Thinking about switching from Acronis TI to Reflect Free and looking for input

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[RetiredGeek]

I’ve been running Acronis True Image for years now after having a major loss with Norton Ghost.  I have had no issues with restores when needed but all I do is simple backups to a USB attached hard drive and my concern is that TI has become bloated with added functionality that I don’t use.

I was reading an old issue of Maximum PC and the article suggested that Macrium Reflect Free was a good backup solution so I downloaded a copy and it appeared to work OK but before I switch and put my eggs in a different basket I want to check with members here in regard to how well it works, failure rates on restores, ease of use, etc.  If you’ve used TI before Reflect I’d appreciate you’re comparison of the two.

• This topic was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by RetiredGeek. Reason: Correct spelling of Reflex to Reflect
• This topic was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by RetiredGeek.
• This topic was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by RetiredGeek.

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Moondoggy wrote:

my concern is that TI has become bloated with added functionality that I don’t use

I am staying on Acronis version 2019 without all the new bloat and subscriptions.
I don’t see the need to switch.

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I switched from paid Acronis True Image to paid Macrium Reflect because of the Acronis bloat issue and the online backup emphasis. I don’t like the idea of restoring a whole disk image from the cloud for performance reasons. Macrium Reflect’s program design more closely reflects our backup strategy.

We do image backups to rotating USB hard drives that get stored off site. For intermediate backups, we copy changed files using custom script files to local encrypted virtual disks, and then copy those smaller disk files to the cloud.

Windows 10 22H2 desktops & laptops on Dell, HP, ASUS; No servers, no domain.

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Thanks for the feedback.   I have been doing full backups to a USB hard drive as well and I use Cloudberry Backup every night to backup really important stuff like my Quicken Data file,   my  Outlook.PST file and a few others that change every day or every other day.  Cloudberry backs up data to a Backblaze B2 cloud storage account and they give me 10 GB of space for free so I only pay Cloudberry for annual maintenance of their software.  If I have a disaster right now it’s Acronis TI and I can quickly restore the other files in a manner of minutes.  I have downloaded Reflex Free on both my PC and Laptop and I’m running tests mainly on my laptop.  I just backed up the laptop with TI a week ago and have made no changes and the reflex file was just slightly bigger.  I did mount the backup file as a virtual drive and was able to navigate around so if I get more feedback on how well and reliable Reflex is I may drop TI for the same high overhead that you mentioned.  The only thing that concerns me is the price for the full copy as I would have to buy 2 copies just to get support.  I tried to join their forum today but the Free license doesn’t even let you join their forum and you have no support from Macrium.  Perhaps I can keep the free copy on my laptop and just buy a full license for my desktop PC which is the most critical of the two devices.

 

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I highly recommend Macrium Reflect Free. In fact I’m still using the Version 6 of Free since I can script it with PowerShell and it works just fine with the latest version of W10 (21H2)!

As fate would have it I’ve been restoring images all day due to a problem I just discovered with my Test Rig. All restores worked just fine, including one on my Main Rig necessitated by my being in a hurry and doing something to that machine when I thought I had switched to the Test rig.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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The woes of KVM

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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windbg wrote:

I switched from paid Acronis True Image to paid Macrium Reflect because of the Acronis bloat issue and the online backup emphasis. I don’t like the idea of restoring a whole disk image from the cloud for performance reasons. Macrium Reflect’s program design more closely reflects our backup strategy.

We do image backups to rotating USB hard drives that get stored off site. For intermediate backups, we copy changed files using custom script files to local encrypted virtual disks, and then copy those smaller disk files to the cloud.

Thanks for the feedback.   I have been doing full backups to a USB hard drive as well and I use Cloudberry Backup every night to backup really important stuff like my Quicken Data file,   my  Outlook.PST file and a few others that change every day or every other day.  Cloudberry backs up data to a Backblaze B2 cloud storage account and they give me 10 GB of space for free so I only pay Cloudberry for annual maintenance of their software.  If I have a disaster right now it’s Acronis TI and I can quickly restore the other files in a manner of minutes.  I have downloaded Reflex Free on both my PC and Laptop and I’m running tests mainly on my laptop.  I just backed up the laptop with TI a week ago and have made no changes and the reflex file was just slightly bigger.  I did mount the backup file as a virtual drive and was able to navigate around so if I get more feedback on how well and reliable Reflex is I may drop TI for the same high overhead that you mentioned.  The only thing that concerns me is the price for the full copy as I would have to buy 2 copies just to get support.  I tried to join their forum today but the Free license doesn’t even let you join their forum and you have no support from Macrium.  Perhaps I can keep the free copy on my laptop and just buy a full license for my desktop PC which is the most critical of the two devices.

