Windows 10: Couple of Nooby questions about Macrium Reflect

Hello All,

Thanks to this site, I am keen to try Macrium Reflect (Free). I intend to back up to an external drive. I will most likely use Windows File History for individual Files / Folders (Photos, videos, documents etc).

A couple of basic questions come to mind;

1. Can the Rescue Media I create using MR, be saved onto the same External drive where I will save both my System Image and my File History back up? Or does the Rescue Media need to be saved onto a seperate USB or CD/DVD?

2. When does this Rescue Media need to be updated? How will I know when to do it? What is the trigger?

3. In regard to creating a Full Backup Image; I know the free version will allow differential back ups. So I guess I will have a large file (Original Full Backup) followed by several differential back ups?

How many differential back up files do you save before another complete Full Back up is required?

Thanks in advance.

:)

 

System backup

Rob thank you for your very prompt reply but I still have a couple of questions.

First, if the hard drive on my computer crashes and I replace the hard drive, can I use Macrium Reflect to reinstall
everything
back on the computer (windows, apps, files, email etc.)?

Second, if the hard drive on my computer crashes and I replace the computer with a new computer, can I use Macrium Reflect to install everything on
the new computer (windows, apps, files, email etc.)?

 

Correct Format for USB Stick | FAT32? | NTFS? | Some Other Format?

I'm using Macrium Reflect Free. Macrium doesn't provide support for the Free version. If they did, I'd be asking Macrium my question.

Macrium does offer a KB and a Forum. The Forum is view-only unless you own a paid version. You cannot post questions without owning a paid version.

In searching the KB and Forum, I could not find an answer to my question. Thus, I came here.

 

You will get most likely a lot of different methods on how to use Macrium Reflect. That being said, this is how I do mine.*Smile

I always make my Rescue disk on a USB stick formatted Fat. This way if you can't boot into your Windows 10, you can always boot from your bootable rescue usb drive. Then access your external drive and restore one of your image backups. CD's and DVD's are a die'n breed. You only need a 4GB USB stick, cost about 6 dollars or less.

Your Rescue Media should be updated with every new update released from Macrium Reflect. Everyday when you startup MR it automatically checks for New Updates, and will tell you. We also post new update information on here too.

I never make differential backups, I always make complete image backups, you can mount your complete image backup later if you want and pick out anything files of folders and just restore what you choose too. I think differential backups are a waste of time. Clicking on one of your image backups will temporarily assign it a drive letter on your Windows 10. showing you all your files and folders. When you are done, all you do then is just Unmount that drive.

Hope this helps you understand how Macrium works a little better. Take Care, Mike. *Smile

 

I have a different opinion about differential backups. One of my PCs has 156 GB of programs/data so making frequent full image backups is way too time consuming, taking about 2 hours including verifying. I also don't want to go too long between backups in case something goes wrong like a wonky MS update, hardware failure, or ransomware. So I make a full image backup once every two weeks or so and then at the end of each day I run a differential backup. Usually that takes only a few minutes unless of course I made major changes like installing a new piece of software and then I do a full image. This keeps me safe without consuming too much time. Of course everyone needs to design a backup strategy that suits how the use thier PC and their tolerance for risk.

 

No offense intended SoFine, but on both my computers, a complete image backup and verify takes no more than 5 to 6 mins. I do have Samsung SSD's on both thou.

 

Same here. I make weekly full backups with my Macrium schedule. Takes only a few minutes.

 

Yes. Create a separate partition on the external about 512KB, format as FAT32, set it as Active. Next create an ISO rescue then extract the content with WinRar/Winzip/7-zip.
FYI: Setup Macrium Rescue to boot from an Internal/External USB HD/SSD

Normally whenever a new update version of Macrium, create another ISO in step 1, unzip it to overwrite the previous version.

Depend how you set up your Windows. Personally, I only have Windows 10 on a SSD, no data/Documents/Videos/Music etc... so the backup process only takes around 2 minutes 30 seconds, not enough time for me to make a cup of coffee. With new version 7, the restore process takes under 1 minutes.

 

None taken OldMike.

 

Youse guys got to be kidding me about full image backups only taking a few minutes. Exactly how much occupied byte-space is your OS partition and same question about your Data partition.

 

It takes me about 10 minutes to backup about 110GB of SSD to HDD, resulting .mrimg files is about 30% smaller that total of SSD's usage. Size and times vary of course but this is my average. Process doesn't take much of resources so it's actually "Fire and forget" and can also be set to shut computer down when finished. Perfect for end of day backup, start it and go elsewhere and it will turn everything off by itself. No need to sit and look at it, I can do other work while it runs.

 

I use Macrium and back up my C drive once a week (68 GB) Win 10 only on that drive. Takes approximately 9 min last backup. My D drive takes longer as all my games, photos, other data is on that drive (320 GB). It takes approximately 20 mins. All my drives are Samsung SSD's. They both back up to a separate Samsung 1 TB SSD.

 

Well my C-Drive that I do a complete image backup is not that large, SSD drive, (30GB) which is then backed up to a WD Drive .
I do get VERY High speeds during the backup also, screen shot below.




On my 2nd computer which Windows 10 is larger (45GB) it still only takes 6 mins on that computer.

 

Macrium Reflect is great, fast and very reliable.

 

Mine takes less than two minutes imaging my system(c*Smile. It's about 16gb. That's all I image. It takes an additional couple minutes to boot up the MR stick and to reboot the system.
I use Free File Sync for data.