Macrium Reflect

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

  1. Buddel

    Buddel Registered Member

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    It seems so. It's no longer available via internal updater. Hm...
     
  2. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    7.2.5107 is now available.
     
  3. Buddel

    Buddel Registered Member

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    Got it via internal updater a couple of minutes ago.
     
  4. guest

    guest Guest

    Macrium Reflect v7.2.5107 Released (August 5, 2020)
    Download
    Changelog
     
  5. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    Updated to version 7.2.5107 with no issues. Backup and restore using bootable rescue media worked without any problems.
     
  6. paulderdash

    paulderdash Registered Member

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    It does seem like it's good policy to wait a few days with MR updates ... and wait for @Osaban to test them. :D
     
  7. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    It’s definitely safer to wait for a while and see what other people experience before any update, but someone has to take some risks, and I trust MR to the point of always restoring an image from a bad update if necessary. I’m also convinced that everyone should test a restore after an update as a rule… Anyways thanks for your support :D
     
  8. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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  9. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Since I never use anything other that INTERNAL (SATA) and USB-based (v2 & v3) storage volumes for imaging, I always generate my WinPE10s (lots of resident drivers) in x86 (32-bit format). They're a bit smaller and I find they load much faster than the same x64 media.
     
  10. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    I also only backup to internal hard drives.
    But I have never really decided on a PE / RE preference.
    They have both always worked without problems for me.
     
  11. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    There are really only a few reasons to consider WinRE:
    • You're the type that just uses the defaults. (And in fairness, most of the time the default works fine.)
    • You need WiFi support in your Rescue Media.
    • You can't spare the necessary storage capacity to cache a WinPE build (WinPE 10 1709 is about 1 GB).
    Otherwise, WinRE is pretty much all risk and no reward. The problem with WinRE is that it gets updated whenever you update your full Windows environment, and Microsoft has a particularly poor release quality track record these days. The initial release of WinRE 10 1809 for example contained a bug that broke Rescue Media's automatic driver loading at startup. They could still be loaded manually by users who knew how, and this bug was fixed when Microsoft recalled and then re-released Win10 1809, but the early adopters who were using WinRE ended up with broken Rescue Media. And WinRE can also get customized at an individual system level, which makes it even more of a "moving target", which has resulted in some users having problematic Rescue Media builds.

    By comparison, when you use WinPE 10, Reflect always uses WinPE 10 1709 (as of this writing), regardless of what release you're running. That's a release that Macrium tested, and the WinPE package downloaded from Microsoft does NOT get customized on a per-system basis before Reflect gets to it. So with WinPE 10, you're always giving Reflect a consistent, Macrium-tested "foundation" to build from. Consistency has its virtues over "latest and allegedly greatest" when it comes to critical recovery tools, in my view.

    All that said, if WinRE works for you, then fantastic. Just make sure you retest your Rescue Media if if ever rebuilds because the WinRE version on your system has changed. (And honestly, you should retest your Rescue Media any time you rebuild it, regardless of why the rebuild occurred or what version of WinPE/RE you're running, because there have been Reflect updates that broke Rescue Media too.)
     
  12. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    That's an interesting view on it, JP. And it's pretty different to Macrium's view.
    Also, I have often wondered why WinPE doesn't have WiFi support. Not that I need it.
     
  13. paulderdash

    paulderdash Registered Member

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    I too have previously had no issues with either ...
    You've previously stated your preference for WinPE, but you've convinced me now!

    No WiFi support required here on my home laptops, no storage capacity issue.
    As you say: Consistency has its virtues over "latest and allegedly greatest" when it comes to critical recovery tools ...

    But just to be sure, one would still need to create separate Rescue Media for each machine with WinPE, due to different drivers? I have in the past.
    As you can gather, I am no expert here. :D
     
  14. Spartan

    Spartan Registered Member

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    New update again, I am not happy with their quality ever since v7, so many updates. I know it's good for us that they are fixing bugs but a bit of quality is much needed here

     
  15. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    Does Win10PE support BitLocker and ReFS? If I recall correctly, it does not, while Win10RE supports both. That's enough for me to consider Win10RE over Win10PE any time of the day.
     
