Macrium Reflect Free version 6 is now available

Just trying out free version 6 for the first time.

Most peculiar issue: Within the space of an hour, I made 3 images of my C drive (39.7 occupied) with it. The first image was 19.5 GB. That's fine. The next two were over 23 GB. Why larger? Expected behavior? I've never seen anything like this with version 5. I don't know that it's a problem, but it's unexplained.

An image made a week ago with version 5 was 18.5 GB. Very very few system changes since then.

Other things I noted:

Speed somewhat faster, but I think it varied with each attempt by a minute or more.

I didn't see a clearcut choice to say "I want full images, not incrementals or differentials".

Scheduling setup isn't quite self-explanatory. I did NOT want a schedule of any kind, but it seems I had to create one and then delete it?

I thought I set it up to keep no more than 2 images, but it's kept 3 so far. Maybe that choice is part of scheduling and so was deleted when I deleted the unwanted schedule?

I made a recovery CD and a recovery USB flash drive directly from the Macrium menus, using the default Win PE offered (3.1, their recommendation for Win 7). I expected both to boot me to an interface identical to what I see when booted into Macrium from C, just as happened with version 5. But they did not. Instead, I booted rather slowly into a different looking interface, but I was able to navigate and operate within it OK.

I still haven't decided if I want to upgrade my v5 Pro four license pack to v6 Pro four license pack yet. Part of it is wanting to wait to see if it works out ok for people and part of it is just being cheap since V5 is still working fine for me.

Installed version 6 FREE yesterday on all 4 of my computers. So far so good.

Have run 2 backups so far.

David: see comments in bold.

DavidE said:

I checked backup image sizes, and like you i see a difference i can't explain.
I see a difference of 2+ GB on a Win 8.1 BU created 2 days after my initial V6 BU.
I browsed both images, ran WizTree on each, and don't see much difference in what is included in each of these images.
It almost seems like compression worked differently, or something like that ???
In my case one may have been created while running Win 8.1, and the other one created while running Win 7, so that might make a difference ???



I completely uninstalled free 5 before installing free 6.

I did not browse the 3 images I created, but they were all created from Win 7 SP1 on the same machine, within an hour. I did not adjust compression levels, leaving it at default medium. I have no idea what's going on, but I suppose some compression glitch is a possibility.

This was not confidence-inspiring. I did not try to restore any image.

From what i see a new image will always be a Full Image (for a Manual "Image this disk").


I don't remember what choice I took at the beginning. Most likely, I highlighted the C drive (I have no System Reserved) and then simply poked "image this disk". That's my standard method in version 5 (rather than choosing "image all the partitions necessary to restore Windows" or whatever it is).

It may well be that what I did always leads to a full image, but within a screen or two I was faced with choices about differential and incremental, with no overt choice for "full". Likewise, I was faced with choices about scheduling when I had no interest in any schedule at all. Seems they could have opted for simple radio buttons to make those choices.

Did you set the Retention Rules in the Defaults ?

I set retention to 2 images just as a test. I then made 3 images over an hour. All 3 remained. I have no idea if that is normal, a glitch, or if my choice to retain 2 images was itself deleted when I attempted to delete my schedule.



I created my Recovery disc, ISO's, and bootloader with Win PE 5.

Did you use Win PE 5 on a Win 7 machine, against their suggestion to use Win PE 3?

Did your recovery media drop you into an interface IDENTICAL to what you see when opening Macrium from C? My recovery media made from Win PE 3 did not, which is clearly different from version 5 behavior.



I attempted to create a new recovery ISO with the Win PE 3.1. I selected PE 3, but it created the recovery iso with Win PE 5.

That would not give me confidence.


I'm very happy with the new auto-verify and boot-menu options, well worth the update for me.

I did not examine either of those features.

Most importantly, backup and restore has worked reliably for me.

Can I take that to mean that you in fact have used free version 6 to make and restore images made wtih free version 6? I made no restoration attempts.

Bottom line: I got rid of free 6 by doing a System Restore back to version 5.

The issues I saw were enough to put me off.

To accept 6 would have been to accept some uncertainty and confusion. In exchange for nothing whatsoever. No tangible improvements. For something as critical as system imaging, that's enough to say no.

I don't need the new features. Version 5 is working fine.

I tried version 6 only out of boredom and curiosity.

I will reexamine after I build a new PC late this year. Even then, I see no current reason to use version 6 unless version 5 is incompatible with Windows 10.

V6 Free is starting to look attractive to replace my four license pack V5 Pro. Does anyone know what SSD Trim Support is?

Also, are the predefined templates the same as using XML files to make an image?