Macrium Reflect

"IFW has just implementeded FileSystem metadata in an optional use with its Differentials and Incrementals... IFW will require a much bigger learning curve than Reflect ... but they can both do the same thing now."

Frog, that is the type of comment I was asking for - thanks.

I am still in love with v6. It has served me really well.

If Macrium can straighten itself (and v7) out before I have to let go of v6, that would be my optimum outcome.

 

I've been giving some serious consideration to Terabyte's backup products myself. I'm not overly concerned about the Reflect v7 CBT kernel mode driver inclusion, although I do wish it wasn't imposed on everyone by default but was an opt-in installation option instead for those who actually run multiple incrementals during one single Windows session. But it's not very resource intensive and at least it can be uninstalled cleanly using the MrCbtTools.exe utility.

The chief advantage of the Terabyte products from my personal perspective during my gradual move away from Windows toward Linux is the availability of editions for both OSes. That makes the "learning curve" of secondary importance to its facilitation of that transition process. I assume, subject to anyone's correction, that either version can handle the backup file formats involved with both Windows and Linux backup operations with equal capability.

 

Arvy,

TeraByte has 3 imaging apps, IFW, IFL and IFD. Each app produces the "same" image so any of the 3 apps can restore images made by the other two. Each app can backup and restore Windows and Linux systems. For example, let's say you are dual booting Windows and Linux OS. From Windows you can use IFW to backup/image the Linux partition. From Windows you can restore the image to the Linux partition. From IFW, IFL or IFD boot disks you can restore the image to the Linux partition.

IFL can be installed in Linux and can backup/image all partitions except the OS partition. It can't lock the OS partition but you can use any of the 3 boot disks to backup/image the Linux OS partition or the Entire Drive.

In either MBR or UEFI systems the backup and the restore process can be automated and run by just clicking an icon.

 

Thanks @Brian K for the confirmation. I expected that would be the case, but I've only begun looking at the Terabyte products and so I wasn't certain. I see that there's a bundle available (IFW, IFL, IFD and IFUefi) that I'll probably get for exploring in depth, but guess we'd better not wander any further off topic in this Macrium thread.

 

OK, thanks guys for the clarification!

 

@AlphaOne - pls understand that cautions about new application features may not necessarily be well founded. @Arvy is right to be concerned... his personal experience with similar driver attempts from Acronis proved to be an excellent basis for his caution, but I do not share this CBT aspect with him. I do agree that the option should have been offered the user upon installation and it wasn't. The only option available was turning off its use with Reflect itself, not turning off the driver's activity.

As far as CBT is concerned, I have been using it continuously (w/v6 in BETA and some testing in v7) since June of 2016 and have found it to be innocuous at best as far as System interaction is concerned. It uses very little CPU to do its thing and has never interfered with anything on my System. I use many other NT FileSystem level drivers on my System (same level as CBT) and if they're crafted properly (Acronis didn't do a great job there) they integrate with your System as smoothly as expected. That has been my experience with CBT to date... it's a solid driver, crafted very well, and does its expected job (if you really need it ).

That said, there are other aspects of v7 that have haunted me a bit and I remain cautious... Macrium has some work to do. I think the biggest speed bump to v7's success, other than the terrible product rollout, has been Windows 10 and all its massive changes along the way. We've already run into cases where issues were discovered in their pre-releases (and fixed, in some cases), but never were addressed in the next major user release of the OS... this is terrible product development and regression testing on the part of MicroSloth. When they went to the "ring" System to take advantage of user testing, they dumped a ton of their QA Regression Testing staff and they have suffered accordingly. Personally, I just don't trust their major releases any more, and the issues that have surfaced have caused me to return to Windows 7 (hated 8.x) and leave Windows 10 for a future consideration. M$ has taken a major step forward with the release of Windows 10, but in many areas they have taken multiple steps backward... very sad.

 

@ Froggy...Why do you prefer the beta to the latest V.6 ( V. 6.3 Build 1835 )?
Thanks Froggy.

 

I suppose it's a matter of individual perspectives, but I would maintain that my cautiousness about the handling of kernel mode drivers proved well founded not only with Acronis. In Macrium's case as well, your own fortunate experience notwithstanding, the consequences of their having initially ignored my early warnings were disastrous for some people rendering systems completely unbootable even in safe mode. Only then did they finally adopt the safer handling methods as suggested, although it continues to be imposed on everyone regardless of any actual usefulness for most people. Admittedly, as I've said, it's not resource intensive and it does seem to work "as advertised" for those who actually have some use for its limited capabilities.

