Macrium versus Acronis

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I have been using Acronis True Image Home for a number of years and recently upgraded to the 2015 version.

I find the User Interface clumsy and not very intuitive.

I have downloaded the new version of Macrium Reflect Free and it seems to be much easier to use.

I would appreciate Lounge members’ opinions on these two programs.

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Nate,

As a long time user of Acronis TI who switched to Macrium Reflect, first Free now Premium, I don’t think I need say more. However, one note, as a Premium user, I don’t see a whole lot of value here for the Home user. For most home users I’d recommend the Free version. That said, if you tinker w/hardware or replace you machines often the Premium “restore to different” hardware feature is well worth the cost! HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Another convert from Acronis to Macrium, and, yes, I think that Premium (four licences) was worth it.

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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I have been using Acronis True Image Home for a number of years and recently upgraded to the 2015 version.

I find the User Interface clumsy and not very intuitive.

I have downloaded the new version of Macrium Reflect Free and it seems to be much easier to use.

I would appreciate Lounge members’ opinions on these two programs.

The ATI interface is clunky, I too have the 2015 version and will not be using it for a while as I am reinstalling W7 slowly after BSODs that did not yield to trouble shooting. I am using a USB boot to run Macrium free.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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I’m still on TI 2014 and as all my backups are in TI format I won’t be changing.

cheers, Paul

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This is the version I use, it does all I want it to do when I want it done. It does everything perfectly. Never saw the need to upgrade.

41533-RR

I tried Macrium, it tried to do what it wanted when it wanted. Can’t remember version apart from being free.

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For me, it was no contest. As I have detailed previously on this board, Acronis TI wouldn’t work on my W7 desktop. Acronis’s support worked hard to try to resolve my issue (going up 3 levels of their support structure) with no joy.

Macrium Free worked out of the box for me. I was (and still am) so happy, I bought the Pro version.

My regularly-taken images have saved me more than once.

Dick

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I’d like to say i was very unhappy on occasion i attempted to use Seagate Disk Manager program as it attempted to uninstall True Home Image 2009 because apparently Acronis has taken over what had otherwise been a good disk managing program

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A long time ago I ran into problems with heavy-handed more automated later versions after 2009 Acronis program versions, finally after purchasing Win 64 bit Lapto,p i found I could no longer use True Home Image 2009 and though had paid for two later versions dumped them, after heads-up on here moved to Macrium Free, and was very pleased with the program particularly its ability to copy/clone Hard Drive onto a new a Hard Drive which I have tucked one away for a rainy-day as backup.

I then purchased Reflect full version and am happy that its backing up ok, though was bit concerned what grandfather and grandson actually meant, and its ability to correctly backup Outlook 2007 so also purchased Outback Plus 9 which appears to handle Outlook backups very well.

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Recently replaced True Image Home 2014 with Reflect 6 Free and am very happy with it.

I found it a lot more intuitive to set up than Acronis, where I had to resort to the forum and an expert’s post on how to go about choosing a suitable backup routine. With Reflect I just chose one of the backup types they presented, set the backup frequency and was good to go.

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One thing which has put me more solidly into the Macrium Reflect camp than before is that Version 6 has recently improved their bootable WinPE Rescue environment. I have a tablet, and its display doesn’t show the whole screen. Parts at the bottom and the right edge get cut off.

EaseUS ToDo Backup recently rearranged their WinPE splash screen to put the Browse for Recovery Image button at the very bottom of the screen. This makes the option totally inaccessible on my tablet’s screen under this WinPE environment. No way to resize the window, either.

Macrium Reflect free version 6 has added the ability within its WinPE rescue environment to resize its main window. Not that I’ve had to do this — the layout is complete, even with a cropped screen image. Also, Reflect has added features to its Windows Explorer under WinPE. Both for archives and for a still-readable hard drive, this is a blessing.

I haven’t used Acronis products for a long time, so I can’t compare these or other features with the Acronis products. But the improved Macrium Reflect features have made me more committed than ever to this backup and recovery product.

So while Acronis True Image Home may do a few more things than Macrium Reflect Free, I like dedicating one program to do one type of job. And use other programs to do the other, sometimes unrelated, tasks which Acronis has been including in their products lately.

-- rc primak

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I currently have the paid version of True Image 2014. I have not installed it on my computer, but instead, I run it from the boot disk that I burned from the ISO that I downloaded. I have had no problem creating disk images and saving them to an external hard drive. I have not yet had occasion to restore an image back to my computer hard drive.

