Macrium Reflect

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

  1. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2009
    Posts:
    1,676
    Location:
    USA
    You can actually set the backup to run during daytime, even when you are using the PC. Macrium has a priority setting that goes from Highest to Lowest in four steps:

    1-(Highest): High
    2-: Above Normal
    3-: Normal
    4-(Lowest): Below Normal

    If you slide it down to 4, your backup task will be run with below normal priority and your system load will be so low that you will not even notice when the task started and when it finished.
     
  2. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2009
    Posts:
    1,676
    Location:
    USA
    Also check if you have the "auto verify image" setting turned on in Macrium. That will result in an increase in the time to complete an image. Check the log of the increment that took 46 minutes, if this setting was turned on.
     
  3. beethoven

    beethoven Registered Member

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2004
    Posts:
    1,386
    I normally stop doing anything when the backups are running or schedule them in a way to be at quiet periods but mainly because i wonder if any activity at the time may cause problems with the images. So I take it that is not really any concern?
     
  4. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2009
    Posts:
    1,676
    Location:
    USA
    There is absolutely no concern or problems with using your PC while Macrium runs its backup tasks. The only issue will be that with a low priority set, Macrium backup task will take longer to complete, if you are using your system at the same time. Just yesterday, I was playing Halo 2 on my PC and Macrium started and finished its backup task in the background and I did not even notice. Granted Halo 2 is a 2003 game, but my PC is from circa 2007, and for it Halo 2 is a considerably demanding game.

    You absolutely do not need to stop working on your PC when Macrium's backup task is running, as Macrium is designed to work seamlessly in the background, and doing so defeats the purpose of a live (hot) backup.
     
  5. beethoven

    beethoven Registered Member

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2004
    Posts:
    1,386
    thanks Raza
     
  6. dagrev

    dagrev Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 9, 2012
    Posts:
    214
    Location:
    USA
    Must have been the defrag being unknowingly back on. Snap this morning was only 545 Mb (smallest ever) and a normal time of 2:34. Might be good to go now.
     
  7. pling_man

    pling_man Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 11, 2010
    Posts:
    599
    Location:
    UK
    I like to do my full backups when I am away from the PC (drinking tea!) but I sometimes carry on using it during daily incremental backups.
    I have tried to run one of my backup schedules by booting into my recovery disc (so Windows is inactive), but I found that my backup schedules were not visible.
     
  8. TonyW

    TonyW Registered Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2005
    Posts:
    2,741
    Location:
    UK
    Reading the discussion above with dagrev, I'm wondering if automatic defrag should actually be turned off when using programs like Macrium. Windows 10 defrag is set to run automatically once a week on my machine, but incrementals are still small in size and nothing like the ones dagrev was seeing. My last incremental size is 558MB and the one before that was 314MB.
     
  9. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2011
    Posts:
    4,915
    Location:
    The Pond - USA
    Tony, any application which records disk surface changes (almost any imaging program, snapshot program <Rollback RX>, etc.) will have its "incremental" (and DIFFERENTIAL if available) capability affected by HDD defragmentation. They will always work just fine but will create excessive sizes along the way.

    One of the better approaches to this, if using scheduled imaging, is to DISABLE HDD defragmentation until just before the "scheduled" FULL image, then run a manual defrag prior to the image. This can probably be done easily using the built-in Windows task schedukling system or its scheduled defragmentation capability directly. If all you're doing is running a single FULL followed relentless INCs... this approach is not very effective.
     
  10. TonyW

    TonyW Registered Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2005
    Posts:
    2,741
    Location:
    UK
    I currently don't do scheduled imaging. I just run an incremental image at the end of the day before finishing use of the computer for that day. I was only trying to correlate the large sizes dagrev was seeing considering the discovery defrag was turned back on against the fact I have it on and set to do this weekly but with resulting image sizes nowhere near as high as dagrev's were.
     
  11. dagrev

    dagrev Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 9, 2012
    Posts:
    214
    Location:
    USA
    Tony you may have thought of this but the amount of data you have compared to what I have may differ significantly and account for more frag "changes." I'm currently using 246Gb on the HDD. (I know some only have the minimum on the HDD and keep a lot of data on other drives or partitions.) If you have a lot less that might explain it some.
     
  12. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2009
    Posts:
    1,676
    Location:
    USA
    Backup schedules are not visible in the Macrium Recovery Environment because when you are in the RE, you are actually booted into a separate WinPE OS, independent of your installed OS. The WinPE based RE is designed to work independently, so it does not have access to Macrium files installed on the OS. For example, you can use Macrium WinPE RE to backup a system that does not have Macrium actually installed on it. This is why the RE does not have any access to the backup schedules or logs that are created by Macrium from within the installed OS.

