Macrium Reflect

Can't find an answer to this in the User Guide:

If the backup medium for a scheduled backup is an external hard drive, and the drive is not attached when the backup is scheduled to execute, does the backup execute the next time the drive is attached regardless of when that is? And is this behavior configurable?

 

AO, "from what I've seen"...

The only thing configurable from within the UI, when a scheduled backup is missed, is AT THE NEXT STARTUP. Possibly, if you go directly into the Windows scheduler, you have other options but I haven't been there as of yet.

There is a SCHEDULE Timeout under Defaults/Schedule that can be set to some value (DEFAULT is 3-min, I believe). If this timeout is not set up, the scheduled task will wait for user input to continue (forever if no one is there when it happens).

 

I somehow missed or forgot about the AT NEXT STARTUP option. It's reasonable to infer that this would be for an indefinite period. I'll look and experiment a bit more. Thanks Frog.

 

I use that option for my "mini" GFS data protection scheme... mostly for when the system is OFF and not available. In my TARANTULA MODE (crawling Forever Incremental), I have it off... I don't need extra snapshots when the system comes back on-line.

 

LOL, good for you. However, don't be a fan for any software. Use any software with caution, especially mission critical ones such as disk imaging apps. I backup OS with at least two apps in case one falls short.

 

Hi so is there a 50% macrium coupon?
i coudn't find one.

 

Hello Freki123,

The 50% that is mentioned is the discount when upgrading from version 5 to 6. The only coupons that I have seen is for 20% (mentioned earlier in this thread).
HTH...

 

Ok thanks that makes it clear

 

Well the magic flew out of the window.

I think I followed your instructions but it did not work as expected.

From "Create a backup"
Select partition
Choose the type of backup.
Give the same file name with extension.
Name the XML file
Select Finish.
It then proceeds to create a new full image.
Cancelled that.
Then from Scheduled Backup
Select incremental and Run Now
That creates a file but the full image is shown as not run.

A bit confused here

 

When you delete an incremental backup from the list shown in the restore tab view, does it get consolidated with a later incremental backup in the same set or does this action also remove all subsequent incremental backups?

Consolidation now seems to be the default mode when doing a scheduled backup, but I don't know if this has been extended to general disk management tasks

 

It looks like it still deletes subsequent incrementals, and the interface has been updated to show that those incrementals are children of the incremental that's to be deleted.

 

After having some brief discussions with folks close to the Dev team, it appears that a few of the inherent capabilities of v6 (merging of deleted incrementals, FOREVER INCREMENTALS available for other options other than just "# of backups," etc.) are in the core of the system but due to delivery time constraints, their implementation had to be left out of the v6.0 release (it was delayed from December to mid-February as it was). It appears there are plans to add some of this additional capability during some of the upcoming v6.x (I hope) release schedule.

 

Thanks for letting us know hopefully there might be some additions that lend themselves to snapshot-type usage of the program.

 

If you set up hourly incrementals you can have this now.

 

Thanks for your answers. All very informative.

 

Indeed - I was actually thinking along such lines as

• Allowing hourly incrementals to have separate merging schedules per hour, week, day etc. within the same backup set (i.e. an AX64-like merging schedule)
• Allowing merging to only happen once or twice a day, as opposed to once an hour
• Allowing individual incrementals within a chain to be merged with others so that deleting one doesn't delete all others after it (again, like AX64)

 

The User Guide is inconsistent with the reality described above. This type of research and sharing saves v6 users much time and frustration, and Macrium countless hours of customer support. Once again Frog, thank you.

 

Has a User Guide been posted somewhere in this thread?

 

Here you are

On-line User Guide
http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW/Macrium Reflect v6 User Guide

 

Ah, I see. Thanks. I have seen that.
I thought someone may have made a different PDF.

 

Why did you start to create a full image first then cancel it?

There is an option not to run the backup definition when you create it. You should have taken that
option then setup your schedule and run it incrementally.

 

I already had a full backup and wanted to go incremental from that but it would not do that, hence I cancelled the full image.

Think for now I will just delete the existing images and start afresh.

 

Loving using Macrium 6 but still cannot get my head around setting up the backup definitions and schedules for the goal that I want. Would greatly appreciate your help on this.

What I want is to create a backup definition where I back up my system disk so I can go back in time over a 28 day period if need be. I would like to have 1 full backup and 13 incrementals attached and have Macrium keep 2 fulls with associated 13 inc. backups. giving a total of 28 days of coverage.

What is the best way to accomplish this? I get confused because I think I need to set scheules for both full and inc. backups. Is this right and could someone give me an example of how this can be done in the simplest way and thanks much.

Gary