Imaging with free Macrium

mjf said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

One is the lack of dynamic disk support in free V6.

Most people avoid dynamic disks and make them accidentally. Then the job is to convert back to a basic disk.

If people avoid them, what purpose do they serve (just curious)? Besides that, I take it not having support for dynamic disks will not be a problem then?

Lady Fitzgerald said:

mjf said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

One is the lack of dynamic disk support in free V6.

Most people avoid dynamic disks and make them accidentally. Then the job is to convert back to a basic disk.

If people avoid them, what purpose do they serve (just curious)? Besides that, I take it not having support for dynamic disks will not be a problem then?

During my TAFE Networking course we used dynamic disks to create software RAID (W2K8 server). :)

It worked perfectly at TAFE, but I've never been able to do anything successful with them anywhere else.

There is quite a good explanation of dynamic disks here...https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...(v=vs.85).aspx

Lady Fitzgerald said:

If people avoid them, what purpose do they serve (just curious)? Besides that, I take it not having support for dynamic disks will not be a problem then?

There are numerous descriptions on what dynamic disks are but I just see them as a headache for the average user. So I wouldn't bother using them and worry about any lack of support. I'd be very interested in other opinions - I'm prepared to be swayed.

Thanks, guys, the difference between dynamic and basic disks is much clearer now (for the record, I can't see myself ever needing them).

Now, what about the other two questions?

SSD TRIM support is another one I don't get. What does TRIM have to do with Macrium Reflect (my C: drive is an SSD, btw)?

I'm also not sure what Backup File Management is. Is that what I am using now to have Macrium Reflect automatically delete images older than eight weeks?

DavidE said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

I'm still on the fence on whether to just stay with my Pro V5, upgrade to free V6, or upgrade to V6 Pro. Some of the features I still don't understand.

Here's my approach:

Create backups with V5.
Uninstall V5.
Install V6.
Test V6 and see how it works for me.
If V6 isn't for me, restore the V5 image(s).

For me V6 free is much better than V5 free, no going back to V5 for me.
I can't comment on V5 paid vs V6 (free or paid) ...

The big improvements in v6 paid over v5 paid. my personal opinion.


1. Task scheduling templates. Grandfather/Father/Son etc.
2. Incremental backups with consolidation of older incrementals into the base image. In other words this allows for continual incrementals with a fixed limit in the chain length.
3. Fast delta restore. If you are restoring a recent image over an existing partition this results in drastically reduced restore times (in my case 35 min down to 5 min).

kado897 said:

...The big improvements in v6 paid over v5 paid. my personal opinion.


1. Task scheduling templates. Grandfather/Father/Son etc.
2. Incremental backups with consolidation of older incrementals into the base image. In other words this allows for continual incrementals with a fixed limit in the chain length.
3. Fast delta restore. If you are restoring a recent image over an existing partition this results in drastically reduced restore times (in my case 35 min down to 5 min).

Thanks for that info, 'tis good to know. My take on those points are:

1. I can't schedule backups since I never can always know if WMC will be running or not. MR will crash early on if WMC is running. I have some series scheduled to record but I record more movies than series, which can be at almost any time. I prefer to make my images immediately after I run my weekly long scans (which are usually on the same day every week but not necessarily at the same time; I also make an image before making system changes, such as installing a new program or installing updates) and before I run my data backups (using a different program; I only image my C: drive/partition), which I run right after I've made the image so the new image will get backed up before I have a chance to lose it for whatever reason. I use only one image configuration on my images and start that from the sole XML file I keep on each computer so having templates wouldn't really benefit me any.

2. I haven't used incremental backups in a long time. Full images are easier to keep track of and are less likely to fail due to a missing or corrupted incremental image. It takes me only 11 minutes to make a full image on my desktop machine (a bit less on my notebooks). I have way more than enough room to store eight weeks of images (MR will automatically delete any older than 8 weeks).

3. Fast delta restore is attractive but that alone wouldn't be enough for me to pay for an upgrade since it takes me only abut 13-14 minutes or less to do a restore (during which time I can be doing something else, like making my bladder gladder, snag a snack, or other such high priority tasks). I don't need to restore very often, maybe once every other month, if that.

Apparently, my main concern is whether I would lose any features I already use if I were to go from V5 paid to V6 free.