Macrium Reflect Free version 6 is now available

[ignatzatsonic]

Does anyone know what SSD Trim Support is?

I saw a post (possibly not on this site) about it--within the last 24 hours.

I did not attempt to digest it, but their conclusion was that it was of little significance. But that was the poster's speculation and they admittedly were making assumptions and inferences, possibly unwarranted.

 

[DavidE]

A big change in V6 is the "Edit the Plan for this Backup" screen - see screen prints below.
This is a significant change in V6, and may cause confusion, and testing is needed to make sure the settings work for each person's choices.

The first screen print is how I want MY backups created

• I use None for the template
• I have everything cleared for Retention Rules, so hopefully Macrium never deletes any of my existing backups
• I cleared "Run the purge before backup"

The second screen print is what i see if i select "Differential Backup Set" as the template.

• This is not what i want, so i won't use it.

I want to manually control how long and which of my backup images are kept.
I manually delete individual backup images as needed.
I use Full backups.
I played with Incrementals and Differentials years ago with Acronis, i decided to not use them.

I found i had to edit the Macrium defaults to have things set the way i want them, to be applied to all new backups i create.
There are a lot of settings available in the "Reflect Defaults".
I suggest anyone switching to V6 review and adjust the default settings as desired.

Yes, i did restore backup images created in V5 and V6 with Macrium V6.
This was the most important test for me - knowing V6 can restore V5 images.

I understand the reluctance to use a new version of an Imaging program.
I'm still using an old version of Acronis paid on my primary PC.
I've been using Acronis for so many years, i know it's reliable for me and how i use it ...
Now that i might add Win 10 to that box, i have to consider a newer Imaging program ...
I've been testing Macrium (v5) for a year or so on my test box, and now testing V6.
For 6 months or more i created Acronis and Macrium backups on my test box, just in case i ran into some gotcha where Macrium didn't work for me ...
What gave me the "kick in the butt" to start seriously testing Macrium on my Test box was when i added Win 8.x to the mix...
I wasn't really comfortable/confident that my old Acronis would work reliably with W8.x images...

I can't test every possibility for every option in V6.
Each person needs to test V6 for how they use Macrium to make sure the new version works as needed.
I know my situation with a triple boot PC is "not normal", and how i use imaging is probably "not normal".
But it's what i have and how i use it, and so far v6 works for me, better than v5!

I don't know if i ever used PE3 for recovery media, probably not...
For me the Recovery disc is "close enough" to the Windows Macrium UI that i can easily use it.
I normally use Windows Macrium to restore an image.
i.e. I can boot Win 8.1 or Win 7-32 to restore a Win 7-64 image...
It's only when i want to restore Win 8.1, i have to boot with Macrium Recovery "media", because Win 8.1 is my System/Active partition (contains boot code).
I mostly test new things in a Win 7 OS, so i often restore those OS's to back things out.

@Lady Fitzgerald

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

No, not from what i've seen.
I can use backup XML files in v6 without using a template.
I don't know if you can use a backup XML file with a template, i haven't tried that.

Here's my screen print with NONE as the template, this is the way i want it.



Here's a screen print where I selected "Differential Backup Set" as the template - this is NOT what i want.
Notice the difference in Retention Rules and Schedules ...

 

[DavidE]

I tested my recovery disc created with Macrium V5, and it can not see V6 images.
If you update to V6, you need to create a new recovery disc.

I created a recovery disc with PE3 and the UI looks the same to me as the PE5 recovery disc.
Note: PE5 supports USB3, PE3 does not support USB3.

For anyone interested in V6, here is the V6 User Guide:
Macrium Reflect v6 User Guide

 

[jadinolf]

I tested my recovery disc created with Macrium V5, and it can not see V6 images.
If you update to V6, you need to create a new recovery disc.

I created a recovery disc with PE3 and the UI looks the same to me as the PE5 recovery disc.
Note: PE5 supports USB3, PE3 does not support USB3.

For anyone interested in V6, here is the V6 User Guide:
Macrium Reflect v6 User Guide

Thanks for that David

 

[mjf]

PE3 does not support USB3.
http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW/Macrium+Reflect+v6+User+Guide

You can add USB3 to PE3 if you add the drivers using DISM. That's the way I run my V5 recovery ISO/disk.

 

[DavidE]

PE3 does not support USB3.

You can add USB3 to PE3 if you add the drivers using DISM. That's the way I run my V5 recovery ISO/disk.

Thanks for that info Michael.

 

[bertie11]

Verify Image?

I thought I would try Reflect v6 and have installed it. I said No to auto verify, thinking I would be able to verify later as I wanted to see how long the image took to create.

Now I cannot see a way to verify this image although I saw a link to use command line verify which I think is not a good idea for me. I ran it as Admin but not a lot happened, nowhere to enter anything.

So can I do a verify from the GUI? I won't restore an image until I'm happy that it is good!

Win 8.1.1

OK> Belay that. I discovered the Verify function under Restore. I knew there had to be one somewhwere!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I won't restore an image until I'm happy that it is good!

I'd be highly reluctant to assume that a successful verification meant that I'd have a successful restore.

But maybe you aren't making that assumption.

 

[mjf]

I won't restore an image until I'm happy that it is good!

I'd be highly reluctant to assume that a successful verification meant that I'd have a successful restore.

But maybe you aren't making that assumption.

It was my understanding that "verify" checked the bit integrity of the image and doesn't guarantee a good system image restore. I'm still using Macrium V5 on my personal PC. I installed V6 on a new build and my system image restore test for that was to a spare SSD. Only when it booted properly did I have confidence in the image.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Well, so far, I've never had a verified image fail to restore.