Macrium Reflect – Full Image Backups

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I have a simple question.  I’m new to Macrium, just installed v7 on my new Dell XPS 8930 with WIN 1o Pro.  I have set up the PC and created a WIN rescue USB.  Before I complete the rest of my set up (installing all of the software)  I want to make a baseline Full image backup.  The Macrium screen has 2 basic options: Image selected discs on this computer, and Create an image of the partition (s) required to backup and restore Windows.   Which of these two is the proper choice to create a Full disc image?  Does this image include all of the folders/files on the drive?  Or do I need to create a file and folder backup?  The destination for my backups will be a USB drive.  See attached image of my backup Macrium screen.

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Hello – I also use Macrium Reflect and I use the option to back up all folders required to backup and restore Windows.  I have thoroughly tested it and it works beautifully.  It is not a full disk image in the sense of a forensic bit for bit image.   I know because it condenses a 120 gb C:  drive and all other drives required by this process to a roughly 40 gb file.

I keep all my “user files” like excel spreadsheets, documents, etc. on a separate drive specifically dedicated to holding these user files, so that they are unaffected by the backup/restore process.   For backup of those files I use iDrive, although there are many options out there.

Good luck.  John Bridges

 

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[a]

Interesting. For all the years I’ve used Macrium I never noticed those options on the left. I make sure the leftmost box is checked so that it will include everything on my SSD, and select image this disk. I am able to, an have, restored an entire SSD, or a single partition. hth

I see now, by testing both, that if I select the one that says create an image… … to backup and restore windows, that it OMITS my extremely important data partitions. Very bad. I am doing the top one – image selected disks…  and selecting just one disk/SSD.

by the by, you really need to free up some space on that partition that’s marked in red…

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by a.

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That partition is on the solid state drive as received from Dell.  I have not done anything to impact the drive.

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[jburk07]

I use the free version of Macrium Reflect and have found it to be very reliable and fairly easy to use. Like krism, I image all of the partitions on my internal drive.

The Macrium Reflect image will include all of the files and folders on the drive, at least if you choose to image all of the partitions. You can even copy individual folders or files from the image if you need to, but to do that, or even to view the files, you have to use the Macrium Reflect software. That’s one reason why it is a good idea to also make a separate backup of your user data, as jbrid123 suggests.

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• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by jburk07.

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If you “Create an image of the partition (s) required to backup and restore Windows”, it will do exactly that, so that in the event of a subsequent disaster you would be able to restore Windows to its previous condition.  But if you have other partitions or disks which only contain user data, this option will not include those.  That is what the other option, “Image selected discs on this computer” is for – it should really say “disks or partitions”.  Here you can select those disks or partitions which contain only user data, not being part of the Windows operating system.  It’s a good idea to keep them separate – if you have a large volume of data (photos, videos, documents, music etc.) you would want to back these up, but you may not want to have them on the same backup image as Windows.

Windows 10 Pro 64 bit 20H2

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Too complicated.
I use Acronis True Image with options for disks, partition or This PC.
I use This PC which backups my SSD drive with all petitions (Windows, EFI, restore..) and the installed data HDD.
I can restore any file, folder, partition, disk…

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Mr. Austin

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Yes, definitely personal preference – whatever is easiest and makes most sense to you! At the moment my full backups of the SSD are about 48GB and being put on a 1TB partition so there is lots of room. I have split things up, as @Bundabura is suggesting, in the past when I had 3 or 4 linux partitions on there as well and pushing 80-100GB per backup. You might take a full backup, and then experiment with partial ones as you see fit. They make a nice history resource – I have a full Easeus backup of a system back in 2016 that I still look at occasionally if I am needing a particular file.

I did not state it but I am using the free Macrium. I am licensed for an Easeus for a few years ago as that was the only way that it would create a stand-alone rescue-type usb-stick. Macrium free does that for free which is why I seem to have settled on it when dealing with a pure windows SSD. Macrium also seems to update fairly often which gives me a warm feeling of safety.

