If Macrium Reflect X is too expensive, what will you switch to?

I'm staying put with MR v8 but evaluating O&O Diskimage 19.

evaluating O&O Diskimage 19

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I tried it too and found it was not worth paying for over the free alternatives Veeam or Halseo. I'm a fan of other free O&O tools though.
If you decide to buy it, they have a deal, 5 of their products for $21 with coupon AUTUMN2024. O&O AutoBackup could be useful, but I already use Syncthing. DiskStat also has free alternatives such as WinDirStat or WizTree. As for Defrag, is that still a thing with SSDs in 2025?

I'm an image backup enthusiast and have tried numerous different ones.
I tried O&O DiskImage about a year ago, but I didn't like it for some reason. I can't remember why now. I've had too many sleeps since then.

OnesieBackup said:

As for Defrag, is that still a thing with SSDs in 2025?

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Yes, some users require very big storage, and only way is to get HDDs. For the moment SSDs seems to be mostly limited to MAX 8TB while you can get HDDs with up to 22TB and beyond. Also the price difference is HUGE.

Also speed difference for big data storage is not of any significance once you have added enough drives in an array of about 8drives and beyond. And even that can be compensated with a single SSD cache drive in any configuration scenario.

I've licensed copies of multiple backup/imaging utilities in the past including Shadowprotect, Acronis, EaseUS, Aomei Backupper & O&O DiskImage and I find them pretty good when seen in isolation.

But none of them have ticked all the boxes like MR does and Reflect has been my go-to backupper since 2012. It has never let me down. MR ticks all the boxes and it's going to be pretty difficult to move to another utility. The easiest and most palatable option at this time is to stay with MR 8 for a while longer but upgrading to the latest and greatest version does offer some benefits including backup speed and ongoing support.

PS - That set of O&O utlities is worth the money. I've been buying multi licence packs for years, the last upgrade was in 2022/23. I also use O&O Bluecon.

Well, as I had 5 v8 Home licences, I decided I would trade in one for VX half price lease at c. £18 per annum (only 3 pts of Stella a year.

I do not regret it one moment - it is faster and its file exclusion from GUI is a great feature.

Also, support is now permanent not just one year.

I have already found one minor inconsistency in its file exclusion folders and the Reflect Team have earmarked it for a future update. Try getting other tools to commit to that.

In the end, this is undoubtedly the best imaging tool there is and extremely reliable, with great support. None of the other tools have a proper support system

Let's be brutally honest, the majority who come here has broadband, reasonable pcs etc. and a discounted cost of £18 per year is peanuts to keep with the best and fully supported package.

So all you "deserters" should sit back and think carefully if you really want to ditch the best and well supported tool.

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I would have liked to upgrade my other 4 pack V8 licences.

However, I only use 2 of them (2 spare) and even those only intermittently (maybe at most once a month) on other devices which are for travel or backup.

I do not see any value in upgrading those, particularly as you have to upgrade all 4.

I fully accept it you only have a 4 pack licence, then leasing is not the way to go.

cereberus said:

So all you "deserters" should sit back and think carefully if you really want to ditch the best and well supported tool.

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Ok you convinced me. I am sticking with Reflect and will upgrade to 10 shortly. It is the best & of that there is no doubt.

PS - I use 3 of 4 family pack licenses.

OnesieBackup said:

As for Defrag, is that still a thing with SSDs in 2025?

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Yes, with SSDs it is highly recommended to not turn off the Scheduled optimization in Defragment and Optimize Drives ("%WinDir%\System32\dfrgui.exe") except if you have installed, e.g., Condusiv DymaxIO which will turn off that option automatically for SSDs when DymaxIO's own SSD optimization technology takes over from it. (Similarly, DymaxIO also turns off the scheduled defrag for HDDs when its own HDD optimization technology takes over from it.)

The scheduled optimization that Windows' Disk Optimization uses to optimize SSDs is different from the one that it uses to defrag HDDs. However, the scheduled SSD optimization does include a (partial) defrag that is performed only after it detects that fragmentation has piled up beyond a certain threshold [that is a lot higher than the threshold that it uses to handle HDDs]. Additionally, the scheduled SSD optimization performs a retrim, as TRIM commands can sometimes be performed by the SSD controller in such a way that no real action is taken by it, i.e. during those times when the SSD controller's total workload is too heavy to keep up with performance. So, the purpose of a retrim is just to send the same TRIM commands again, i.e. during those times when the SSD controller's total workload can be expected to remain lower for a period of time that will hopefully be long enough for the controller to take the desired actions after all. But TRIM (and retrim) is not a defrag so, it begs the question, why is a partial defrag still needed with SSDs.

