Macrium Reflect vs Acronis

sygnus21 said:

As to Acronis v Macrium.

I'll just say I've been using Acronis since 2007 and it hasn't failed me yet. Currently running ATI 2018, but will be moving to ATI 2021 soon.

That's me.

I had 1 license for ATI 2018 and 2 licenses for ATI 2017. ATI 2018 worked OK but ATI 2017 had a bug that really annoyed me. That prompted me to replace these by buying 3 license fors ATI 2021.

I enabled Automatic Cleanup in ATI 2017 but for some reason it would disable itself later. Automatic Cleanup is supposed to delete old backups when there is not enough space for the current backup. I only discovered that Automatic Cleanup had become disabled when the backups started to fail when the backup drive was full.

Hi folks
For Imaging / restoring Windows installations I can't fault Macrium Free. Either stand alone iso or running from within Windows. Even the Free version can often restore to dissimilar hardware although first boot might see Windows looking for drivers e.g video etc.

If you change the partition size while restoring an image or other things when restoring to dissimilar hardware then the target is obviously not an exact image of the original -- however IMO macrium starts with a proper image and applies the changes during the restore process. I suppose it really depends on your interpretation of correct English. However restoring an image to another HDD or even to the original one where no changes e.g drivers / partition sizes etc the image will be the same.

For data backup I backup to NAS using GRSYNC (GUI based version of the standard rsync program ) - and then keep another set offline.

Windows laptop / other Windows clients connects to NAS then on Nas I run this - there's loads of options in it. The Windows disk where data resides I have as /mnt/DV1 -- SAMBA can read / write ntfs files. Then select data and run.





For Disk cloning I boot up a live image of fedora spin KDE iso and simply use the DD command - no need to format anything on target device whether gpt efi or whatever.

simply : dd if=</dev/source> of=<dev/target> bs=2048M status=progress

Even those who hate command line could type that in !!!!!!

For partition manipulation I boot up live iso image of gparted. Works also with windows files - resize, shrink etc etc.

Interface is pretty standard -- no annoying websites to go to or urging people to "Go PRO" -- i.e pay !!!!



All incredibly simple to use programs and all 100% free -- no messy activation procedures and all 100% reliable - at least for me.

Superfly said:

Well I agree with TC - an altered "image" is not an an image - imagine taking a photo of someone and changing their nose and claiming it's an image of that person? No man, that's just wrong. Changes should be done after restore and a new image is then created.

The claim that a modified image is not an image is irrelevant. The concept of working with modified images dates all the way back to the 1970s in spite of the fact that the computer monkeys at Mickeysoft have waited so long to publish an article about it.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...age-using-dism

" bit-by-bit accurate "...........Macrium !!

" meant to say byte-for-byte "........any difference between a "bit "or a "byte "..?

Superfly said:

The point is restoration has to be bit-by-bit accurate - modifying images is irrelevant.

What makes you think restoration of modified images isn't bit-by-bit accurate? Also, what makes you think modifying images is irrelevant? FYI, Macrium Reflect does support file/folder exclusions, as it relies on the VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service) of Windows.
How to exclude files from Disk Images and Clones - KnowledgeBase v7.2 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase - KnowledgeBase v7.2 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...-to-save-space

With Acronis True Image, using the VSS is optional. Whereas Macrium Reflect forces me to use the VSS. In addition to this, with Acronis True Image, I don't have to futz around with the Windows registry to be able to specify file/folder exclusions. Whereas Macrium Reflect forces me to futz around with the Windows registry, which I can not do when I am using the WinRE environment to create my image file. Also in addition to this, with Acronis True Image, I can choose to create an image of my Windows partition in such a particular way that, during the image creation process, the image file will be written into a folder that is located on this same Windows partition so that I can always decide to move the image file to a different storage device at a later time. Whereas with Macrium Reflect, if I try to do that, then what happens next is that it just throws a 'well engineered' error message.