Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect  

Kari said:

There's no confusion here.

If your plan is let's say a monthly full, weekly differential, and daily incremental, an incremental would for instance be created day after the full, if that day would not be scheduled for weekly differential. If it would be scheduled for weekly differential, incremental would not be created, but it would be created day after that, based on the differential day before.

Differential is always based on last full, and incremental on whatever last backup, be it full, differential or incremental.

Kari

Actually, you can create branches with incrementals. It just depends which backup you choose to "restore" first. Then it gets confusing.

cereberus said:

Actually, you can create branches with incrementals. It just depends which backup you choose to "restore" first. Then it gets confusing.

You missed my point.

You said: "Incremental backups contain changes since last incremental backup."

As such, that statement is not true. If it were true, where would the first incremental come from, if the next one could only contain changes since previous incremental?

In all backup plans, and in all scenarios, also in "branches", an incremental can follow another incremental, a differential, or a full backup.

Kari

Kari said:

You missed my point.

You said: "Incremental backups contain changes since last incremental backup."

As such, that statement is not true. If it were true, where would the first incremental come from, if the next one could only contain changes since previous incremental?

In all backup plans, and in all scenarios, also in "branches", an incremental can follow another incremental, a differential, or a full backup.

Kari

I got your point. Was just saying that you can make very complicated backups i.e more than just daisy chains. I was simplifying to explain to OP basic difference but I know it can be more complicated.

perkinw said:

Based on the drives you choose to backup, will Macrium tell you how much space on the destination drive is needed?

Is it common for people to backup user profiles along with system, or do they use some other method of backing up user profiles?

Count on about 75 -80% of total data chosen to back up.

When I back up my C:drive I backup the entire drive and all the other Windows partitions. No exclusions.

I keep all my personal files, Documents, downloads, music, etc on a separate partition. The forum has a tutorial on how to move these.

Each backup definition (how often, type of backup, retention) can then be targeted to a specific purpose.

Your compression values will vary depending on source.

Kari said:

Incremental Backup / Image
(Not available in Free edition!) An incremental backup checks what has been changed since the last backup regardless if the last backup was full, differential or incremental and only saves those changes. When restoring an incremental backup all differential and incremental images and full backup image must be available on same folder on backup storage drive.
Incremental images can be really small. An example: if you take daily incremental backups and today you just browsed the web and got a few emails but did not download or install anything, today's incremental backup is only a few kilobytes, a megabyte or two max.

I noticed this is avalible in free edition aswell.

sbh7600 said:

I noticed this is avalible in free edition aswell.

Nope it's not. The menu option is there but selecting it produces this popup...