Windows 10: Macrium Reflect Is taking a long time to create an image

I am using Macrium Reflect Free to create an image of my WD portable hard drive. It has about 1TB worth of files on it. I installed the latest version of Macrium Reflect and used all the default settings to make the backup. It has been 1.5 hours so far and is 7% complete. At this rate it is going to take about 13 hours to complete. Is this normal? It sure seems long to me. I am backing up to a Seagate 2TB portable hard drive.

:)

 

Bitlocker

Any suggestions?

-> Yes - reload Windows. Next time take precautions prior to encrypting your system, by creating an image with a tool such as Macrium Reflect. It's free.

 

Help! I can't backup my computer!

Macrium Reflect is one of the best tools you will ever have. With a image created with Macrium, you will be fearless, knowing you can restore your PC back like is was the day you created the image. It may take you a little time to learn how to use it but
it will be the best time you ever spent. There are tons of helpful tutorials about Macrium on the internet. Very user friendly and very a reliable program.

No one on the forum will ever recommend a program that is not safe. If they do the program will be immediately removed!

 

Yes, it can take long time to complete. It also may have something to do with disk and system speed. It takes me 20 minutes to back up 240GB SSD to a HDD on a fast desktop computer. If backing up to USB2 connected storage it will be even slower.

 

Okay, thanks for your reply CountMike, yes, both portable drives are on USB2. I just wanted to see if the time sound right.

Update, 7 hours remaining.

 

Typical usb 3 speed is around 25 MB/s

So 1 TB will take say 11 hrs, but MRF does compress by about 33%, so 7 hours is about right. A usb 3 would halve this at least.

 

Why are you writing an image for backup? Why not just copying all files to the other disk? And when in future you want to backup the changes, I suggest to use FreeFileSync. A perfect programme also for one-way sync.
I use Macrium Reflect for making a system image, but not for backing up other files.

 

It's easier to have it all in one large file than to chase them one by one. The file can be mounted to view, copy or replace parts. Later on you can do incremental or differential update to it.

 

It's easier to have it all in one large file
Maybe, but when there is some corruption in that one big file, you loose probably everything? I donot take that risk.

than to chase them one by one.
That is automatically done by FreeFileSync.

 

Personally, I prefer to keep OS+programs ion one partition, and data in a separate partition. This keeps the Macrium image relatively static and I only back that up monthly (or if I make significant changes to that drive), accepting it may be necessary to reinstall some updates.

Then I use File History Backup to back up the data drive, on a more frequent basis (I choose weekly but could even go as low as hourly).

The key advantage of doing it this way is if you decide to clean install OS, it does not affect your data partition.

As an aside, anybody using Macrium (or any similar) using diff/incs should redo the full backup following the upgrade, as there is a strong chance it will completely fall apart if you try to restore a build+diffs/incs spanning two builds.

 

That's how I have always done, keep OS and programs strictly separate from data. OS and programs can be replaced if you keep installation files but data can go to Neverland with small and expensive chances for it's return.
For OS disk I keep MR backup fairly regularly but data is always in perpetual incremental backup on another HDD and most important stuff on external one.

 

Thanks everyone for the replys, originally I thought it would be faster to have MRF make a backup of the drive than to copy the files individually. I am on a laptop and going through a USB2 powered hub. As cereberus pointed out, the hub is slowing me down. MR is telling me I'm getting a transfer rate of 140Mb/s which is 17.5MB/s. I am going to have to invest in a USB3 hub.

Usually I have two portable drives with the exact same files on them. One of the drives failed, so I'm just trying to make a backup of the other.

@PoKo
I am going to try FreeFileSync and see how that works.

Update 30 minutes remaining

 

Glad you agree - never let me down this strategy, and doing image backup is 30 mins tops (with usb3). I do not generate much data so I tend to just back up weekly, unless I know it is critical data which if not too big I zap to the Cloud. If bigger, I copy manually to an external drive.

 

The fastest tool to copy files is with windows own robocopy its been around for years and was built for servers its very fast and you can get a gui for it Utility Spotlight: Robocopy GUI when copy files anti virus can be a killer as often it will scan files on read and on write slowing it to a crawl