Macrium Reflect

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

  1. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    I couldn’t agree more, a coffee in Seoul costs as much as $4 to $5, and many people have it twice a day almost every working day… I suppose it is a matter of priorities, and I’m not complaining about Macrium’s price, but as I mentioned if I have to choose between $100 (for ShadowProtect) and $70 for Macrium, I’ll go for Macrium knowing that both programs are excellent. The same logic works for programs that are cheaper than MR. You’ll be surprised how low in priorities, computer security is for most users, they just don’t care, and since MS Defender has become a reliable antivirus, most machines are working fine.
     
  2. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    There are hundreds of millions of starving people in the world with a combined monthly income of $5, they can't buy a cup of coffee or software. When there is free software, it is very good, in the discussed case Macrium Reflect Free will last for years to come, but I condemn Macrium's refusal to support Free version. It would be better to raise the license price by $3 (I'm sure they wouldn't notice it in Seoul), and spend the proceeds to support the Free version.
     
  3. Oldie1950

    Oldie1950 Registered Member

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    Those hundreds of millions of starving users have a PC connected to the internet and need backup software? Your reasoning is simply absurd. Surely this part of the world's population has more urgent problems than free backup software.
     
  4. XIII

    XIII Registered Member

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    Thank you for posting that update Hadron!

    I’ll update Reflect today.

    Unfortunately, they only mention the (UI) monitor issue, but nothing about the more fundamental issue that all my incremental builds got borked by the previous update.
     
  5. aldist

    aldist Registered Member

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    It is absurd to think that only Deutschland has a computer and the Internet.
    Because of this, I'll hold off on upgrading for now.
     
  6. paulderdash

    paulderdash Registered Member

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    My comment was based on the following:
    The Free version would surely have been a feeder stream for consumer (non-business) sales.
    Probably their estimation is too many are benefiting from the Free version. But I suspect they could just as easily have less customer uptake / growth through fewer people even trying the product.
    The Free version allowed me to familiarise myself with the product (yes I know there is a Trial), then upgraded because of potential use of additional features (not really required in my case) and to support their excellent product.
    I doubt the Free version requires any additional development, it is just a stripped version.
    As I said, I have two paid licenses. I just use the Free version on my wife's machine.
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2022
  7. Adric

    Adric Registered Member

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  8. Oldie1950

    Oldie1950 Registered Member

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    My criticism of your explanations related exclusively to the "hundreds of millions of starving" computer users, where I actually assume other problems than the lack of free backup programs. Your remarks were a very emotional attack on the maker of Macrium Reflect, which I find inappropriate.
     
  9. Buddel

    Buddel Registered Member

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    Excellent post.:thumb: I wholeheartedly agree.
     
  10. EASTER

    EASTER Registered Member

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    Personally the timing of such an announcement so near to and before Christmas is plain disgusting.
    There are always much better ways to approach terminating a free product then this.
     
  11. stapp

    stapp Global Moderator

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    I have a credit card with a limit of just a couple of hundred pounds on it so if anyone manages to get the info off it from the web, they won't be able to buy much :)
    I use it for buying smaller items online.
    Went to Macrium to get the 50% off deal and Macrium have blocked credit cards from my bank at the moment. The bank don't know why, but say it's usually when they have been used fraudulently to buy from them.
    Not really willing to use my debit card for such a small purchase.
     
  12. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Proximity to Christmas is an issue here? And that makes this “disgusting”? Seriously?

    Macrium said that they won’t be providing any further non-security updates. It’s not like they reached into everyone’s PC and suddenly uninstalled it and then removed the installer from their site (not that either of those measures would have been effective). Reflect Free will continue to work for people, likely well into the future, just as Reflect V6 continues to work for many people. Being disappointed is totally understandable, but calling it “disgusting” and bringing Christmas into it seems over the top.
     
  13. Oldie1950

    Oldie1950 Registered Member

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    I fully agree with you!
     
  14. EASTER

    EASTER Registered Member

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    Sure raises a fuss when someone fluffs up with a little reason . Oh yeah, software company's are holy grail. If a user seems let down on a product with a company they came to favor, free or not, it's just tough luck. Or just business. Pffftttt
     
  15. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Being "let down with a company" is not the same as calling them "plain disgusting" for announcing a free product's EOL a month before Christmas.
     
  16. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    Although I have never been using Macrium Reflect free for my own backup/restore needs, I appreciate that they had provided this free version for so long and many people benefited from it. I think we should understand that their decision is to the best of their interest as a company for the future, be thankful and move on - either upgrade to MR paid version or turn to other free options such as Active@ Disk Image Lite and Paragon Backup and Recovery free.
     
  17. Antarctica

    Antarctica Registered Member

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    I have to agree with you also. I have a paid version of Macrium but on my wife computer I have installed the free version. I’m sure it will continue to work for many years, so nothing to complain really…
     
  18. noway

    noway Registered Member

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    I know most of you use v8 and the reasons why you would, but would like to hear from any users who have tried both V7 and V8 but have decided to stick with V7 (and what your reasons are).
     
  19. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Just as a data point, I remember “upgrade reluctance” being more of a factor when moving from V6 to V7, largely because V7 had a bit of a rocky start, as is fairly clear from its release notes for the early builds, which show a lot of significant bugs being fixed and updates arriving fairly frequently. Reflect V7 introduced two low-level persistently running background components (CBT and later MIG with 7.1), and both of those generated quite a few interoperability conflicts and other problems early on, which accounted for many of the early issues. But V7 has been around for almost 6 years now, and things are much better at this stage.

    By comparison, V8’s launch went quite a bit more smoothly. It probably helped that V8 didn’t introduce any new components like CBT/MIG, and V8 also had a private beta period that ended up lasting 5 months and resulted in many bugs getting squashed and many minor enhancements being implemented before the production release. And V8 added some new features that can be quite useful to those who need them and also redesigned several areas of the interface, which in my opinion made them much better. So I haven’t seen as many people stick to V7 over V8, at least for Reflect Free. There are certainly people running paid V7 who have decided that V8 doesn’t add anything to justify the upgrade cost for them.
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2022
  20. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    I concur with JP.

    I was very reluctant to move from v6 to v7 due to all the issues at the time. So, I held off for quite a long time.
    When v8 was released, I pretty much upgraded straight away.
    There were a few minor issues with v8 at the time, but nothing like early releases of v7 suffered from.
     
  21. noway

    noway Registered Member

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    jphughan and Hadron:

    Thanks for the advice. I feel comfortable now making the change.
     
  22. pegas

    pegas Registered Member

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    The initial build of v8 was released in May 2021 so does anyone have an idea of the v8 life span? I'm considering keeping the v8 free until v9 is released and then buying its Home version.
     
  23. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    Macrium’s policy is that a given major release is supported until a year after the next major release launches. There’s no word on when Reflect V9 will launch, but V8 would be covered until a year after that happened.
     
  24. pegas

    pegas Registered Member

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    OK, understood, thanks but I'm less interested in support than in new features and/or improvements. I assume that v9 will bring some of the said. So I would like to avoid buying v8 now if v9 would be just around the corner. Because if I'm not mistaken the v8 license won't cover v9, right?
     
  25. jphughan

    jphughan Registered Member

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    For Home, I think you only get a free upgrade if you buy a license within 90 days before the next release launches. For historical context, Reflect V6 lasted 2 years before V7 launched, and V7 lasted a little over 4 years before V8 launched. And right now it has been 1.5 years since V8 launched.
     
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