    Recently I also encountered a similar situation, where I was looking for my system partition's restore logs in Macrium logs, but there were none. I posted this here, Post#2642 on this thread, but to-date nobody has responded. I might have been mistaken about these logs in v5 and therefore I reached the above conclusion that Macrium RE does not interact with the installed version Macrium on your PC. The surprising thing is that Macrium RE does sometimes leave a log file on your C drive, so if it can leave that log, why not leave the restore log somewhere and make it accessible to the installed Macrium?
     
  13. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 20, 2003
    Posts:
    20,590
    Hi Froggie

    Interesting. I've always done it this way myself, but recently I got curious about a PerfectDisk feature they call Optiwrite. Never had used it, as the idea was prevent the disk from being fragmented. I've turned it on to see how it works, and it's kinda cool. Also I haven't noticed any significant difference in either my incrementals or differentials.

    Pete
     
  14. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2011
    Posts:
    4,915
    Location:
    The Pond - USA
    The OptiWrite fragmentation prevention feature detects when Windows is going to fragment files as they're being written and intelligently redirects I/O to stop the fragmentation from occurring. It's a very useful feature for HDDs.

    This type of pro-active defragging will never be noticed between INCs with Macrium... it'll just look like normal file additions/changes from INC to INC.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2015
  15. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2009
    Posts:
    1,676
    Location:
    USA
    ^Optiwrite is a driver that intercepts disk writes and guides them to a location on the disk that can accommodate the complete file in one fragment. Thus it greatly reduces fragmentation. However it does increase free space fragmentation because small gaps are left between files. These gaps are removed during the automatic defragmentation cycle.

    What you will notice with Optiwrite is that you will have less fragmentation on your disk, requiring less use of the automatic defrag engine, so your increments will be small. However, when the auto degfrag does run, the next increment is going to be significantly big, because the defrag has to remove the small free space gaps from between files.
     
  16. n8chavez

    n8chavez Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jul 19, 2003
    Posts:
    3,334
    Location:
    Location Unknown
    Does anyone know if it's possible to add the retail version of Macrium reflect to a custom PE disc, assuming one has purchased a license for it? I know you can create a disc with the free version of macrium reflect using a created plugin. That works really well. However, the free version doesn't have all the abilities of the retail, such as RDR and hardware independent restore. I'd rather have a disc that has the retail version, since I paid for those features.

    (The custom PE disc created by winbuilder and the plugin are different that the standard one created by macrium itself. This way allows for greater functionality, where macrium is just one aspect of the PE.)
     
  17. Matt Cole

    Matt Cole Registered Member

    Joined:
    Sep 17, 2015
    Posts:
    32
    Hello All

    Totally new to Macrium and not very techy. I've been re-directed to this thread by TheRollBackFrog (many thanks) and am asking some very basic questions. I hope you can bear with me. I will try to keep them short and to the point....:Though I can see now I've finished that there's fair bit of text there, so apologies for that....

    1. V6Free and Windows 7 issues? I am about to download V6 Free version to replace the V5 I have on TRBF's advice. I see though that V6 is compatible with Windows 10. I am running 7 Pro 64 bit ( and wd really rather stick with it). is this going to cause me problems? I can see for example that V6 is listed as having a WinPE 5 Rescue environment:

    http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

    when ( I think) WinPE 3.1 is what I should be using for Windows 7....?

    2. RAID issues? - I have 2 disks on my PC set up in a RAID formation. I am kind of guessing that this is not a problem for Macrium and that come the day when I actually have to use it to reload the disk image to (a) blank disc(s) after a failure that it will be able to handle it? What do i need to know / do with set up of Rescue Media (and / or anything else) to make sure I've got the RAID angle covered? Sorry for the vagueness of this question.

    3. Creating Rescue Media - I found this (2 year old) video on YouTube from Macrium explaining how to create my rescue Media

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9O5Rhv42JE

    My question is - will these steps work for me with the free version? Ie working straight out of the Macrium interface? Or will I need an idependent app or something to help me make the Rescue Media?

    I ask this partly because on the Macrium site I can see that there appears to be a step in the 'Create Windows PE rescue environment' process that does not come with the free version (Step 3 on the link below).

    Basically 'The Rescue Media Driver page will be shown' (Step 3) comes with a blue information icon saying 'Applies to: Standard, Porfessional and Server Editions of Macrium Reflect only'. I assume this means this doesn't come with the free version. Is this a problem? To what extent? Does it mean that this the process on the YouTube link above does NOT work for the free version?

    http://www.macrium.com/help/v5/How_to/Rescue/Create_a_Standard_Windows_PE_Rescue_Environment.htm
     
  18. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2011
    Posts:
    4,915
    Location:
    The Pond - USA
    Boy... yer busy this morning :D

    Your questions...

