Macrium Reflect vs Acronis

RTurnock said:

I have had horrible experience with Acronis. It took weeks for them to admit that you can't restore a differential without every differential from the full to the present...

...Moving the backup through the Acronis True Image console is not possible. They have been telling customers never to move a backup set in explorer only ever with the console, now they say not to use the console....

Renaming local backups is not possible. It sounds trivial but when you set up a new configuration it chooses the name and if you forget to edit it, you're done....

The backup mounting option is not present for the new backup format.......

You can do (and I have done) all of the above in Macrium Reflect Free.

.....I'm going to get a trial of Macrium and try it.

I don't think you'll regret it. The Free version should do everything you need, including differentials. The Trial/paid-for version adds Incrementals (smaller than Differentials, but you will need all intervening Incrementals).

Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free

In addition, if you have W10 Pro with Hyper-V you can boot a Macrium image as a virtual machine (even in Free).

Macrium viBoot - Create Virtual Machine using Macrium Image

We previously used Acronis, but it was not reliable enough. This may have changed - I don't know. Macrium has never failed us and it's a lot less expensive and well supported.

I have used Acronis for, uhm, well 10+ years and started having problems with the new versions that involve Live Cloning (or whatever it's called). Let me explain my cloning needs: I simply clone a copy of my OS drive (c:) and my data drive (d:, e:, f: partitions) to keep in case I have a problem with the in-case drives (I just keep these SSD copies in my drawer and do it monthly). I used to clone without problems for years. Now I'm getting stalled out and not being able to clone a number of times (with Acronis). I clone using a USB-to-Sata cable (Apricorn, love this thing). The old versions that I had no problem with all would require a reboot to do the cloning and it would do it in a pre-windows shell environment. The recent versions do it from within windows (live cloning, whatever they call it?). When I inquired with Acronis, they said to try the Bootable Media method that puts it on a bootable usb. I've tried that and had problems cloning on 3 different computers. I've tried Samsung data migration but it only works on OS drives, not data drives and had problem with non-Samsung drives. So, the PC I've had a problem with trying to clone with Acronis, I just downloaded the Home (30 day trial?) version (is it any better than free?) and cloned easily (I even switched out the drives afterwards, and the clone started up just like the original). So I'm leaning towards Macrium now.

Hi folks
I like most of the others here agree with using Macrium rather than Acronis -- gave that up years ago I think when migrating from XP to Win 7.

I've got the paid version - bought mainly because of the excellent customer service --it's been a while now but back when Ms started rolling out the fast / slow rings etc Macrium staff worked over a weekend to fix a nasty problem whereby backups failed on the new W10 release - even though this was not a standard Windows release but a beta or even Alpha version.

As I backup data to a NAS linux server I use rsync so I don't really use any of the paid features in Macrium but regularly of course take Windows system images - product works absolutely fine for this.

For Cloning disks -- I just use any Linux live distro (or even a VM) and simply use the DD command - no formatting of target disk required but for those who want to stick to Windows Macrium can clone any type of Disk too -- if it's not a Windows Disk though it will take longer.

Most people probably won't need the paid version but in any case Macrium is Galaxies ahead of Acronis these days. And reliable.

BTW for people trying for the first time (and others should test again occasionally) do TEST that backups made are actually restorable !!!! - It's all very well seeing on your Machine the words "Backup completed successfully" but it's no good if the restore fails. !! Do also make the stand alone bootable recovery media and for critical data it's always sensible to have TWO copies of a backup. (Macrium image backups can be mounted - even in the Free version and browsed also in File explorer so individual files if necessary can be copied again).

Cheers
jimbo

Absolutely, I always try my cloned backups afterwards (pull out the original and replace with the cloned drive). And I know that you can't boot up with both drives connected or it will designated different drive letters to the 2nd drive. When I tried the cloned drive on my most recent Acronis clone attempt, it didn't boot up :-O. That was it, too many problems with Acronis lately when I never had any problems for years with that program. To be honest, the 'many years' I had no problem with Acronis were mostly all MBR legacy bios drive clones. Only since venturing into UEFI bios have I had this problem with Acronis.

Haha, 2 copies of backup. You must be reading my mind I just purchased a 2nd backup SSD for my C:drive/OS (500 Gb Samsung) and another for my data drives (1 Tb Samsung) because as I was cloning them, I realized, I have to use the backup to re-clone (delete the drive contents)....if something should happen during this process, I'm screwed. So I figured, I'll have a 3rd disk....2 backups, one recent, one older, and I'll reformat the older one and clone onto a clean drive. I never like having a 2nd bootable drive connected, even if it's by USB-to-Sata connector and supposedly Windows doesn't boot from a USB drive. I had problems with Acronis where I would have the clone copy drive (fully functional from prior cloning) connected via USB-to-Sata cable (Apricorn) and when Acronis would restart to do it from a pre-windows environment, it would have trouble starting the clone operation unless I pulled the cable out of the USB during the reboot, and after initialization, plug it back in, then it would clone in the pre-win environment. I didn't like having to do that; would not do that if I had a clean/wiped drive. Maybe I contributed to it by not selecting the bootable drive via bios boot drive key?

=>But I'm going to try Macrium Reflect a few more times (free trial) and if I have no problems, I'll buy the 4-pack (is the 4-pack a 1-yr subscription or a 'perpetual' version?..... as Acronis calls their non-subscription version).

jimbo45 said:

Hi folks
BTW for people trying for the first time (and others should test again occasionally) do TEST that backups made are actually restorable !!!! - It's all very well seeing on your Machine the words "Backup completed successfully" but it's no good if the restore fails. !!

Do also make the stand alone bootable recovery media and for critical data it's always sensible to have TWO copies of a backup. (Macrium image backups can be mounted - even in the Free version and browsed also in File explorer so individual files if necessary can be copied again).


Cheers
jimbo

Blast2020 said:

(is the 4-pack a 1-yr subscription or a 'perpetual' version?..... as Acronis calls their non-subscription version).

I've never heard of a Macrium subscription.

Great, then the Macrium must be a stand-alone 'perpetual' software purchase. Acronis has their very visible products purchases out front for 'subscription' and you have to look for the hard to find 'perpetual' software purchase.

ignatzatsonic said:

I've never heard of a Macrium subscription.