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I've not been happy with Macrium Reflect Free, and perhaps their paid versions..
peter.s:
Thanks for your points of view.
I
My point was not that MR is any bad, my point was, it's generally considered somewhat "superior", and I don't really know why it should be considered "superior", in comparison with its contenders. Also, my point was, marketing-wise, they do lots of things-good-for-them, but that doesn't translate into any advantage for the user.
II
As for speed, I'm positive, Macrium is NOT faster for creating full backups (since I did this consecutively and paid attention to that), and it even was (only) slightly slower; can't say for recreation of the backup since, as said, was not able to reinstall it.
As for the "as advertized" aspect, well, had I known the backup (from external hdd = second device anyway: I learned from bad experience) needed a special boot device (possibly even the backup itself, or then with lots of fuss getting to the backup, on a third device, incl. the comp itself), I would not have installed Macrium to begin with, and I didn't learn this very important detail neither from their site (could be "hidden" somewhere over there, probably, though), neither from quite numerous recommandations of Macrium where Macrium gets high (but quite unspecific) praise in web articles like "what is the best free backup-and-restore sw". Worse, Macrium did NOT tell me my backup would then, afterwards, been useless: It wrote the backup, but in the whole process of WRITING the backup, I did not get ANY info I also would have to create a boot device - they just told me so when I then wanted to use the backup, and this is unacceptable - thank god I wasn't in real need of that backup since it was a trial of mine only, also, as said, from bad experience beforehand.
III
GParted mentioned by 40hz is freeware; may consider to replace my EaseUS with it since EaseUS works faultless (did some real work with it), but is a little bit on the bloatware side - in fact, for Backup and Restore, I went back from EaseUS to Paragon (as said, both free versions) for that reason.
Also, Paragon leaves you alone with nagging for buying paid versions, which I think is really kind of them; whilst both EaseUS and Macrium DID nag me; on the other hand, it's clear as day they are entitled to some nagging after all since they make available really USEFUL sw for free.
IV
Re both speed and possible ease of use once it's all "running". Fact is, I only know the free versions where Macrium is inferior, not superior, by my standards (explained above, and without any new info why I perhaps could be wrong about that, so far). The irony in this is, would I KNOW the paid versions (again, Macrium is more expensive, also compare prices for more than one pc), I would very probably be willing to pay (perhaps even for Macrium), since it's in incremental / differential backup where possibly big differences between these contenders would appear, and which could perhaps even justify a price difference, but at the very least could ease up your choice between them. But it seems there is no valid comparison between those paid versions yet.
And even if Macrium-paid is superior, which is far from being established, saying Macrium-free is superior (and all the more so against the above evidence), would be called successful image transfer (Mercedes Benz S vs. A for a better known example), but smart people as we are should not fall for that.
MilesAhead:
I learned the hard way that the "best" backup imaging program is the one that works on the system you bought it for. I won't go into all the details but as I moved from XP to Vista to Vista x64 to Windows 7 then Windows 8.0 I found that I needed to change from Paragon to Macrium to EaseUS ToDo then back to Macrium, to get the correct hardware support for my systems.
I think most of the advanced features are important to System Administrators who run Servers and need to automate the backup processes. For me having a PC or 2 I will run manual complete backups. I don't even need incremental backup capability as I keep a small system partition. Large data like movie images were kept on bare drives in drawers and inserted in USB docks when needed.
Right now with the transition to GPT and UEFI I feel that support is most important if you have system(s) that utilize those technologies. If you have verified that a set of competing products do the basic job correctly then a feature comparison is relevant. But it doesn't matter which bells and whistles are included if the basic backup/restore is not reliable and robust.
If you haven't already, take a look on TheFreeCountry as there is a page full of free imaging and cloning tools for the PC.
wraith808:
If you haven't already, take a look on TheFreeCountry as there is a page full of free imaging and cloning tools for the PC.
-MilesAhead (February 03, 2015, 08:52 AM)
--- End quote ---
Thanks for that link!
Steven Avery:
I suggest always backing up two images from two different programs. Also maybe using two different externals. If it is mission-critical, something off-site. And I only do images occasionally, once I have some from an early fairly clean install.
My fav is Macrium Reflect and Aomei Backupper. When I see a sale, I will likely buy a Pro version of Macrium. Aomei has more features in the free and has made a big splash, without hiccups. I've been successful every time with Macrium and the interface is sweet, so they are my #1, and I've never felt nagged (if there is something there, it is not annoying.) Easeus has a few more failure reports, but that could be a big installed base. DriveImage XML (probably the highest % of problems of the software mentioned here) and Paragon and a couple of others should be fine. The tech support of Paragon has occasionally been lauded (last I checked a while back.)
Unless you are doing software testing where you reload the OS frequently, I have never understood the emphasis on whether it takes 15 or 25 minutes. After all, you are not being chained to the puter for a once in a blue moon install. Play with the second puter. See how the Chromebook works. Play with the tablet.
Or sip some tea. Or take a walk...outside!
Aomei has a forum of sorts:
http://www.aomeitech.com/forum/discussions
Macrium has a strong forum.
http://support.macrium.com/
Paragon on Wilders - Official Paragon Support Forum
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/categories/official-paragon-support-forum.107/
EaseUS forum - backup
http://forum.easeus.com/viewforum.php?f=14
DriveImage XML, no native forum, lots of helpful discussion on tech forums.
And I suggest the frequent backups should simply be data backups, using a flexible data backup-program like:
Personal Backup 5
http://personal-backup.rathlev-home.de/index-e.html
Ascomp
http://www.backupmaker.com
English Forum
https://www.ascomp.de/forum/index.php?showforum=52
There is no need to do a full image just to have a small amount of data backup. Data backup is easy enough to do in the cloud as well. Those two look especially noteworthy (Personal Backup lacks the forum, yet it looks nicer) although I have used Backup4All paid, Cobian free, and some others.
If the use is for business, then there is additional checking about licensing. Also your point:
"Macrium is more expensive, also compare prices for more than one pc"
What you really want is something like the security software, a special for a pro version on 3+ puters. If you aren't simply happy with the free versions. I think the Aomei having extra features in the free should be noted.
Steven
superboyac:
I suggest always backing up two images from two different programs. Also maybe using two different externals. If it is mission-critical, something off-site. And I only do images occasionally, once I have some from an early fairly clean install.
-Steven Avery (February 04, 2015, 05:39 AM)
--- End quote ---
never considered that. I think that's a good idea to use different programs. I definitely have in the past had an image that didn't work for some reason. Reminds me of mouser's backup strategy document.
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