Macrium reflect alternatives – cost has doubled recently

Bree said:

Your '100% increase' is not correct. You did not compare like with like.

Your 2023 price was the price of one licence when bought as part of a 4-pack discount.
Your 2024 price was for a single licence on its own. You can still get a 25% discount on a 4-pack so your calculation is misleading.

For OP's clarity - the 4 pack licence was 4 licences for price of 2 i.e. 50% discount per licence. Regrettably, now only 4 licences for price of 3 as @Bree says.

In fact, you seemed to get to purchase the 4 pack licence without paying 25% MOMs (VAT to UK) - Eu74.18 * 1.25 = EU92.72.

You should have been charged MOMs as well - electronic imports are no different to actual imports.

So basically you were lucky this accounting error was not picked up but don't tell SKAT LOL.
Your later purchase did include MOMs (VAT) @ 25%.

plaurits said:

OK, as said I need support out of US or Europe, chinese support I have already tried, it does not work.

Well here is the thing, if you want proper support, you have to pay for it!. A proper support system has a tracking system e.g. gives you a support ticket, with a guaranteed initial response in a timely manner and you can track progress of issue.

None of the free packages provide such a system.

You may be able to email developers or go to a forum (like Hasleo) but they do not guarantee to even look at your issue in a timely manner - you are relying totally on developer goodwill.

Although Hasleo may be Chinese, the developers on their forums are actually quite proactive and have good english skills and are helpful BUT still not a formal support system.

Hazel123 said:

I've been looking into idrive. Still mulling it over. It says it does image backups and can be restored to the same or similiar/dissimilar computer. From what I've read, to restore to a dissimilar computer, you would need windows installed first. I know that's cloud based so might not be what you want. Not sure if I want it yet either!

I cannot say for sure about idrive, but you normally do not need windows on target pc.

Having said that, if windows is temporarily installed on target pc, you can export its drivers which makes it easier to help resolve missing drivers that may arise from restoring fron the image backup.