I would like to try the free version of Macrium Reflect, but I would like to use it in the same manner as I use True Image. That is, I do not want to install it on my computer, but would like the ability to burn a bootable CD/DVD (not a USB drive) and run the program from there. Does Macrium have this capability?

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I would like to try the free version of Macrium Reflect, but I would like to use it in the same manner as I use True Image. That is, I do not want to install it on my computer, but would like the ability to burn a bootable CD/DVD (not a USB drive) and run the program from there. Does Macrium have this capability?

Yes it does.

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I currently have the paid version of True Image 2014. I have not installed it on my computer, but instead, I run it from the boot disk that I burned from the ISO that I downloaded. I have had no problem creating disk images and saving them to an external hard drive. I have not yet had occasion to restore an image back to my computer hard drive.

I would like to try the free version of Macrium Reflect, but I would like to use it in the same manner as I use True Image. That is, I do not want to install it on my computer, but would like the ability to burn a bootable CD/DVD (not a USB drive) and run the program from there. Does Macrium have this capability?

Install Macrium Reflect Free, then burn the CD of its WinPE Rescue Disk, and you should be able to use the Rescue CD in place of the installed program. Maybe a few features would go missing, but it’s a fairly complete environment.

An alternative is Aomei’s PEBuilder, with its own (less robust) BackerUpper program:
http://www.aomeitech.com/pe-builder.html

Aomei includes other handy system rescue tools in its prebuilt WinPE envirnment. To conserve RAM usage, tools can be deselected when building the USB environment. The site’s illustration shows disks as well as USB, so I presume the program can be built onto DVD as well as USB. Haven’t tried the tools myself, but some folks seem to be impressed.
http://www.ghacks.net/2014/09/25/create-a-bootable-windows-environment-with-aomei-pe-builder/

-- rc primak

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Thanks for the reply, Bob.

As I said in my OP, I don’t want to install the program on my computer. That seems to be a show-stopper here, so I think I’ll just stick with True Image.

Thanks again for your reply.

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FYI Macrium Reflect can make a USB boot drive even in the free version. I use it and like it!

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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wavy, thanks. So Macrium Free can make a USB boot drive even if it’s not installed on my computer?

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wavy, thanks. So Macrium Free can make a USB boot drive even if it’s not installed on my computer?

Les,

No, you have to install it. You can then make CD/DVD or USB Win PE boot media. Once that is done you can uninstall it like it was never there. HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Thanks, RG.

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wavy, thanks. So Macrium Free can make a USB boot drive even if it’s not installed on my computer?

Les,

No, you have to install it. You can then make CD/DVD or USB Win PE boot media. Once that is done you can uninstall it like it was never there. HTH :cheers:

Would you be able to install Macrium Free in a VM and create the CD/DVD or USB Win PE boot media there? That way, there is no effect on your daily/production machine.

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I bought True Image in 2009, upgrading every year. I found it had a completely different, and very complex interface on Windows 10. I’ve done some backups and restores with Macrium free, and I’m sold. Have to save Acronis to preserve the usefulness of some backups made with it, but when I have too much time on my hands, I might restore them and back up witn Macrium.

I agree that using the Acronis boot disk works very well.

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Now that I am unsure of. I did make it from an i stalled version, it would take a bit of research.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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There are free private label versions of Acronis True Image available for owners of Seagate and Western Digital hard drives, along with user manuals for those free versions. I have used both of these products and they work fine, including doing a flawless image restore with the Seagate version.

http://www.seagate.com/support/internal-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/barracuda-xt/discwizard-master-dl/

http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en

I have not used it, but another free product to look at is Paragon Backup and Recovery Free Edition. It also has a user manual for the free version.
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/

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I too am trying to find a bullet-proof backup-restore program. My first requirement is “disaster recovery”, i.e. recovering when Windows won’t boot. (Maybe it’s because I was a commercial pilot for 35 years, we didn’t train to recover from situations that were bothersome, but how to survive potential disasters.)

After reading good things about Easeus in the newsletter I tried it. After a lot of trial, and many e-mails to and from their support (a lot lost in translation), I discovered that although Easeus can create images of C drive on an external USB3 drive from the Windows interface, and can create “emergency boot disks”, it cannot recover an image made on the same USB3 drive, nor a USB2 drive connected to a USB3 port. (Well that is not strictly true, they did send me a link detailing the the procedure to add the drivers to the emergency disk, but a whole lot more was lost in translation, honestly the mind boggles!)

