Macrium Reflect

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

  1. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Nick from Macrium Support indicated that for image backups, the contents of the pagefile and hibernation file weren't backed up, even though the files appear in image backups with the same size as the source, so I would expect that their contents wouldn't be cloned over either. So whether or not hibernation was enabled shouldn't change the result. But at those speeds it hardly makes a difference!

    The installer size grew with Reflect 7.2, and it was due to Rescue Media Builder being packaged as a standalone application (RMBuilder.exe). I asked Nick about this exact thing when I was involved in the Rescue Media Builder beta testing because I couldn't see why that change should have bloated the installer so much. He responded basically by saying that in order to get RMBuilder.exe as a standalone item, some code had to be bundled in multiple places.

    In any case, no I haven't forgotten that Macrium has had some problematic releases. But I'm also capable of reading 2-3 years' worth of fixes and enhancements in the Reflect V7 release notes since those 7.1 releases -- some of which were the result of bug reports and enhancement requests that I personally submitted (which doesn't even count the stuff I submitted during the betas.) If you see absolutely nothing of value anywhere in that list, then you're making an informed decision to stay put where you are. But as I said above, some fixes and enhancements might apply to scenarios you haven't encountered yet but still might, like a restore that involves ReDeploy. There were two significant fixes to ReDeploy since the 7.1 release mentioned earlier, and one since yours. In that case, Intel-to-Intel ReDeploy runs would result in Intel's CPU power management service being disabled on the ReDeployed system, which caused Device Manager to throw errors on all of the CPU items in there, and probably had power and/or performance ramifications. That has since been fixed. Maybe you haven't needed to run that type of restore yet, but that doesn't mean you won't need to. And that's just one example out of a long list of fixes and enhancements.

    I don't believe in updating just for the sake of updating, since that really is all risk and no reward. But I also don't believe in the pure "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach. If you're going to stay put, at least know what you're passing on rather than saying, "Well it works, so I'm not going to bother looking at updates and will just assume I'm not missing out on anything I might need." That's why I'm grateful that Macrium publishes solid release notes, so that I can make an informed decision as to whether an update is relevant to me rather than having to just wonder if an update might be important or if it will just be all risk for me.
     
  2. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    @Chuck57 - with that configuration, sounds like you're right on for your performance.
     
  3. Chuck57

    Chuck57 Registered Member

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    About what I figured. It was a cutting edge machine when I got it. Now, we're both old. As long as our parts all work, I can live with it. LOL
     
  4. Tinstaafl

    Tinstaafl Registered Member

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    This is a post to mark the issue of a BSOD during a Macrium image that I posted earlier this month as solved.

    It turns out that it was Macrium after all. The BSOD occurred with the very next image that I made after I upgraded from v7.2.5107 to v7.3.5321 in place (over top). The thing that initially confused me was that the image prior to the problem was made on Saturday, and then I made some changes to the system later Saturday and on Sunday which included monthly Windows 10 updates, upgrading Macrium, and fiddling with my AV. Then I didn't take another image until Monday night when I got the first BSOD during that image.

    So I rolled back several times in an attempt to determine what change was causing the instability. The image I rolled back to was an earlier image (10/31 weekly full) with Macrium Reflect v7.2.5107 (previous version) on-board. Each time I rolled back, the first Macrium image backup ran flawlessly. Then when I upgraded Macrium, I immediately got a BSOD during the next image.

    Solution: I uninstalled Macrium v7.2.5107, rebooted, and then ran a full install of Macrium v7.3.5321 (while retaining the backup definitions and schedules). The images are running good now without BSOD on the latest version of Macrium.
     
  5. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    You will pay about 50% more for a M.2 NVMe SSD. Check out the Samsung 980 range. Pro and Evo models.
     
  6. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Doesn’t look like there’s a 980 Evo yet. The newest Evo still seems to be the 970 Evo Plus.

    But yes Osaban, the price premium is definitely there. For consumer users the Evo is typically more than adequate. Pro models are for very write-intensive since they can sustain their write performance for longer periods of uninterrupted write activity, whereas the Evo’s fast cache would get filled and thus result in reduced performance until it could be flushed. And the cells of the Pro models have higher overall write endurance ratings, although even the Evo models have endurance ratings that mean they’ll VASTLY outlast people’s use of them under anything even remotely resembling typical use. (For reference, my 1 TB 970 Evo Plus is rated for 600 TB of writes, and after using it for a year as my primary system's only internal SSD, Samsung Magician indicates that I've written a whopping....8 TB. So at that rate, it would last me 75 years. Should be plenty.)

