Macrium Reflect

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

  1. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Reflect Portable can do this, and just about everything else that regular Reflect can do, without needing to be installed. That's the entire purpose of Reflect Portable, and it has existed at least since V6. But it's only included with a Technicians Kit license.

    I'm also not sure where the "many users" claim comes from here. On the Macrium forums I think I've only ever encountered maybe two users who perform backups from Rescue Media, and one of them still kept Reflect installed on their system in order to actually create the Rescue Media. They did their backups that way because they didn't trust VSS, not because they objected to having Reflect installed on their system.
     
    Last edited: Nov 6, 2021
  2. Antarctica

    Antarctica Registered Member

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    I have the paid version and no restart here. (I restarted anyway) Why is it that some require restart and some not?:confused:
     
  3. Trooper

    Trooper Registered Member

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    Got prompted for another update. This time it did not prompt for a reboot. :confused:
     
  4. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Probably depends on whether you have CBT and/or Image Guardian installed, and if so which version of Reflect you’re updating from. For example, I was prompted to restart when I updated to 6350, since it had an Image Guardian update. But I was not prompted to restart when I next updated to 6353, which did not have an update relative to 6350. But if others update directly to 6353 from a pre-6350 release because 6350 was only the current release for less than 24 hours, then they’d likely be prompted to restart due to changes relative to whatever version they were previously running — assuming they have CBT and/or Image Guardian installed.
     
  5. Antarctica

    Antarctica Registered Member

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    @jphughan, thanks a lot for explanation. No CBT and image guardian installed here, so that’s why.
     
  6. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    I have done a "worldwide registration of bootable media users", so I know for a fact that many users use bootable media without installing the program to the system.
    Besides Portable Technicians there are unofficial Portable non-Technicians. This is Pulcinella's secret, who could download v8.0 Free, will be able to find unofficial Portable ones. But that's not the point. The 12mB extension to Explorer is only a Mount/Unmount context menu item, with no GUI, and that would be popular.
    For example, Acronis has official full-featured non-trial free bootable ISOs. Install Acronis Shell Ext, and you can mount images.
    Other users are convinced that a backup created from bootable media has some mythical advantages over a backup created from Windows.
     
  7. guest

    guest Guest

    Macrium Reflect 8 Free is now available
    November 7, 2021
    https://www.ghacks.net/2021/11/07/macrium-reflect-8-free-is-now-available/
    Macrium Software: Reflect 8 Free is out now!
     
  8. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Ok…. o_O
     
  9. WinterKnight

    WinterKnight Registered Member

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    When an SSD moves data around internally, does Reflect think that the data has changed for the purpose of a differential backup, or is it smart enough to know that that it was just moved? I’m thinking about QLC SSDs and the constant movement of data from the fast SLC write cache to slower long-term memory.
     
  10. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Windows/Reflect has no idea where that DATA is. It's fully shielded by the SSD from all that movement... the movement is only used by the SSD itself for internal mgmt purposes.
     
  11. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    TRF is correct. But that movement isn’t even the whole story. SSDs also perform “wear leveling” to spread write activity across all of their cells. So sector X as Windows sees it might correspond to completely different flash cells from one write to the next. But the SSD abstracts all of this from the system and just maintains a mapping table in its firmware. The benefit is that even if you only ever use a fraction of your SSD’s capacity and just update the same data constantly, you’ll still get the benefit of the total write endurance of the SSD, because you’ll end up using all of its internal cells.

    Also, TLC and MLC drives can use SLC caches, not just QLC drives.
     
  12. WinterKnight

    WinterKnight Registered Member

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    Thanks. Another question. After a Windows Update, or any software update for that matter, is there a benefit to restarting before doing a backup? I know some people do it and some don’t.
     
  13. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Other than allowing Windows to fully apply the new update changes following update/restart for your image, there's nothing bad about imaging before hand. If you restore that image, the unfinished update process will occur when the image restoration and restart occurs.
     
  14. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    You might find that you can’t actually perform a backup after updates have been “staged” but before a restart has occurred to apply them. I remember a thread on the Macrium forums where someone tried to do that after they realized that a new feature release had been staged but before restarting to apply it. They figured that would protect them against a bad update. But they got a VSS error that blocked the backup. Although even if it had worked, the first boot after restoring that backup would have installed that pending update anyway, so the value of making a backup at that stage would have been dubious even if it had been possible. The same would be true of a backup made after staging a monthly update.
     
