Macrium Free vs Macrium Pay

[bigmck]

Let me follow up this discussion with one more question. -- It seems when I visit the Macrium site quite often there is a new version available. I never know when a new Restore Disk should be made. How do I tell that?

 

[Golden]

Let me follow up this discussion with one more question. -- It seems when I visit the Macrium site quite often there is a new version available. I never know when a new Restore Disk should be made. How do I tell that?

Good question. My own policy is to replace the rescue ISO every time, then re-write it to my rescue USB drive - takes a few minutes.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/218920-macrium-reflect-create-bootable-rescue-usb-drive.html

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I do full images weekly and fill in the gap with daily differentials. This means that I have very little data loss in the event I need to restore. It also means that I am more likely to restore than spend hours undoing changes.

Obviously, for you, differentials make sense. Whether using incremental or differential backups are appropriate depends on how large of a full image you make and how often you need it made. Sine the only images I need are for my boot drive, weekly full images are plenty unless I make a major change, such as adding or deleting programs or making changes in settings (I always make an image just before and after doing so). It only takes between 8-9 minutes to make an image of my boot drive so incrementals/differentials are rather pointless for me.

I could clone my boot drive and restore it by cloning back to the boot drive but there is no real benefit to doing that since I would be wasting time and space. Images are easier to work with when restoring an OS partition.

As mentioned earlier, I clone my data drives to back them up. Clones take longer and take up the same amount of space as the original drive but I can quickly use them as is, making data access easier should I need it. Weekly is often enough since I have a paid cloud backup service (Carbonite) that I can get any changes since the last clone fairly easily. Carbonite also has 30 day versioning—it keeps a copy of previous versions of a file and deleted files for 30 days—which should be plenty for me and saves me the hassle of versioning myself.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Let me follow up this discussion with one more question. -- It seems when I visit the Macrium site quite often there is a new version available. I never know when a new Restore Disk should be made. How do I tell that?

I don't really know. Sometimes a new disk is needed and sometimes it isn't and I don't know how to tell which is which. Since, as long as the version one has is doing the job, it's not really necessary to upgrade every time a new one comes out so I've been cheating and not updating so I can avoid making a new disk every time. One of these days, I'm going to get ambitious and put the recovery "disk" on a USB drive. Then, updating will be less of a hassle.

 

[Golden]

I'm going to get ambitious and put the recovery "disk" on a USB drive. Then, updating will be less of a hassle.

Too easy.........
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/218920-macrium-reflect-create-bootable-rescue-usb-drive.html

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I'm going to get ambitious and put the recovery "disk" on a USB drive. Then, updating will be less of a hassle.

Too easy.........
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/218920-macrium-reflect-create-bootable-rescue-usb-drive.html

No doubt it is easy but I have to get ambitious first (I have ADHD; often, some simple tasks feel intimidating, even if I've done them before without any problems).

Of course, I just have to complicate things by wanting to add some portable apps, such as a rescue AV, to the same USB stick.

 

[kado897]

Let me follow up this discussion with one more question. -- It seems when I visit the Macrium site quite often there is a new version available. I never know when a new Restore Disk should be made. How do I tell that?

There are release notes with each release which can help you decide. Macrium Reflect Patch Details

 

[Golden]

Of course, I just have to complicate things by wanting to add some portable apps, such as a rescue AV, to the same USB stick.

YUMI specialises in that too....have a look

YUMI - Multiboot USB Creator (Windows) | USB Pen Drive Linux

 

[bigmck]

Let me follow up this discussion with one more question. -- It seems when I visit the Macrium site quite often there is a new version available. I never know when a new Restore Disk should be made. How do I tell that?

There are release notes with each release which can help you decide. Macrium Reflect Patch Details

Yes, I read that but have never seen where it tells you to make a new Rescue Disk. It is not that big a deal to make a new one, but I hate to do it if not needed, but I have never seen where it says it is needed. Just curious if I have been missing something.