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SXL,

My preference is to use the Image this disk… link as seen below:

Of course, for you it would be GPT Disk 2 vs my GPT Disk 1 as shown in the image above.

IMHO you’re better off making separate images of your Boot Disk (GPT Disk 2) and your Data Disk (GPT Disk 1). This simplifies the Restore process IMHO when you only need to restore one or the other and doesn’t add much when you have to do both.

HTH

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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JohnW, Cybertooth

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Alex5723 wrote:

Too

I like that approach. I want things to be straightforward and/or simple for both backup and recovery. Now, I’ve a question, if you please about Validating the backups. In the old days when I backed-up our Windows 2000 Server (hot-swappable RAID array) to a DAT cartridge, using EMC’s Retrospect 8.x, I’d always opt to have the backup check itself to ensure it could be restored.

But Acronis True Image does not default to Validate. And the validate can take hours. So my real question (which eluded their Chat support agent just now) is why doesn’t their software default to Validate? Do they feel it’s unnecessary? And more importantly, could I actually trust their software to succcessfuly recover the backup to a new, bare drive?

Danke.

Human, who sports only naturally-occurring DNA ~ oneironaut ~ broadcaster

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I don’t validate as I trust Acronis which hasn’t failed me when I (twice in ~6 years) restored from backup.

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Mr. Austin

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[Mr. Austin]

Alex, thank you. That’s what I was hoping and expecting to hear. And now I add this. I’ve five copies of my data. Two in the cloud. Three local. Acronis True Image is only one local copy. And, the validation schema of my bygone DAT/Retrospect days were based on tape media which are less precise than more modern spinning discs and SSDs. As I wrote this I remembered that in addition to my 12+ years building and running a mixed-OS network on Windows 2000 Server, there was also a time when I was a sales manager for Intersecting Concepts, which published and distributed disc compression software for DEC’s Alpha and VAX systems. Intersecting Concept’s owner, Mark, was the one who hired me. Mark also wrote the old FastBack backup program. The need for compression depended on whether or not disc and optical storage system costs were cheaper than buying compression software licenses.

Human, who sports only naturally-occurring DNA ~ oneironaut ~ broadcaster

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Mr. Austin.

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PS to Alex. I’ve contacted Acronis twice about validations during backups. The first was a chat support request yesterday. The tech was not trained to understand questions written in English, so my question to her about why Acronis True Image 2021 installations default to unvalidated configurations was not understood. She instead tried to explain to me what validation is. That failed and I politely abandoned the chat.

When I telephoned Acronis just now their phone recording politely informed me that they’d be happy to have me purchase per-incident tech support for their $35, mission-critical software. No, thank you to that.

I’ll use Acronis until I find something I like better. Macrium’s console looked granular but too fiddly for my tastes. And I never received a response to a simple, e-mailed support inquiry to them. So of course I won’t be using their products.

Human, who sports only naturally-occurring DNA ~ oneironaut ~ broadcaster

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Validate? Depends on how much you trust your backup program. I haven’t used Acronis for many years so can’t say. Dunno.

I never verify Macrium backups – they’ve never failed for me.

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Validate is probably not on by default because the manufacturers correctly assume the copy/write process is reliable – if it weren’t we would need to verify every disk operation – so doesn’t add anything, except time, to the backup.

cheers, Paul

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IMHO, always validate! This is your safety net make sure it will catch you. I have Macrium Premium so I’ve set the default to validate.

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SueW, Cybertooth

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Image the disk with a full image. Include all partitions.

Then if your disk fails, the restore to a replacement disk will put “humpty dumpty” back together again.

Don’t complicate things.

Macrium Reflect has two options (in Advanced Options) for doing so.

1. The “Intelligent sector copy” image (the default): only copies used space, not free space, so that the image can be smaller in size than the actual disk. The page file and hibernate file are also not copied.
2. Make an exact copy of the partition(s): partitions include unused sectors therefore forensic examination of the partition(s) remain unchanged. Deleted files may be recovered.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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