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RetiredGeek wrote:

I highly recommend Macrium Reflect Free. In fact I’m still using the Version 6 of Free since I can script it with PowerShell and it works just fine with the latest version of W10 (21H2)!

As fate would have it I’ve been restoring images all day due to a problem I just discovered with my Test Rig. All restores worked just fine, including one on my Main Rig necessitated by my being in a hurry and doing something to that machine when I thought I had switched to the Test rig.

Thanks.

The fact that you’ve been doing restores of your hard drive gives me an added level of comfort as I’d never heard of Reflex Free until I read the article in Maximum PC that recommended it.  Not that I didn’t trust Maximum PC but I’ve been using TI for years and I’ve had to do some restores with it.

 

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This page has some suggestions.
VeraCrypt and Backup

cheers, Paul

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I’ve been using Macrium Reflect Free (version 7) for about 3 years to create system images before I make any major changes. I’ve successfully restored whole drives a few times and on one occasion I cloned a drive. I’ve restored individual partitions to dual-boot systems several times without problems and recovered individual files by mounting saved images. I did have True Image for Crucial (supplied with my Crucial SSD), but after using it a few times I gave it up in favour of Macrium Reflect.

I use FreeFileSync to regularly back up my user files (documents etc.) between making system images.

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I made a Disk Image with Macrium Reflect Free version 7.3 just before upgrading my laptop with the January 2022 updates.

When I started the updates both the .NET (KB5008876) and Cum Update (KB5009543) were shown by Windows Update as ready to install, so I started both.

Part way into the update, the .NET wanted to restart, but the Cum Update was not ready. I got the box asking for a restart, so I clicked Restart Now.

Then it all went bad. I got the “Restarting” message followed by “Getting Windows Ready”, but that is as far as it went. After 45 minutes I powered off and tried rebooting. NO GO.

So I put in my Macrium Reflect Rescue USB drive and followed the prompts to restore the image I made earlier.

Macrium Reflect saved my laptop. This is the first time I have ever had to restore an image and it worked flawlessly.

 

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https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/acronis-2019-just-got-an-update-should-be-applied-before-2-2022/

[Moderator edit] replaced duplicate post with a link

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I got the same message today as well.  My concern with not upgrading is that they may have included a stealth change that’s unrelated to cloud storage.  I will download it and install it and then keep the the install file in my downloads folder.  If I decide to go with Reflex Free I may uninstall TI or disable the startups and services so it remains in place or I may remove it completely and use the install file to put it back on if I need to mount an old archive to receive some file that needs to be restored.

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I downloaded and updated my Acronis 2019 perpetual.
I am running a bi-monthly full image copy and daily incremental backups.

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I switched to Macrium Reflect (paid version 4 license keys at their once a year Black Friday deal 1/2 off) and I love it.

I’ve used Shadow Protect, Acronis and now Reflect full time on three machines.

I go the extra mile and have two M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs for my C: drive in my desktop.  I rotate them so I can get regular practice doing full image recoveries.   I’ll sometimes “Clean” the drive I’m rotating to so I have to totally activate and format it from recovery environment.  I get industrial strength POM (Peace of Mind) doing this, but I know it’s not for everybody.

=================================================
Custom built desktop
-Win 10 Pro 21H2 OS build: 19044.1415
-Cooler Master HAF 912 Mid Tower case – 5 fans and CORSAIR Liquid CPU Cooler.
-Asus motherboard TUF X299 Mark 1
-Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz. Overclocked 29%. This CPU is one of the few 7th gen chips approved for Win 11.
-RAM 16GB – Graphics card: GTX 1050 Ti Windforce 4GB
-Boot drive: Samsung EVO 250GB PCIe NVMe Data drives: 3 internal 1TB SSDs
-Brave browser and occassionally Firefox and Chrome. No Edge.

Desktop mobo Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

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A question for those that use the paid version of reflex.