    But you do need a system that can handle an NVMe SSD. Not all systems with M.2 slots support NVMe SSDs; some are SATA-only. There are adapters allowing you to connect an NVMe SSD into a PCIe slot if you have a desktop, but a) you’ll need a PCIe x4 slot for max performance, and b) your system might not be able to boot from that drive in that setup.

    If on the other hand you want one in an enclosure, you’d need Thunderbolt 4/USB4 for max performance — or Thunderbolt 3 with a PCIe x4 interface, which was optional over the mandatory PCIe x2 baseline. TB4 mandates PCIe x4. The problem with enclosures right now is finding them. The only enclosure I’ve found that does NOT come with an SSD is a Sabrent model, but it ONLY works with Thunderbolt systems. They have another one that uses a newer chipset that‘s backward compatible with regular USB, but they don’t sell that enclosure without an SSD. That might be due to restrictions from Intel around what products they’ll test and certify, and if so, that should improve with USB4, which won’t require products to get Intel certification. There’s also the Samsung X5, which is an NVMe SSD in an enclosure, but that too is Thunderbolt-only.
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2020
  7. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Osaban, here are some figures from a lesser quality hardware computer. i3-8100 CPU, 8 GB RAM. Two 970 Evo NVMe Samsung SSDs. The Win10 OS is on the SSD in a M.2 PCIe adapter card. The backup SSD is inserted into the only M.2 port on the MB.

    The Win10 partition is 37 GB and it contains 18 GB of data.

    Backup image took 21 seconds.
    Image restore took 7 seconds.

    The SSDs used in my other computer are Samsung 970 NVMe Pro.
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2020
  8. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    Thanks Brian, it is so incredibly fast even with slower computers, I mean really you can perform any of these operations whilst holding your breath! I will keep that in mind for my next system, I love speed in computers, it really makes instant time machines like Rollback Rx Pro redundant...
     
  9. Chuck57

    Chuck57 Registered Member

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    Had not thought of the fact that a good, current image able to be restored in seconds can replace things like Rollback. Even on my older machine, the ability to replace an image in less than 4 minutes, and do it safely, is better. For me, just start the restore, go have a cigarette and when I come back, it's done.
     
  10. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    I added 7 GB of Microsoft Reserved Storage so now the used Data is 25 GB.

    Backup and restore times were unchanged. So Microsoft Reserved Storage is treated like the Hibernation and Paging files in that it isn't backed up or restored.

    I don't use Microsoft Reserved Storage or a Hibernation file In my computers.
     
  11. stapp

    stapp Global Moderator

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  12. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    Excellent. I know several folks on here have been waiting for this.

    I have complained in the past that this product is more pricey than a lot of the competition but it's been 4 years since I bought my current licenses. If I had paid 4 times for a cheaper product that would have cost more. I'm hoping they don't try to go to that model. Get this while it's on sale. Wondering when version 8 will get released...
     
  13. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    No idea, but even if it were early next year and people who bought their licenses during the Black Friday sale didn’t qualify for a free upgrade, I believe Macrium’s upgrade pricing is a pretty solid discount too, in which case the combined cost of the Black Friday discount plus an upgrade might be pretty similar to buying a V8 license at standard pricing — plus you get to start using paid Reflect sooner.

    Regarding pricing overall, I haven’t looked at competing solutions for a while because I’m happy with Reflect, but I personally don’t consider $70 US for a single license and $140 US for 4 unreasonable at all, especially for a perpetual license when so much of the software industry is moving to subscription. I also think it’s important to take into account the quality of Macrium Support overall. It gives you access to Macrium’s forums, which have active participation from their engineers/developers, not just basic customer support reps. That’s incredibly rare in my experience. And they also act on bug reports and enhancement requests more quickly and often than I’ve seen elsewhere.

    Of course some of those benefits trickle down to users of Reflect Free. But for me, Incremental backups, RDR/RDC, and Reflect’s additional support for BitLocker volumes together justify the price. Image Guardian is nice too. But I also think there’s something to be said for supporting a company that operates as Macrium does, which is partly what motivates me to support them with my time on their forums.
     
  14. Chuck57

    Chuck57 Registered Member

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    There is no doubt in my mind that Macrium is the gold standard. Others might be a little faster in either backup or restore; and some might have other 'toys' included to entice new buyers. Macrium Reflect does the job it was designed to do. Any upgrade problems are fixed quickly and put out for update, rather than waiting for the next 'latest and greatest' version of this or that brand. You can check various threads via search about other brands and, inevitably, someone will post 'how doe it compare to Macrium Reflect?' It's the one all other backup programs have to match.
     