    1. The installed v6 works fine with all versions of Windows and is now fully compatible with Windows 10.

    V6 can create a Rescue Media environment using any of the offered WinPEs from Microsoft. That environment is only used to run the Rescue version of Reflect, it has nothing to do with the Operating System being rescued (imaged/restored). Although WinPE v3.1 is Windows 7-based, it is recommended that you build your rescue media using the newest version (v5.1, I believe) due to the fact that it has superior updated Driver capability in relation to the other versions.

    2. Yea, the question is a bit vague and I'm currently not a RAID user so I offer no answer. To my limited knowledge, RAID is really not an issue for image restorations, but maybe this on-line Manual may help provide some answers (haven't read it cover to cover yet).

    3. Throw the video out (when using v6 for Rescue Media creation). V6 has an option built in which allows you to select which version of the PE to use (as I mentioned earlier, I would use v5+), it then downloads from MicroSloth, automatically, only the files it needs to create the Rescue Media. This all done from within the Reflect application. It will then either "burn" your selected media (UFD or CD/DVD) or create an ISO that you can squirrel away and burn yourself. Along the way if offers to add any "special" drivers you may require (RAID?) but usually adds all it needs to do the job automatically. You should experiment to see if it gathers everything it needs to do the job without you having to specify any special drivers.
     
  19. Matt Cole

    Matt Cole Registered Member

    Joined:
    Sep 17, 2015
    Posts:
    32
    Ha ha yes I am....need to make use of the time allotted to a specific task as soon enough I'll be forced to focus on something else.

    Thanks so much for all this, very helpful indeed. I will check out the manual re the RAID situation.
     
  20. dagrev

    dagrev Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 9, 2012
    Posts:
    214
    Location:
    USA
    Better on the time for the snapshot this morning (post turning off defrag).

    Unrelated: It seems from my searching you can change the name of a snap but I haven't actually seen how. I would like to change the names at times to reflect an event. Can this be done after the snap is taken? If so how? Thanks!
     
  21. Matt Cole

    Matt Cole Registered Member

    Joined:
    Sep 17, 2015
    Posts:
    32
    Right...on a mission here :)

    If anyone has experience with RAID and Macrium I'd be very grateful...

    1. Have checked the Manual re RAID and found that Macrium are very confident that it can handle all RAID configurations. However the sticking point is the RAID drivers / controllers. They only support some ("notably Intel Matrix and NVidia RAID"). I checked my RAID controller through my computer manager and found it be Intel, though I've no idea if it's matrix or not (Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO SATA RAID CONTROLLER is what is listed)

    http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW/Macrium Reflect and RAID systems

    2. Have created a Rescue Media on a USB drive. This driver - along with some others - was detected by the Macrium (free version 6). Can I take it from that that my my WinPE environment / Rescue Media DOES support the relevant RAID driver?? If i was to test a boot frmo the USB stick with the wrong RAID driver am I not risking problems?
     
  22. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2011
    Posts:
    4,915
    Location:
    The Pond - USA
    Hi again Matt :rolleyes:

    1. If you're using an Intel RAID controller, most of what I've read along the way says it'll work just fine.

    2. If it showed you your RAID driver during the PE build (with other non-standard things it might have found), that means it has gathered it up from your LIVE system and is including it in the PE. You can easily BOOT from that stick and see if Macrium sees your RAID setup. If you don't do anything but look, you can't hurt anything even if the driver isn't there.

    Give it a go, Mate! (sounding like Brian_K here :D )
     
  23. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2011
    Posts:
    4,915
    Location:
    The Pond - USA
    If you're using a DEFINITION for automatic snaps, the name cannot be changed except in the definition itself... and that name will be used for any scheduled snap using that definition.

    BUT... if you're doing MANUAL snaps, you can use the "Prompt" function, select the snap type (FULL, DIFF or INC) and add a comment. This comment can be seen in the RESTORE TAB when looking at your saved images. I use this feature all the time when doing specialized MANUAL snaps... very useful.
     
  24. dagrev

    dagrev Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 9, 2012
    Posts:
    214
    Location:
    USA
    Thanks Froggie! You da man! I mean Frog!
     
  25. Palancar

    Palancar Registered Member

    Joined:
    Oct 26, 2011
    Posts:
    2,402
    I suspect others here know this but Macrium v5 Pro is also compatible with Win 10. I received an update about a month ago or so that included Win 10 full support. I have done a few full recovery tests on a few system disks and they all performed without any glitches.

    I also get to decide on whether to create the 3.X, 4.X, or 5.X PE environments for my recovery media. Its all good for my needs.
     
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.