However, it's not Macrium's driver "craftsmanship" that concerns me. It's their apparently careless "luck of the draw" management attitudes toward this and similar issues involving, for example, patch misplacements of service components that makes me doubtful of their ability to learn anything from their mistakes, even potentially disastrous ones. Their arrogance in that regard hasn't yet reached the level of some others, but it doesn't inspire great confidence in this user. So I'm not assuming that my own or anyone else's "good luck" will last indefinitely and I'm looking around at possible options for the future. No panic. If others are happy with Macrium's current status and perceived progress, such as it is, that's perfectly okay with me.

 

Umm....bet your right.

 

I am using the latest v6 Reflect (Build 1835) along with ONLY the BETA CBT driver that was issued in June of 2016. The driver needs no changes and the ability of v6 to use that driver has remained in their v6 build since it was first issued.

 

@Froggy -- If you want to, you could extract LibFiles.cab from the v7 setup.exe package and extract the MrCbtTools.exe utility from there to install the updated driver and its device class filter services. Not a recommendation, just a possibility in case you might want to try the latest driver version with v6.

 

I played a little while back with that and, different from the same utility in v6, the v7 utility required a new DLL that didn't exist in v6. I tried the install with the DLL local to the installer... it would not run. I did not try and place the DLL elsewhere during that attempt.

I may just revisit this while I'm testing with v7... thanks!

 

I have to support Froggie on this. I've also been using the CBT drivers since the beta days of v6. I run virtual machines on a daily basis using VMWare Workstation (sometimes two big VMs at the same time). Those VMs are stored on the drive that Macrium backs up on a daily basis with incrementals. I have not experienced any negative impacts (unlike doing the same with Rollback RX installed - that is horrible) and Macrium has been really good at taking snapshots of reasonable size given the size of my virtual drives. Macrium really captures the delta when doing incrementals so my 300GB virtual drives don't produce a 300GB incremental image.

 

I share Arvy's current thoughts, and will likely follow the lead of the experts here.

Incidentally, I'm using Reflect v6 on two up-to-date moderately powerful Windows 10 Pro machines and three laptops where the most used applications are in M$ Office 2016. I also do Java development on one machine. Windows 10 Pro has been well behaved for me.

 

You'll probably need to do some uninstall/reinstall playing around between the two MrCbtTools.exe versions, maybe more than once, to get everything matched up between the registry and what's currently installed on the hard drive. The required DLL file should get installed under \Windows\System32 along with the mrcbt.sys file under \Windows\System32\Drivers of course. Sounds like you may have had a mismatch somewhere. [Edit: Both files are packaged within the MrCbtTools executable, but I've discovered no manual extraction and installation method other than running that utility itself.]

@MarcP -- Nobody's disputing Froggy's or Macrium's or anyone else's claims that CBT works as advertised, or at least I'm not. But are you aware that it's only performance contribution is for the second or subsequent incremental or differential backup during the same session. CBT gets reset completely on every restart (or, more precisely, every time a volume is mounted) and only accumulates data during the first run after that. So, if you restart/remount between your daily incrementals, CBT makes no contribution at all to the results.

 

I do. Incrementals are done 3 times per day minimum. The morning can be lengthy because of the consolidation process. The backup itself is not nearly as long, but I learned to live with it. Perfect time to catch up with reddit.

 

The toll of the bell hath sounded. Where is my Macrium Image Guardian update to Reflect v7?! Posted 30 June 2017:

 

Easy Gork, slow down... pace your breathing

As @Arvy has mentioned, I'd much rather see a "clean" release of this feature than something rushed and not well understood (or tested) by the Dev Team. Many are waiting for it with baited breath (not me, though), it will arrive soon enough.

 

Exactly my thoughts!
100% agree with you!

 

They also said: "Image Guardian protects by preventing unauthorised access to all Macrium Reflect backup files." If that just means that it's only going to set restricted permissions on the backup files, you don't need to wait to do that yourself.

Incidentally, did you ever get a satisfactory answer to why your v7 (TS 2.0 API) scheduled tasks were sometimes running both an incremental and a full instead of following the normal order-of-precedence rules?

 

Gork...start breathing heavy once again . See HERE for an update...

 

@Arvy ... they just may be LISTENING!