 

[whs]

Let me follow up this discussion with one more question. -- It seems when I visit the Macrium site quite often there is a new version available. I never know when a new Restore Disk should be made. How do I tell that?

It is in the change log. But it is very rare that you nee a new WinPE disc. I have seen that only once.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Let me follow up this discussion with one more question. -- It seems when I visit the Macrium site quite often there is a new version available. I never know when a new Restore Disk should be made. How do I tell that?

It is in the change log. But it is very rare that you nee a new WinPE disc. I have seen that only once.

Thanks for that info. Out of curiosity, I went back through the change log well past my present version. I had to go back quite a ways before I found a reference to needing to make a new rescue disk but it was very clearly stated. I'll be updating later today after I make a new image.

 

[kado897]

There is also a recent entry concerning UEFI and PE4 but you would know if you had that problem.

 

[bigmck]

There is also a recent entry concerning UEFI and PE4 but you would know if you had that problem.

I am not sure about that. I have been told I have a lot of problems that I was not aware of.

 

[kado897]

:roflmao:

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

There is also a recent entry concerning UEFI and PE4 but you would know if you had that problem.

I am not sure about that. I have been told I have a lot of problems that I was not aware of.

:roflmao: Welcome to the club!

 

[bawldiggle]

A very informative thread.
Bookmarked.
Real food-for-thought as I take on more responsibility for my multiple PCs health/stability.
I had always assumed until about 4 months ago the only cure was a clean install and the dread of reinstalling all my programs and then updating my settings. Days of work.

Thank you

 

[whs]

A very informative thread.
Bookmarked.
Real food-for-thought as I take on more responsibility for my multiple PCs health/stability.
I had always assumed until about 4 months ago the only cure was a clean install and the dread of reinstalling all my programs and then updating my settings. Days of work.

Thank you

Yeah right. I can feel with you. Images are so much more practical. In 20 minutes you are back in business.

A while ago I had to reinstall the system on one of my wife's Vista system (for various reasons). That took me 3 days before everything was back to normal.

 

[SIW2]

WHS,

You should have said..I have updated my Vista install media. Just re-updating it now. It installs and only asks for Graphics driver, Defender update and a couple of others that can't be pre integrated.

The iso is bigger of course, and it takes about 10 mins extra sitting at the the "Please wait while Windows continues to set up your computer" screen.

Fantastic for repair installs as well.

 

[bawldiggle]

Am I too late to ask a question, in this thread ?

Imaging
I just stumbled over "Acronis True Image 2014"
sevenforums.com appear to be pro "free Macrium"

What is the advantage of one over the other (besides $$)

I notice one comment in http://www.sevenforums.com/backup-restore/305695-macrium-free-vs-macrium-pay-2.html reported an "unreliable reinstalling images" with Acronis

I have not imaged anything yet, still learning !

 

[dsperber]

Several years ago I tried out assorted "system image" backup software products, including Acronis and Macrium.

I'm no rookie, but I just couldn't make sense of the non-intuitive confusing interface of Acronis.

In contrast, Macrium was a piece of cake as far as ease-of-use.

I originally tried the "free" Macrium version, and had a problem which truly seemed to be a bug. Theoretically the vendor does not provide support for the free version. But in this case because the issue pointed absolutely to a program defect, the vendor addressed my report within a day (as a high-priority defect report), and had a correction available in two days.

I was very very impressed.

I then compared the feature set of the free vs. paid (Standard) version and decided the additional features (e.g. automatic space management, to "prune" older generations automatically when newer versions are produced) were well worth the nominal cost. Plus, it allowed me to "thank and support the vendor" who had provided true product support (in a parental way) when I reported the defect I'd discovered in the free version.

I've had several other support issues over the past few years which involved response from Macrium. In all cases response was received within hours.

Macrium deserved my money, and my support. Not to mention the product itself is SUPERB, and intuitive, and easy to use and 100% reliable on the several occasions I've used it to recover from some disaster or problem.