Should I settle on Acronis True Image (paid version) or Macrium?

Hi folks

I think majority here is for Macrium -- and service excellent as was shown when it had a defect in an Ms Skip ahead ("Skippy") release. They fixed the problem (over a weekend too) very quickly indeed and this wasn't even for a publicly available Windows release from Ms. !!

However whatever you use -- even File explorer -- is always better than no backup !!! you can guarantee even if you haven't needed backups for years that the one time you really need one you won't have one if you don't backup regularly.

Cheers
jimbo

cereberus said:

Or better, never install that garbage in the first place!

You have to install it to realise what garbage you have on your hands!

cereberus said:

Or better, never install that garbage in the first place!

It is about imaging ... and Macrium Reflect Free.

As for backup of files (included in the MR paid version) one may need to consider that MR is storing the files into 1 backup file.

No doubt this has its pro's.

However, personally, I prefer files be backed up as single files, so I can easily access them with Explorer or the like.
I don't need to mount a backup-file first and also I don't have to depend on 3rd party software (MR), i.e. I don't MR installed
to restore a file.

It is just a matter of preference and consideration before buying Macrium Reflect.

Just my 2 cents.

For a system drive, you need an imaging application. Copying system files to another drive is pointless.

But if you want to back up your personal data then you can't beat Bvckup 2. And it backs up in seconds. This post should explain it fairly good.

Hi folks

Backing up user data is another issue -- there are plenty of ways to deal with that too -- depending on the volume, frequency of change (for example I'd imagine if you have music that data rarely changes), and security requirements of the data you could use things like backup to NAS, the cloud, manually back up with file explorer / robocopy etc to external HDD's etc.

I just send data daily to NAS - changed files are automatically updated on the NAS (I schedule an rsync job -- built in Linux command that backs things up -- free and works every time) and once a week I copy any changed files from NAS to an external USB3 HDD.

Whatever you use it's worth just rubbing home the point that people should always take backups regularly of both their system (Image the OS is the quickest and best way -- keep user data away from OS -- e.g music, photos, videos, office docs etc and have on separate HDD's /partitions) and their user data.

There's no point in imaging say 2TB of a music disc -- just back it up initially and then copy the changes which in the case of music is likely to be new files.

Incidentally NAS users -- you should backup data on those too -- I know they rarely fail but HDD's can and do go defective --these days fortunately rarely. Large capacity external HDD's are cheap enough -- depending on the sort of data you have -- I'd hate to re-rip 1000's of CD's again (assuming I could even find them and would they still play !!) or re-source loads of videos etc.

Cheers
jimbo