Macrium Reflect vs Acronis

Fabler2 and Bree, thanks. I used the Macrium Reflect7 'Home' Rescue Media USB drive to load the program pre-windows and cloned a data drive with 4 partitions as a backup (I'll probably play with imaging files this week).
I have not yet taken the original data drive out and replaced it with the copy, just used an Apricorn USB-to-SATA cable to connect the SSD clone and saw that the drive names were all changed to next available letters (but the data was all there in each of the partitions). If I had simply shut down the system and replaced with the clone, would they show the same drive letters (partition letters) as the original? Because when I clone the system disk and do that, it is always the C:\ drive.

cereberus said:

1. Macrium Reflect will image Linux drives if you boot from a Reflect Winpe Rescue Drive.

I hope you are making this statement because you have personally imaged and restored Linux and not just going by claims on Macrium's website. I tested Macrium Reflect 7 WinPE10 and Linux rescue media. As I stated, neither Mint nor Lubuntu would boot. In fact, all the imaging products I tested including ATI make the same claim but in practice only Clonezilla worked.

cereberus said:

2. With Macrium Reflect, you can create a boot entry to it when installed on C drive. This is independent of the boot wntry for booting windows, so even if drive fails to boot, the pc will still boot into Macrium Reflect UNLESS the hard drive has failed or is so badly corrupted, the pc cannot boot to Macrium Reflect either. For majority of cases, you do nit need a usb drive. You still need it in case drives does fail or becomes badly corrupted.

Forget about installing another Windows OS on that drive, you will have to use Macrium to re-create the boot entry since MS doesn't play well with other boot managers.

cereberus said:

3. With Reflect installed on C drive, it has extra features like scheduled backups.You can also use pc whilst it is being backed up (but best to avoid changing too much).

You just gave the best reason for not imaging your drive while it is in use - some changes won't be saved and in my testing is much slower than backing up with rescue media (forget gaming or converting videos while a scheduled backup starts). If you need scheduled backups then you have no choice. I do mine manually.

The other annoying thing is they all install background processes that often can't be terminated (I hated the constant Macrium nag about a new version being available. Only way to get rid of it was un-installing Macrium and just use rescue media).

cereberus said:

The days when you had to boot from an inferior linux drive to do backup and restores are years out of date (at least a decade or thereabouts).

I didn't realize all the 'cool kids' considered linux rescue media years out of date and quite frankly, don't care.

Backing up and restoring from rescue media is faster. It will work even if your hard drive's boot sector becomes corrupt. No unnecessary background processes and complete indifference to any malware.

Thanks to everyone for suggestions to my annoying requests . I am now a Macrium Reflect Rescue Media Cloner! Cloned 3 different computers (full drive backups) and also my office and home PC data drives (separately) using the USB dongle (hate this little itty bity ones, that are 1/2-inch long, can barely grip them hard enough to pull them out). I wish the various bios companies would standardize the boot key commands for boot drive.... HP Z620 PC is F9, my office PC (self-built/Gigabyte MB) is F12, and my home PC (self built/ASUS MB) is something else I think. I like this method, selecting the boot device (Sandisk USB rescue media) without having to change the boot order, so afterwards (after cloning), you pull it out and it reverts to the normal boot order.

The only thing I'm missing here, that I liked in the Acronis Bootable Rescue Media is, I don't see that the Macrium Reflect Rescue Media has a setting to shut down after doing the cloning, I really like that but don't see a selection for that?

cereberus said:

Jeez - what an uninformed set of replies, and somewhat insulting at that.


1. Of course I have backed up Linux drives with Reflect. I would not bloody suggest it if I had not bloody done it myself.

2. You are talking nonsense about MS not booting with Macrium. Works fine even using grub based bootloaders IF you know what you are doing.

3. I never said anything about it not working properly when using it in Window. Google VSS and learn!

I just meant it would not backup changes you make whilst making a backup.