My understanding is that you are purchasing a perpetual license for the product and that purchase grants you one year of support and maintenance upgrades.  When your year of support is up I would assume that they will want to get into your pocket again and again for support and maintenance so what can you tell me about the ongoing costs?  Most sellers of perpetual licensed product cut you a deal for existing customers and if Macrium does too I’d like to know what the fee usually is per license.

TechTango mentioned something about an annual Black Friday sale.  Do they always offer this and is it always around Thanksgiving or do they offer it more often than just once a year?  I’m considering purchasing a copy just for support and maintenance but I have a desktop and a laptop and two licenses is going to be a hit on my pocketbook.  If there’s an annual deal I may just keep the free version in place until the sale takes place.  Let me know please.

 

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Moondoggy,

I’ve been using Macrium Reflect for years (also a previous Acronis user). I purchased a 4 pack of version 5 got the upgrade to V6 and have stayed there! Version 6 works perfectly for my use case. Note all 4 machines are on Win 10 21H2!. I didn’t move to V7 because I didn’t need the added features, so why upgrade? IMHO the Free Version of 6, if you can find it, has everything that most home users need. Version 7 free works well also but because of a change it can not be scripted with PowerShell which is why I don’t use it. As for support, remember I do have 4 licenses for V6, the other day I needed to download a copy of V6 and couldn’t find it anywhere. So I submitted a support ticket. I got a quick reply with a link to download V6 problem solved. I highly recommend Macrium Reflect.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Hi Bruce,

Have you seen this – Generating a PowerShell source file – KnowledgeBase v7.2 – Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase – KnowledgeBase v7.2 – Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

--Joe

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Hello Joe, what ya know?

Actually, I’m aware that the Paid version will generate a PowerShell script. However, what I’m interested in is calling MR from my script which does all kinds of checking and logging. In the Free version 7 MR will not let you exit to the calling environment automatically. This is a requirement for my PowerShell script (details are posted on this site here) to do its complete thing.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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TechTango mentioned something about an annual Black Friday sale.  Do they always offer this and is it always around Thanksgiving or do they offer it more often than just once a year?

For the past 2 years (maybe 3) the only 50% off  sale I’ve seen Macrium do is the Black Friday sale.  On the B. Friday page they mention in clear working it’s the only time of year anything goes I sale.  Price’s this year were good for about 2 weeks.  I bought the 4 pack license for $69.95  That’s $17.+ per license.  Regular price $139.95.

Desktop mobo Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

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Moondoggy wrote:

A question for those that use the paid version of reflex.

I’m a long-time user of Macrium, and feel that it’s worth paying for the licence.  After all, how are these guys to keep the roof on, and it’s decent software.  I’m an ex-user of Acronis.

I looked back at how much I had paid them, and when.

This is for a four-licence pack:

Feb-15: GBP 57.95 – version upgrade v5 to v6

Mar-17: GBP 57.95 – version upgrade v6 to v7

May-21: GBP 50.95 – version upgrade v7 to v8

Thus, I’ve had seven years of use, four licences, for GBP 166.85, and, on past form, v8 ought still to have quite some life in it.  The USD exchange rate has been all over the place, but this converts to a bit over USD 200, taken over seven years.

I try very hard to avoid (explicitly) subscription ware.  You could duck the version upgrade, stick with the version you’re on.  You don’t HAVE to take the version upgrade.  You’d still get support and updates, though I think these may tail away a bit.

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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Perhaps it should be noted, FTR, that there is a documented bug in Macrium Reflect versions prior to 7.2 that may cause failure when used with Windows 10 1903 or later. Some people don’t seem to have a problem so I’m not sure if it’s only in certain conditions, but IME it seems to be a particular problem when using MR’s Rescue Media. I can tell you that my 7.1 Rescue Media fails on Win10 versions 1903 through at least 20H2, while 7.2 works perfectly fine. (I have had no reason to test 7.1 on the current Windows version.)

As for Acronis TrueImage, I quickly wrote that off a decade ago when I discovered it could seriously mangle complex MBR partition layouts. The problem was TI relied on using Microsoft’s Disk Management, which I documented here as having a serious bug. (This bug still exists in Windows 10, BTW.)

I believe this bug is limited to MBR partition layouts so it’s unlikely to be an issue for most modern users, but the fact Acronis did not fix their program to avoid trashing disk partitions led me to never, ever consider any Acronis products to be worthy of my trust.

I can confirm Macrium Reflect does not suffer from this issue.

 

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