with this.
     
  13. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    I don't have Reflect 5.3 around anymore, but looking at the clone options in the current release, the only "verify" option for cloning is to verify the file system on the source before proceeding with the clone. There's no option to verify all data written to the destination against the original source. I'm also not clear what you mean by having done a "checksum" on the files. A "checksum" is extra data added to a file that can be used to detect errors elsewhere in that file. Do you mean you ran a hash comparison of the same files on each disk? If so, what tool and hash algorithm are you using? And what specific files are you comparing? If you cloned an OS disk and sample certain Windows files at random, for example, then the mere act of booting a Windows OS will cause several files to be updated.
     
  14. jolt2

    jolt2 Registered Member

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    To compare the files on the two storage drives, no operating system, I used a program called Duplicate File Detective by Key Metric Software. The program can compare files by name, size, and hashing them. I tried hash types of SHA256 and MD5 with the same results of only about 5Gb of data matching out of about 2.5Tb of data. I thought that hashing the files would by a way of checking that the files were true duplicates or clones of each other. That is why I asked if there was a better way to make sure the files match. Why would this not work? What good is cloning a drive if you can not verify the drive contents?
     
  15. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    I haven't been able to reproduce the behavior you're reporting. When I clone a partition, the source and destination files hash the same way. Admittedly I didn't test 2.5 TB worth of data or use that specific application, but neither of those factors should matter. As for not being able to verify after a clone, I'm not sure what to tell you. Reflect doesn't offer a "source data compare" verification on image backups either. The verification option it does offer simply verifies the integrity of the generated backup; it does NOT compare the written data against the original source, as some people seem to assume, nor does it verify all of the parent backups that would be required to actually restore something. Whether a source data compare verification would be worthwhile if offered and whether the current verification mechanism offers any value are both larger discussions, both of which have actually been had in the Macrium forums relatively recently. I personally wouldn't use a source data verify even if it were available because I don't verify any other file copy operations and I'm not getting rampant corruption there. As for the current "integrity check" verification routine, I don't use that either because a successful verification at the time of the backup is absolutely no guarantee that the file will still be intact when you want to restore it. The ONLY case I've seen suggested where I grant that the current verification routine can add value would be in alerting you to the onset of some issue with your drive or cable that has started causing data to be written incorrectly. But in my own case, I use a disk rotation and Incrementals Forever with Synthetic Fulls. The former means that I'm less likely to lose my backups even if I develop a hardware fault somewhere, and the latter means that my Full backup is constantly being accessed, which means that if some sort of file system or hardware-level issue has arisen that could render the Full corrupt/unreadable, there's a good chance that I'll be alerted to it when my consolidations start failing. That actually happened to someone in the Macrium forums a while ago. If they had been using a traditional GFS strategy where the Full remained static, they might never have learned that their Full and therefore all of its child backups were unusable until they tried to restore something.

    I do understand the intuitive urge to verify backups because they represent having all of your eggs in one basket, and therefore the impact of corruption in one of your backups would be much greater than corruption in some other random file, but fundamentally, either your destination can write data correctly or it can't. If it can, then verification is unnecessary. And if it can't, then you shouldn't be using that destination. But a disk rotation is certainly good to have for a variety of reasons.
     
  16. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I never bother with imaging verify's I've had images that verified that would restore. If I want to verify a restore, i use a PDF file that contains a video with in it. Then I mount the image and see if I can open the pdf and play the video. If that succeeds I've never had that image fail to restore.
     
  17. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    Hi guys.

    I had to replace a failing 256GB system SSD.
    I was able to clone it to a new and bigger 512GB SSD using Reflect. It completed successfully.

    The only problem was that there was a lot of unallocated space left, and the unallocated space was non-adjacent to my new drive.
    So, I had to use a third party partitioning tool to rectify it.

    Now, my question is: Could Reflect had done this all in one step without me requiring to do it in two steps using a third party partitioning tool?
     
  18. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    Last edited: May 23, 2018
  19. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Hadron,

    How were the partitions arranged on the SSDs pre and post clone?
     
  20. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    @aldist There is no option to use all disk space when cloning with Reflect, as far as I know. I am happy to be corrected.
    @Brian K I really don't know how the partitions were arranged prior to cloning.

    I was getting some corrupt sustem files, for no apparent reason, and had to do a chkdsk C:/r from time to time.
    Then not long later, Hard Disk Sentinel warned me to change my hard drive as failure was imminent.
    I also double checked using CrystalDiskInfo, and it was reporting "BAD".

    But I would have thought that Reflect, as good as it is, should be able to fill non-adjacent space without requiring another application. Windows Disk Management, of course cannot do it.
     
  21. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Hadron, how were they arranged on the new SSD immediately after the clone procedure?
     
  22. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    There was a recovery partition to the right.
    It's pretty common to see this in Windows 10.
     
  23. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Hadron, sorry, but I still have no idea what you mean by "the unallocated space was non-adjacent to my new drive."

    Macrium would not create a recovery partition.
     
  24. beethoven

    beethoven Registered Member

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    I have followed your suggestion for a while now with respect to the video. I notice you suggest having the video in a pdf file - what is the reasoning behind this combination?
     
  25. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    that just taxes more of the system. Further asures all is well in the image. Actually with Macrium v6 I don't even bother with that. I just do a restore.
     
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