Macrium Reflect Image verification

[phenix]

10-15-2016
Macrium Reflect V6
Equipment: 2 ssd drives, Windows 7 pro 64-bit, UEFI, Macrium reflect V6, external HD 1t

Have been using Clonezilla for years. The ssd in the computer
is 126G. This causes Clonezilla to fail on a restore. Clonezilla will
not backup from a large drive to a smaller drive. Therefor I have
dropped Clonezilla. One thing I liked about Clonezilla was the ease
with which you could verify the backup.
I have the free version of Macrium reflect. Being new to MF, I have not
been able to find out how to verify the image I just created.
I did make a recovery cd. I have not used it yet and have no idea
if it will work. The only drives I have on this computer are 2 126G SSDs.
I understand it is very important to do a test restore to make sure things
work. I have not done this!
My plan for a restore from MF:
Backup what I have on the 2nd ssd. Delete everything on the 2nd ssd.
Disconnect the 1st ssd which has windows 7 pro 64-bit on it.
Connect my 1T HD with the latest MF Image. Use the recovery cd and see if
I can restore the image to the 2nd ssd.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[DavidE]

In the Macrium GUI click on the Restore tab.
Select the Image you want and there is a Verify Image link.

You can also turn on auto-verify so whenever an image is created it will be verified.
In the Macrium Menu click on Other Tasks > Edit Defaults > Backup > Auto Verify Image

 

[phenix]

Thank you DavidE for responding.
What do you think about the 2nd part of my previous
message. Will that method of a restore test work?
Will I have a problem going from a 1T hd to a 126G ssd?

 

[DavidE]

Your test plan is good and it's great you want to test this.

Macrium can restore to a smaller drive/partition.
The size of the drive where the backup image is stored doesn't matter.
You won't have a problem restoring an image saved on a 1TB drive to a smaller SSD/HD.

What is important is the size of the drive/partition that you are restoring to has to be at least as large as the amount of space USED on the drive/partition where the image was created from.
There should also be at least 10% extra free space on the drive/partition you are restoring to.
Personally, I would not use a drive/partition with less than 20% free space.

As an example of what i'm try to explain:
If you have a 200 GB drive/partition where 80 GB is USED space, you can "safely" restore an image to a 100 GB drive/partition.
Then you would have 20 GB unused space, where you had 120 GB unused when the image was created.

 

[phenix]

Thanks DavidE.
I have this habit of putting the OS all by itself.
So I will partition the entire 126g ssd for the OS.
I do this so if the OS become corrupt I don't have to worry
about my data. It's on another ssd. This procedure has
worked well for me.

 

[DavidE]

You're welcome.
That's a good plan to keep data on a different partition/drive.
Many folks here including myself do the same thing.
I use the C drive for the OS and installed programs.
I even have a separate partition just for portable programs.