  15. pb1

    pb1 Registered Member

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    Hi

    I want to create and use an empty SSD as a external Macrium recovery media, like with a usb, how do i do that?
    A also want to be able to use some space on that disc as storage.
     
  16. test

    test Registered Member

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    7.3.5365 - 26th November 2020

    • Macrium Task Scheduler
      • Scheduling a backup to run as a specific user would sometimes prevent the Power Saving options from working correctly. This has been resolved.
      • Under certain circumstances, restarting Macrium Service would cause the Macrium Task Scheduler to stop running for around a minute. This has been resolved.
      • Schedule start dates can no longer be set later than the year 2999.
    • File and Folder Backup
      Deleting a backed up folder and creating a file with the same name as the deleted folder mid backup set could cause a File and Folder backup set to fail to load. This has been resolved.
    • Changed Block Tracker
      We've changed Windows event ID 13 - "IOCTL_MRCBT_QUERY_VOLUME_TRACKING_INFORMATION failed on device" to be Informational.
    • Exchange backup
      • Exchange backup was not checking for missing DB files to ensure a DB was available for backup. This has been resolved.
      • Mixed case database filename extensions could cause databases to not be backed up. This has been resolved.
    • Various
      Various minor fixes and changes to improve Macrium Reflect.
     
  17. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    Let's say your disk has one partition. First, create a bootable USB drive like in the screenshot. Be careful, if there was data on the disk, it will be permanently deleted. Then, at the root of the disk, create several folders for other purposes, for example, to store system images, portable applications, and so on.
    An option with two partitions is possible, where one small partition will be used for Macrium Reflect and the other large partition for other purposes, but this is more difficult to implement.
    mr.png
    In v7.2, v7.3 this window might look different.
     
  18. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    Updated successfully to v. 7.3.5365, tested new bootable rescue media, backup and restore with no issues.
     
  19. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Just to cover future expansion needs, create a 2GB FAT32 partition at the beginning of the disk, then create an NTFS or exFAT partition for the rest as general purpose storage. When you choose to build to the drive, Reflect will use the FAT32 partition. But make sure you test this, because some PCs don't support booting from USB-attached "fixed disk class" devices like HDDs and SSDs, even if they'll boot from USB-attached "removable storage class" devices like flash drives. And even if you want this for convenience, I'd also recommend creating either a Rescue Media flash drive and/or an ISO build that's backed up somewhere you'd be able to access even if your PC died. The reason is that if you're putting this Rescue Media on an SSD that you'll also be using for other purposes, I'm guessing it will be connected to a PC most of the time. That means it will be vulnerable to potential malware/ransomware attacks. That's the type of incident you might want to use Rescue Media to recover from, but if your Rescue Media got destroyed by that incident because it was online when the attack happened, you'll have more of a hassle restoring your system. The benefit of having a dedicated Rescue Media flash drive is that it's pretty unlikely to be online at any given time, since you'd only need to connect it when using or updating your Rescue Media -- which means it would be much more likely to be intact after an incident like that.
     
  20. pb1

    pb1 Registered Member

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    I thought it would be complex that`s why i asked here as a "backup solution" if i failed , but when doing it it was easy.
    But thanks for the input.
     
  21. pb1

    pb1 Registered Member

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    Way ahead of you. That extra is always a good practise.
    Thank you for the input!
     
  22. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    On such a disk, I contain system images and several units of portable software that can be launched after loading into the Macrium Reflect Recovery Environment, this is WinSnap, Registry Workshop, NotePad ++ etc. The drive is mounted only during imaging or recovery.
     
  23. MarcP

    MarcP Registered Member

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    I see... So that's how they're going to force you to upgrade to Reflect v8. ;)
     
  24. Tarnak

    Tarnak Registered Member

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    Earlier this month, I purchased Macrium Reflect 7 Home Edition [Black Friday special deal], and created a rescue media USB, and which I then tested, successfully.

    Then, several days later, I got the software update that upgraded my install to version 7.3.5365.

    This morning I created an initial image, and after that was created successfully, I decided to then test by running a restore. This was successful.

    However, I don't understand why there is no log showing for the creation as per these 2 screenshots, the first which just shows the log of the restore, and the 2nd showing the time taken to restore, i.e. 2min 12sec. Just a little confused.

    MacriumReflect_v7.3.5365_Restart after restore_04.JPG

    MacriumReflect_v7.3.5365_1st restore_ time to complete_01.JPG
     
  25. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    Log showing the creation of image is logged after the image is created. Log is stored on system partition.
    Since you restored created image, you restored system state when log was not created yet. Have you checked your logs before restore you would find that log entry also.
     
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