AOMEI vs Macrium Reflect with BitLocker Encrypted drives

Recently, I came across what I believe to be an unfortunate design limitation of AOMEI Backupper that seals the deal (IMHO) that Macrium overall is truly is the way to go. Out of curiosity, I recently decided to use AOMEI to backup my Win10 Pro BitLocker encrypted drive (for testing purposes as MReflect is my main solution), and was taken a back by how huge the "compressed" file was.

I have a 500GB NVMe drive (465GB after format) that's currently at 48% utilization & my full MReflect backups with default compression settings are 140-150GB in size. So imagine my surprise when my first full backup with AOMEI on the same drive created a 399GB file! Ofcourse I immediately checked my settings, and all was in order -- intelligent backup was selected & compression was at the default medium. I then adjusted the settings for max compression & that shaved off a whopping 10GB.

Upon further research, it turns out AOMEI isn't able to backup an encrypted BitLocker drive (even when running inside the OS) via intelligent sector copy and defaults to "sector by sector" copy regardless of the user's settings. I confirmed the info on their forum here, here & here.

Seems like a lazy limitation if you ask me as Macrium doesn't seem to have such issues as long as it's ran inside the OS. An AOMEI representative recommended one decrypts their drive (not suspend) and encrypts after backup as a work around.

Good feedback. AOMEI is ok as a basic tool, but it just does not match MR for its full range of features and flexibility.

The main thing AOMEI has going for it is incremental backups which are not in free version of MR, but differential backups are fine for most average users.

jmsnyc said:

The other thing not free in Macrium is password protecting a backup, so the issue is , backing up an encrypted drive using Intelligent Sector Copy will leave the backup unprotected. The workaround is to place the backup in a 7zip password file when finished but that just introduces a manual step and more risk something could go wrong. I have no objection to paying for Macrium but I consider it expensive @ $70 for individual use on a single pc (at least let me use it on my personal desktop and laptop, IMO $30 would be fair for 2 pcs

There are other features in the paid version that make it well worth paying the money.

The best feature is Rapid Delta Restore - when you restore an image with same version on pc, it compares backup with existing install and only restores parts that have changed. This is often incredibly quick eg 2 minutes compared with time to do a full restore.

It has Macrium Image Guardian to prevennt malware attacking image.

Another great feature is Redeploy alliwing images to be redeployed to different hardware. W10 is good at this but not perfect.

Finally, the ability to mount images in hyoer-v (free version as well) sets it aside from all the rest.

Still in the end, it is your choice. One thing is for sure - using no image backuo tool is a bad plan.

jimbo45 said:

For data files I transmit daily to a NAS (Linux based) server - rsync job updates changed / new files simply -- If the file has changed I just copy the new one -- and the new files are copied to a new directory 5 times a week so I have up to 5 versions of changed files. Simple script and CRON job.
Cheers
jimbo

Sound like a resilient backup strategy. Might implement something like that in the future -- especially like the "5 versions of change files" aspect of it as well.

jimbo45 said:

Hi folks

to support MR I upgraded from Free version -- this was because those of you using Skip Ahead build had an issue with MR not working properly -- the guys over at Macrium fixed it very quickly (and over a weekend !!!) -- so for customer service I could best show my appereciation by buying the paid version even though I don't really need the extra features !!.

I don't bother though with Incrementals or differentials -- imaging the whole OS doesn't take long - especially if backed up to ssd's.

For data files I transmit daily to a NAS (Linux based) server - rsync job updates changed / new files simply -- If the file has changed I just copy the new one -- and the new files are copied to a new directory 5 times a week so I have up to 5 versions of changed files. Simple script and CRON job.

Cheers
jimbo

MR Home is worth it for Rapid Delta Restore alone.