  16. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Well Macrium is arguably speaking to the average user in their blog. I'm here as an experienced IT person speaking to a group that I presume is more technical than average given the forum. So that might account for it. But like I said at the end of that post, if WinRE works, then fantastic. And in fairness, it usually does. Usually. I'm not sure why WinRE is necessary for WiFi support either. WinRE (the actual Windows Recovery Environment) is itself just a WinPE environment with some recovery tools. But maybe Microsoft adds some WiFi frameworks to WinRE and don't provide an officially supported way to add those to the WinPE environments they offer for download?

    You don't HAVE to create separate Rescue Media builds for each PC, but the ease or difficulty of creating universal or nearly universal Rescue Media doesn't change between WinPE and WinRE (assuming you're comparing the same kernel version in both cases, since a given system's WinRE can be built on various different kernels depending on the system's full Windows version.) On my own PC, my Rescue Media cache folder contains folders for various drivers I want incorporated into all of my Rescue Media builds since they pertain to hardware that I want to be able to use on other systems. Rescue Media Builder will include such drivers even if they don't pertain to the actual PC it's running on. And in fact this type of model is explicitly encouraged in enterprise use cases where it would be extremely burdensome to have and keep updating Rescue Media builds for all of the dozens or potentially thousands of systems where Reflect might be installed.

    That said, Rescue Media that was created on the PC it's being used on can have its perks. For example, Reflect copies the "Folders to search" list from the Windows environment to Rescue Media so that your backups will often show up automatically without you having to browse for them as you would if you booted that Rescue Media on a "foreign" PC. Same for stored network share credentials, as well as BitLocker auto-unlock files. So if you don't have too many PCs, unique Rescue Media builds can have their advantages.

    Not sure about ReFS since I don't use it, but BitLocker is definitely available in WinPE, I believe even going back to WinPE 3.1. There's even an "Add BitLocker support" checkbox in Rescue Media Builder specifically for it, although I found that manage-bde seems to be available regardless of whether that's checked, at least on newer WinPE versions. I don't like storing auto-unlock keys in Rescue Media since I don't want my builds to contain sensitive data, but I build WinPE 10 Rescue Media with BitLocker support, and then when Rescue starts I just open Command Prompt and use manage-bde to unlock any drives I need to work with.
     
  17. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    There are plenty of posts from me on here somewhere complaining of the same. Versions 5 and 6 were flawless and 7 has been quite troublesome. Overall it hasn't been terrible but there have been multiple issues. I hope they get it settled before 8 or I'll be looking at other products.
     
  18. Spartan

    Spartan Registered Member

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    I stopped using Acronis True Image years back after they started introducing a lot of bloat in it. now I got a free Western Digital Acronis True Image with my SSDs that came with my Alienware laptop. How is that nowadays? is it any good? does it allow me to create a bootable stick to backup/restore like Macrium?

    I'm tired of updating my bootable USB Flash disk every other week. I know I don't *have* but my OCD will not allow me to use it when seeing that the new version has bug fixes
     
  19. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    V7 introduced two persistent, background, low-level drivers (CBT and MIG). Those are the type of thing that are apt to cause conflicts with other things people might be running, so it’s not a coincidence that V7 has had more issues than earlier versions that didn’t have components like that, or that most of the issues addressed in those updates have been attributable to those components.

    If it helps, relatively few of the updates even affect components that exist in Rescue, so even if there are bug fixes, the new version’s Rescue environment might be exactly the same.
     
  20. Spartan

    Spartan Registered Member

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    ohhh ok, thank you. Such a relief.
     
  21. paulderdash

    paulderdash Registered Member

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    Thanks for clarifying. :thumb:
     
  22. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    I stopped using CBT and MIG some time back.
    The gains just weren't worth the pain caused by CBT and having to contact support all the time. And MIG, I don't need.
    And the other benefit is there is no need for a restart when updating Reflect.
     
  23. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    Ok, not feeling this is worthy of stating another topic... I bought a 4 pack of licenses back when version 6 was about to become 7. I used two of the licenses and never activated the other two. I am attempting to put the current version 7 on a new PC and was hoping (expecting) to be able to update one of the unused ones to do so. It doesn't look like I can activate a v7 with a v6 key. If I enter my key into their licensing page it tell me I need to upgrade for $90. Googling this issue hasn't given me anything useful. If anyone has any suggestions I would be grateful. If I have to spend money I'm going to have to think hard about where.
     
  24. stapp

    stapp Global Moderator

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  25. deugniet

    deugniet Registered Member

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