  15. WinterKnight

    WinterKnight Registered Member

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    How about updates that don’t require a reboot? Would an image taken right after that update still capture everything? Some people say that it’s better to reboot first so that all the settings are saved to disk. Is that correct?
     
  16. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    That doesn’t make sense to me. If an update doesn’t require a reboot, then why would you assume that it would wait until a reboot to commit some changes to disk? That behavior would indicate that the update required a reboot to finish installing. But hey if it makes someone feel better to reboot after every update before making a backup, then by all means it’s their PC, so they can use it as they please. And of course I can’t claim to have tested every possible scenario to verify that no one would ever have a problem with an image captured post-update but pre-reboot. That said, I wouldn’t have any concern at all with making an image that way if the recently installed updates didn’t indicate that a reboot was required. But I also make backups regularly, so even if that choice resulted in a problem backup, chances are I’ll also have several other backups from nearby points in time to restore from if needed.
     
  17. yoorrik

    yoorrik Registered Member

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    I installed the Russian version of Macrium 8.0.6353, then create MacriumRescue.iso, then boot from MacriumRescue.iso ... but the MacriumRescue interface is only English (not Russian).
    How to make Russian interface MacriumRescue.iso?
    Are you going to make a Russian interface for the 7th version?
    Windows7 SP1 [x64] Pro system
    tnx
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2021
  18. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    I believe Macrium said that Rescue can only be localized to other languages if you use WinRE. But I don’t know if that works when you’re using Windows 7, and even if it does, you’d then be running the Win7 kernel, which is quite old at this point and can therefore bring limitations or at least additional hassles that don’t exist with newer kernels. I’ll see if I can find the post from Macrium about this.

    EDIT: Found it. https://forum.macrium.com/53577/RE-Are-you-planning-to-support-UI-in-other-languages#53601
     
  19. yoorrik

    yoorrik Registered Member

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    You have full localization (Russian, Ukrainian, German, Japanese, etc.), but you have made the limitation yourself:
    For the PE version of MacriumRescue, have you installed English only ??
    This is a very stupid decision, HERE you will lose to your competitors.
    I am sorry and hope that you will change your mind ! :(
     
  20. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    I'm not sure why you're saying "you" here. I don't work for Macrium, so it's not my decision, not my competitors, and not my mind that would have to be changed. But if you actually read the Macrium forum I linked, you will see that the post by Nick, who DOES work for Macrium (in fact he is Macrium's CEO), indicates that Macrium is working on adding support for additional languages with WinPE 10.

    But honestly I think it's a bit strange that you're accusing Macrium of making a "stupid decision" here. Reflect previously only supported English and German. With V8, Macrium added support for even more languages. So they're offering better language support than they did before, and yet instead of appreciating what they've done so far, you're accusing them of making a "stupid decision" because they haven't implemented that brand new language support widely enough yet. Maybe instead of seeing it as a stupid decision, you should see it as a work in progress.

    And realistically, the default WinRE support that's already available should cover a sizable portion of the user base in the meantime anyway. Most people will be on Windows 10 or 11 by now, in which case WinRE will typically be fine. I realize you're still on Windows 7, but that OS is declining in popularity and will only continue declining because it's already been out of support for almost two years now.
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2021
  21. yoorrik

    yoorrik Registered Member

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    Russian / French / Japanese users have nothing to regret, because they never had an official localization.
    German users have always, in all versions (v.7, v.8 ) , had the opportunity to create MacriumRescue.iso (WinPE) with a German interface.
    In the latest versions (8.0.6161… 8.0.6353) German users do not have a German interface for MacriumRescue.iso (WinPE). English only.
     
  22. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    Ok, I have multiple PCs, but not all, that notify me there is a Macrium Reflect update. Combinations of 7 and 8, paid and free, that once I click on it tell me "Unable to download update information". I'm sure I can find a solution but that fact it is happening means something is not right.
     
  23. Freki123

    Freki123 Registered Member

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    Maybe an file is blocked by the firewall? I have reflectbin.exe , reflectupdater.exe at allow atm
    I think I had something like that with tinywall where I had to allow the needed exes one by one.
     
  24. test

    test Registered Member

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  25. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    Just Windows firewall. I doubt it is blocking anything. I found several references to the domain updates.macrium.com searching Google and was able to open any of the links that point there. Not sure as to the why.
     
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