Macrium Reflect

If V8 Free works for you, that’s fantastic. It’s a solid piece of software. But even within the V8 family, the paid versions always offered a lot of features over Reflect Free that are valuable to many. And Reflect X offers even more.

If you’re genuinely curious, you could go to the Macrium website or the Macrium Knowledgebase’s “What’s New in Reflect X” page to find the answer, rather than just hoping someone else will use some of their time to save some of your effort. Maybe you’ll realize you didn’t even know what you’ve been missing out on. Or maybe that will further affirm your viewpoint that Reflect V8 Free does everything you need and want. Either outcome would be perfectly fine.

 

Exactly! I did that myself and came to the conclusion that the older V8 still meets all my simple needs. Especially now that it has gone to a rental type of software with a hefty annual price tag. It's intended more for corporate use now, not home users.

 

If you are imaging both to and from a NVME and you previously bought version 8, meaning you're eligible for the upgrade discount, I would suggest you get the upgrade to version ten. It is good. But if you don't meet those two things I'd say move on from Macrium. Maybe try Hasleo or, better yet, buy Terabyte's IFW.

 

Version 8 seems to work fine with nvme drives. I'm wondering if it has some hidden problem I've not encountered yet.

 

I don’t know of any NVMe issues with V8. The last NVMe-specific fix I remember was a V7 update in 2018 to improve ReDeploy’s handling of migrating a Windows installation from a non-NVMe device to an NVMe device.

However, Version 8.1 updated the imaging engine to increase its performance by adding multi-threading support. It doesn’t make a difference when the storage devices are the bottleneck, but in NVMe to NVMe scenarios, Reflect was the bottleneck, so it can make a difference there.

Then Reflect X updated the compression algorithm for both better performance and smaller files, the latter of which effectively improves performance even further since there’s less data to write in the first place. If memory serves, in my NVMe to NVMe test that used the same physical device as both source and destination, Reflect X created a Full backup that was about 35% smaller than 8.1, and did it almost 3x faster. The source data size was virtually identical in those two tests.

 

One of these days support for Reflect 8 will stop:

How long will you continue to support Reflect 8?
As with our previous releases, we will continue to support Reflect 8 with system-critical updates and fixes for one year after the release of Reflect X - October 2025. However, we recommend moving to Reflect X for the most secure and up-to-date version.
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https://www.macrium.com/reflect-x/faq

 

Studying backup/recovery programs is a hobby of mine, one of my many. (Most of the others are outside in the sunshine and fresh air and not in front of a computer screen.)
Acadia

 

Thanks. It's good to know V8 is still good with nvme.

V10 sounds very nice, but it's too rich for my blood. I'll stick with V8 as long as it's still working, then switch to something else when Paramount (or Microsoft) finally kills it.

 

How can I put Macrium Reflect v8.1 on an USB Flash Drive WITH WinPE and generic display drivers?

 

Open Rescue Media Builder, go to Advanced > Choose Base WIM, select the desired WinPE version, and click OK. Then choose your USB flash drive as the target inside the list and click Build.

Generic display drivers are built into WinPE, but if you experience very low resolution, go back to Rescue Media Builder, click Advanced, and check the option to use the legacy bootloader. Some systems with incorrect implementations of the UEFI GOP (Graphics Output Protocol) work better on the WinPE 5 bootloader, which can be incorporated into a newer WinPE Base WIM with no adverse effects — which is what that option does.

 

@stapp Thanks for the info. Where do I find 'an exclusive 50% off for life when you upgrade to Macrium Reflect X' link?

 

They are probably rolling out in the UK first. If they offer similar in the US it will be different currency so it won't be the same email if it comes at all.

 

They're dangling the carrot.

 

Interesting. Thank you for sharing. I wonder if you could just buy a new license without upgrading a from an old version. If they made this offer to me and IF I chose to accept, I'd either need a new license (preferred) or would need to be able to upgrade a v7 license. It would be a pain to upgrade a v7 license though because of my current usage pattern of licenses.

I also wonder if the "for life" expires as soon as you don't renew a license, like their initial 50% off for life offer to v8 holders when they released vX. I mean, where you lose the 50% off for life if you don't keep your subscription active for any period of time.

If the 50% off did not disappear if one didn't renew a subscription for a period of time and if I could get a new license at this price (or maybe even upgrade from a v7 license) I MIGHT give in and go for a vX license. As I've posted before (maybe in the Hasleo forum, I can't remember) I am NOT happy with Macrium though. Between that and having just dumped around US $80 for a lifetime perpetual 5 pack of licenses for Hasleo Backup Suite Pro (HBS) - it's unlikely. Plus, I just did some major renovations switching to a different PC using HBS and it worked just fine. It might be nice to have a MR license in my back pocket as a backup though.