Macrium reflect free features?

Backing up the entire drive? That is the best method anyway. What I used when I had Acronis and what I use now that I'm using Macrium. (I have the paid version).

pcwin said:

Referring to the Feature comparison chart at: Macrium Reflect Free

1) "File and folder backup" is not available in Macrium reflect free? Then what do you use Macrium free for?

2) Does Macrium reflect free have incremental and differential backup? What are these called in Macrium? (I am previous user of Acronis)

Thanks

1. File and folder backup allows you to choose specific file to image. Most people will have no need for this. The free version can be used to backup entire drives and individual partitions. Again, Macrium Reflect is plenty for most users.

2. The free version of Macrium Reflect does not have incremental and differential backups; only the paid versions do. They are called incremental and differential images. Again, I do NOT recommend using incremental or differential backups. There is too much that can go wrong with them. Full images are safer. I also do not recommend using imaging for backing up data.

Actually, most people want to back up files and folders.

There are various programs available which do that. Karen's replicator is an excellent program for that purpose.

Disk imaging programs often also do file and folder backup. Not usually in the free versions.

If you want file and folder backup, differential and incremental imaging, and restore to different hardware, Then Aomei Backupper is the only freebie. It the one I use.

Best Free Backup Software for Windows 10, Windows 8.1/8, Windows 7, Vista, XP

SIW2 said:

Actually, most people want to back up files and folders...

Not by imaging cherry picked files and folders, which is what the function in MR is designed for.

Also good to know with the free version is that you can map(explore) an existing image backup to browse and copy whatever you want from it. You only need to restore a full image if you run into serious trouble

If you have a separate data partition, you can just image that - although a sync program is more efficient for that task. The only advantage of imaging is that you are able to retrieve previously deleted files from older images - if you keep the older ones.

If anybody wants Replicator, Karen died a while back, not sure what happened to her site, so have attached it here:

ptreplicator-setup.zip

whs said:

If you have a separate data partition, you can just image that - although a sync program is more efficient for that task. The only advantage of imaging is that you are able to retrieve previously deleted files from older images - if you keep the older ones.

FreeFileSync has a versioning feature that will direct files deleted from a backup to a user selected versioning folder or drive. Why waste space keeping entire older backups just to have the ability to recover a handful of deleted files when all you have to do is keep the deleted files themselves?

Well personally I only use Macrium Reflect to make system image backups of my Windows partition - at least one per week. If I need to roll back my system to one of those backups I just first copy any directories containing personal files or modified files that I want to keep to another partiton and once the image has been restored I use TSR Copy Changed Files to copy the missing files from the previously copied directories back to the Windows partition.

I also use Karen's Replicator and/ or Beanland's AutoVer for certain important directories and copy changed content to a backup location.