3. Just turn off option to check for updates. Stupid thing to do really.

4. Linux media for Windows imaging tools IS years out of date. I don't give a damn if you want to use Linux tools.

5. It is bullshit that backing up from testoring media is faster. It makes virtually no difference these days unless of course you do something disk intensive at same time. Even then with ssds, difference is minimal.

If you want to live in last decade, feel free but for crying put loud, don't pretend you are an expert and know what you are talking about.

PS re.cool kid, ask my granddaughter who is about to get married LOL.

Hi there

100% Correct !!!!!

I do sometimes wonder whether people have actually done things themselves to prove whether it works or not rather than just "filching comment from Google / other places on the Internet".

As a big user of Linux I can say categorically Macrium will clone Linux formatted drives -- and restore - without any problems -- although it will take longer than cloning Windows drives or using the native Linux DD command.

I do though @cereberus disagree with your point (4) about cloning Windows Drives from Linux -- DD works perfectly, efficiently 100% of the time - you have to boot a Linux Distro or run from a Linux Host though.

Nothing in this post suggests I don't like or won't use Macrium of course -- IMO it's always good to have more tools in your armoury whatever the problem !!!.

Cheers
jimbo

I have Acronis True Image 2018 (perpetual) (1-license) and Acronis True Image 2017 (perpetual) (2-licenses). I got a good deal for Acronis True Image 2021 (perpetual) (3-license) bundle so I bought it. I had no problem with ATI 2018 but ATI 2017 had an annoying bug. Scheduled backups have an Automatic Cleanup option. I always enabled this because if the backup disk was full ATI would make room by deleting old backups. ATI 2017 would randomly turn it off after I turned it on. I would not know it until backups failed because of a full backup disk. Acronis support was no help with this bug.

Acronis like a lot of other companies have gone to a subscription model for their products. You can still buy it without a subscription but they hide that (perpetual) option at the bottom of the page.

Macrium Software also has a subscription model for their products. The biggest difference between it and Acronis is that Macrium subscription products once purchased will continue to work if the subscription is not renewed while Acronis products don't.

MisterEd said:

Macrium Software also has a subscription model for their products. The biggest difference between it and Acronis is that Macrium subscription products once purchased will continue to work if the subscription is not renewed while Acronis products don't.

To be strictly accurate, it is just the support that is available on an annual subscription for Macrium's Business customers. The product licence is perpetual. Business customers with current support will get a free upgrade from v7 to v8 when it is released.

• For all new licenses and upgrades Free Standard Support and Maintenance is included for the first 12 months
• All customers with valid support will receive maintenance releases as they become available
• The Premium business support option is available as an upgrade product from our price list
• Support and Maintenance for Workstation, Server and Server Plus editions is renewable after 12 months
• Macrium Reflect Home Edition includes 12 months Essentials support. It is non-renewable

How is it Licensed?

The license for all but the Technicians License, is per installation. It is a perpetual license with the first year of Home Essentials (for Home users) or Support and Maintenance Subscription (for Business users) included.

Macrium Software | Buyers Guide

fireberd said:

I used to use Acronis True Image. It failed me twice and it didn't get a third chance. Even the Linux recovery disc wouldn't work in one PC I had. As noted later versions became bloatware with apps other than the backup/recovery.

I've used Macrium Reflect since dumping Acronis and it has worked well for me. Macrium is the only software that I was able to successfully do a clone with.

I'm a bit late to the party, but I have had the same experience with Acronis. No sooner did I pay for the product mid year than they started prompting me to upgrade to the new version. I also noticed in the help forums focus on the "newest and improved" versions and often comment to users that they should upgrade as they concentrate support on newest versions. I was orphaned right out of the gate.

I also just noticed that it just missed another differential backup. The computer might have been turned off when it was time to run, but I had checked "run missed operations when an external device is connected" and it didn't backup like it was supposed to. Acronis has some nice features, but it is little convoluted and, in my case, unreliable.