Macrium Reflect Free vs. Acronis TrueImage

moondoggy said:

I've been using Acronis TrueImage for years now and I have no real complaints with the product but I was reading an old issue of Maximum PC today and in a backup article they suggested that readers use Macrium ReflexFree. I downloaded a copy and successfully backed up my hard drive to a spare USB hard drive and had no issues with the backup. Later on I even double clicked on the backup file and the backup was mounted as a virtual drive assigned to drive letter E: just like Acronis could do.

So my question is for those that have used Acronis but are now using Macrium, how do the two compare?

Note that I kind of feel like Acronis has become bloated with lots of extra stuff so they can keep you buying the latest version each year. I only backup to USB hard drives and all I really want to do is be able to restore my hard drive from the backup in the event that I do something stupid like formatting my hard drive or my hard drive crashes and I have to restore the backup to a new hard drive. I have a PC and a laptop and I've restored my laptop several times simply by loading the Acronis emergency CD and then restoring the backup copy so I'm hoping that Macrium has similar restore capability. Two free copies sounds better than an annual upgrade charge when all I do is simple backups. My concern is that Macrium has to be as reliable as Acronis as I lost everything years ago with another backup product that I thought was working until I needed to do a restore and it failed. Acronis has never let me down but if Macrium is just as good or better I may switch.

Any information will be helpful.

Note that I'm currently running Windows 10 Pro, 21H2 patched to the January 22 level

There is a good reason why Macrium Reflect is a firm favourite on this forum. I have literally done hundreds of backup and restores on a wide range of devices and it has never let me down.

My money has been with Paragon HD Manager Advanced for years. Versatile, efficient and fast.

Title says "Macrium ReflexFree" It's actually Macrium Reflect Free.

That's what I use and haven't tried the rest.

moondoggy said:

I've been using Acronis TrueImage for years now...

I've never tried it, so I won't comment on Acronis...

I have a PC and a laptop and I've restored my laptop several times simply by loading the Acronis emergency CD and then restoring the backup copy so I'm hoping that Macrium has similar restore capability.

Yes, it does....

My concern is that Macrium has to be as reliable as Acronis as I lost everything years ago with another backup product that I thought was working until I needed to do a restore and it failed. Acronis has never let me down but if Macrium is just as good or better I may switch.

I have been using Macrium Reflect for four years now, as Reflect Free for the first two years. I have literally lost count of the number of restores I have done (see my System Two in 'My Computers' below for one of the reasons for that). It has never let me down.

This Acronis vs Reflect debate seems endless In addition to the thread hsehestedt gave, here's another one you might find interesting.

Acronis (True Image) | Windows 11 Forum

@moondoggy

Macrium is less bloated, and fast.
It does everything Acronis can, and more.
On Macrium's bootable rescue media there is a "Fix boot problems" tool. <--- awesome

I used Acronis for years. Now, you couldn't make me go back for any reason.


Quickie Macrium guide...





Macrium bootable rescue media... (from previous version, but... pretty much the same)







Macrium User Guide... FYI...

https://updates.macrium.com/reflect/...user_guide.pdf

Acronis software is poorly engineered and supported. Macrium is not.