So I tried NovaBackup. Curiously the result was virtually the same: make and restore images in Windows: make a “disaster recovery” disk, but not recover the image from a USB 3 drive uding the disaster recovery disk. This seems strange considering that the first USB3 devices were released more than 5 years ago, long before the current version of either program was released.

I have an HP Envy with 4 USB ports, all USB3. Does anyone know if I’m going to run into the same problem trying to restore an image from a USB3 drive if I switch to Macrium or True Image?

Thanks for any input,

David

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David,

Drivers are ALWAYS a problem! Your best bet is a computer with Native USB 3.0 support in the H/W or OS. It would seem that the HP needs to load non-standard drivers before it can use the USB 3 ports.

Interestingly enough I had this problem with my wife’s old laptop using Win 7 the USB 3.0 port would not work until windows was booted and it would not restore from the USB 3.0 port when booted from the Macrium Reflect (MR) Win PE boot disk created on that machine. I had to use the single USB 2.0 port w/a hub to do do backups & restores.

Fast forward a couple of years and the wife has a problem with the machine, the USB 2.0 port dies! She’s in the middle of a large project…panic ensues! Only solution a new machine for wifey. I get her all setup (restoring the MR Images to different hardware feature of the premium version which worked like a charm) and decide to use her old machine as a test bench. Load up Win 10TP and viola all the ports work and now the new MR Win PE USB created on that machine backups & restores at USB 3.0 speeds.

Moral of the story, it’s complicated…It’s a combination of OS/Computer/Drivers thus hard to answer the question as each combination will have its own problems/solutions.

I did have another problem w/MR Win PE boot seeing my network card. With some help from MR support (I run the premium version) I learned how to load the appropriate drivers onto the PE media and all is happy.

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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For the record, my Acronis TI boot media sees my USB3 disk without modification.

cheers, Paul

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I upgraded to Acronis 2015 and rapidly reverted to Acronis 2014 because of the poor user interface of the newer version (and the fact that a number of features present in 2014 had been dropped in the 2015 version).

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core CPU; ASUS Cross Hair VIII Formula Mobo; Win 11 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis Cyberprotect, VMWare Workstation Pro V17.5. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync G3223Q 144Hz Monitor.

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Thank you RetiredGeek for that explanation. I do have a CD with drivers for this machine, touch pad, finger-print reader, graphics etc. One of which is “Intel USB3.exe” I don’t suppose that I could simply add a copy of this driver to the USB emergency disk, that would be too easy, but is there a way to incorporate this driver and get access to the USB3 ports?

David

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I don’t suppose that I could simply add a copy of this driver to the USB emergency disk

You need to add the driver itself, which is contained in the EXE.

EaseUS allows you to create a WinPE or Linux boot CD. Have you tested both?
If you have a WinPE boot disk and you want to add a driver for the USB you need to inject the drivers.
http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/topic/2349-guide-adding-drivers-to-a-custom-winpe-30/

cheers, Paul

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This is sort of a thread hijack in that I don’t use either MR or TI, but Image For Windows, which is not a free imaging software ($38.94), but has lots of extras included in that price.

That being said, one of those extras is TBWinRE, a scripted utility that uses Windows’ Install.wim file and TeraByte’s own scripts to create a bootable (both MBR and UEFI bootable) Windows PE environment that includes Image For Windows. The USB stick is created as a partitioned USB which allows the addition of as many other tools/troubleshooting apps as one has room for on the USB stick. Being “the computer guy” for my friends and relatives, this TBWinRE USB (and maybe a screwdriver) is the only thing I need to carry when I go on a “rescue” mission.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Thank you Paul.

I took a look at that link, what a can of worms!!! However, I have been looking at TeraByte Image for Windows and Image for Linux. I asked their Tech Support about USB 3 drivers and their response was:

“For TBWinRE/PE, you’ll get asked if you want the USB3 drivers added. For Image for Linux, they are already there.”

Haven’t had a chance to try out either program, but it does sound hopeful.

David

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I’m not surprised you sometimes have to jump through a few hoops to load drivers. New mobos will need newer disk drivers and your rescue CD may not have them. In your case it’s the USB3 drivers, but they may be in the EaseUS Linux CD so I’d try that first.

cheers, Paul

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I got TerraByte Image for Windows/Linux/DOS and Bare Metal package, $50 the lot. Had no problem creating an image, and a Linux recovery thumb drive, and was able to verify the image using the recovery drive. Easy to use and nothing gets lost in translation.

Thanks for your input.

David

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