Macrium Reflect

Hi folks. A few posts up I mentioned my interest in Macrium Reflect (MR) and I have since installed the free version on my desktop rig. I have a few newbie questions; I hope some kind folks here will offer their input and help.

My rig has two internal hard drives. The C drive is a 256gb SSD containing my operating system and other programs such as Word, Excel, Macrium Reflect, etc. The D drive is a 1tb disk drive containing videos, photos, music, documents, and portable apps. Right now, my primary goals are to:

1. use the Scheduler in MR to have it automatically do a full image backup of my C drive the first Friday of every month at 7 am.
2. use the Scheduler in MR to have it automatically do a differential image backup of my C drive the second, third, and fourth Fridays of every month at 7 am.
   
3. use the Retention feature in MR to keep two full images.

Example: On Friday July 1st at 7 am, MR will do a full image backup of my C drive to my external drive. So I should have a full image backup from the first Friday in June, and three differential backups from the second, third, and fourth Fridays in June...along with the newly created full image backup from Friday July 1st. Any full or differential images from May or earlier will be automatically purged since, as noted in above #3, I only want to keep two full images.

Below is how I ended up configuring everything. I'd appreciate it if those of you who are knowledgeable in setting up schedules using MR would tell me if this looks correct. Note the following:

• I deliberately left the Differential checkbox unchecked in the Retention Rules section because it's my understanding they are automatically purged when their parent full image backup is purged.
• I changed the Retention Rules selection box to "Apply retention rules to all backup sets in the target folder" because I didn't understand the other selection (i.e. "Apply retention rules to matching backup sets in the target folder").

 

Doodler, your scheduling is just fine. FYI... you don't have to eliminate the 4th DIFF that would normally occur at the same date/time as your FULL... Reflect is smart enough to run only the relevant image (FULL over DIFF over INC) when more than one is scheduled for the exact same date/time, it makes the setup easier to manage.

 

Excellent! Thanks TRF. I'll go ahead and add a 4th differential backup.

 

...of course, the easiest way to do that with a 4-wk FULL is just have a single weekly DIFF scheduled at the same time... that's the way I use it.

 

First, thank you again Frog for this latest piece of valuable information I've gotten from you.

Second, I've been using this software for I guess about a year now and I still consider it vastly superior to the others I've used; most recently, ShadowProtect, Acronis TI, Windows native disk imaging. Really dependable and superbly elegant design.

Third, one can specify the following schedule for a chosen image type (Differential for example): Monthly, Every, Fourth, Sunday - but not Fifth Sunday. There would be a fifth Sunday in May 2016 for instance. Does anybody know of a reason this doesn't exist before I submit a feature request to Macrium?

 

@ TRG,
I assume like the below image depicts...correct?



@ AlphaOne,
When I was tinkering around with the settings I saw the option for "Last" in the drop down box shown below. Would this be the equivalent to the Fifth Sunday referenced in your post?

 

@Doodler, that would be fine as long as you don't need any INCREMENTALS.

 

No, if the last day fell on any day other than a Sunday the Last option would not be equivalent.

I think the missing Fifth option must be an oversight. As far as I can see, it isn't replaceable by any other mechanism, and having it doesn't seem likely to interfere with anything.

 

I'm new to Marcrium and I'm using the free version to see how I like it before considering getting the paid version. I have v6.1.1196 on my system. Do I install 1225 on top of 1196, or do I need to uninstall 1196 and do a complete reinstall for 1225? Probably the former, but best to double-check.

 

You can just install over the previous version.

 

I've posted in the Macrium forum a suggestion that this be added to the product.

 

As shown in several preceding posts in this thread, I'm new to Macrium Reflect and got some advice here regarding setting up schedules and upgrading.

I put MR to the test yesterday. Earlier in the morning, I decided to install Window 10 on my 3 year old laptop that came with Win7. I opted for a clean installation and downloaded the .iso from Microsoft and burned it to a dvd. But, before doing so, I first made a few image backups of the laptop using MR.

The installation of Windows 10 went very smoothly. The jury is still out whether I like it; there are so many social media apps in Windows 10 and they want the user to give them permission to track everything he is doing. Egads! Respect my desire for privacy...please! Still, Windows 10 is something new for me to explore tech-wise...and I like doing that type of thing.

After a few hours of playing around in Win10, I bit the bullet and decided to test MR by restoring one of my Win7 images back onto the laptop. It went perfectly. No hiccups, bumps, or bruises. Took about 1 1/2 hrs. I'm very impressed.

Just thought I'd share.

 

Thank you for sharing, Doodler. I have similar experience with Macrium Reflect - no problems using it, whatsoever.

 

I have used ATI, EaseUS and AOMEI over the years, but I have found MR to be most reliable and fastest so tops for me now.

 

+ 1

 

+1

 

Fastest? Come on now. Did you really test it against ATI, on the same hardware?

 

I tried Paragon and Terabyte products...

However, I went back to Macrium Reflect
due to Speed and Reliability.

 

OJ, I'm guessing he's referring to Reflect's Rapid Delta Restore restoration capability which is definitely faster than most imagers. Reflect's imaging speed is just average across most products.

 

Does going from Macrium Reflect 6 Home to Macrium Reflect 6 Free allow images I made previously with the trial version work with Macrium Reflect 6 Free ?

 

Thanks TRF.. I guess you are right. In that aspect I think he's right. I was thinking about full backup/restore, which might not be what Paul meant to say.

 

Yes indeed, I did base that on MR with RDR feature. My ATI (paid) is old now, 2014 version.

 

I believe that is the case. Just remember... no additional INCREMENTAL imaging if you plan to continue using your existing HOME chain, and if the chain was using DELTA INCREMENTAL INDEXING (not the DEFAULT option), that may not work (needs to be tested).

 

A quick question if I am allowed:
Is it right that the file extension for a backup-image is .mrimg ?
I am still on Macrium Reflect Pro 5.3.7310 (Win7 Pro 64-bit).
Thanks in advance.

 

Yes. I am sure the disk image file you made with V5 should also be restorable using V6.