The reason why a partial defrag [that, like I said, Windows performs on SSDs automatically by default] is still needed with SSDs is as follows.

Firstly, when fragmentation piles up beyond a certain level, both SSD performance and SSD life expectancy start to plummet steeply. Just the level/magnitude [of fragmentation] at which performance and life expectancy start to degrade with SSDs [in such a way that can be noticed] is a lot higher when compared to HDDs, and, the impact on life expectancy with HDDs is negligible (or almost), whereas the impact on performance with HDDs can become noticeable even with just a moderate amount of fragmentation. Also with HDDs, if fragmentation keeps building up, the loss in performance worsens much earlier on, but the claim that severe fragmentation buildup cannnot hurt SSDs is still false, even though there will always be those who keep believing that it's true (i.e., flat earthers).

Secondly, the NTFS filesystem has a maximum limit on the number of fragments that it can cope with. In spite of the fact that this maximum number is very high, good reasons to assume that it can never be reached with SSDs are pretty rare. If it gets reached, the NTFS partition will almost certainly suffer permanent data loss, and possibly even suffer complete permanent data loss. Windows has no built-in mechanism to check nor warns you up front. The risk may be small, but the consequence might not be small. So, keep the scheduled optimization turned on. Or if you prefer to run the risk of later regretting that you turned it off, then turn it off.

hasleo seems ok in pe running off usbstick.

There is no obvious way to exclude stuff from a hasleo image, unless it is hiding somewhere. Diskgenius can do exclusions and pretty sure O&O can as well.




If anybody fancies O&O

Beaupeep said:

It is the best & of that there is no doubt.

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They still owe me 50 Euros compensation for wasting 2 minutes of my time & of that there also is no doubt. lol

Beaupeep said:

Ok you convinced me. I am sticking with Reflect and will upgrade to 10 shortly. It is the best & of that there is no doubt.

PS - I use 3 of 4 family pack licenses.

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Only problem is you have to upgrade all 4 (I had 4 pack plus a single licence) and that would cost £72 per annum, and that is quite expensive.

My 4 pack is still on V8.

SIW2 said:

hasleo seems ok in pe running off usbstick.

There is no obvious way to exclude stuff from a hasleo image, unless it is hiding somewhere. Diskgenius can do exclusions and pretty sure O&O can as well.

View attachment 114274


If anybody fancies O&O

View attachment 114276

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My main beef (carrot for vegans) with Hasleo is that it does not have formal support. It does have an active forum that the developers are active on but that is not same as raising Reflect tickets. The same is true for most other tools as well.

The Reflect Team will connect with your pc and do some detailed troubleshooting - they solved a problem for me once like this.

In the end, as my dear departed old Gran used to say "You get what you pay for".

cereberus said:

Only problem is you have to upgrade all 4 (I had 4 pack plus a single licence) and that would cost £72 per annum, and that is quite expensive.

My 4 pack is still on V8.

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I headed over to the Macrium site for a look. The trade in offer is approx US $56/year (including GST/VAT) for 4 licenses. That's not so bad.

I'm staying with Macrium Reflect and have upgraded all my licences. It has never let me down. Their Forum is excellent with some knowledgeable members who give good sound advice and now have permanent support for as long as I use and renew it. Not even bothering to try alternatives.

My 4-license subscription is only $49 USD per year to always be up to date, and to always have support. Macrium Reflect quality was an easy choice to make!

hdmi said:

The scheduled optimization that Windows' Disk Optimization uses to optimize SSDs is different from the one that it uses to defrag HDDs. However, the scheduled SSD optimization does include a (partial) defrag that is performed only after it detects that fragmentation has piled up beyond a certain threshold [that is a lot higher than the threshold that it uses to handle HDDs]. Additionally, the scheduled SSD optimization performs a retrim, as TRIM commands can sometimes be performed by the SSD controller in such a way that no real action is taken by it

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Yes, the scheduled retrim is a valuable precaution for prolonging an SSD's life, I always leave it turned on. Can't say I've ever seen it do the partial defrag though, even on my hyper-V host machine where the SSD gets heavy use. Nice to know it will if necessary though.

As a "home user" V8.1 suits my needs fine, so I am sticking with it, no need for me to upgrade.

The-Hive said:

As a "home user" V8.1 suits my needs fine, so I am sticking with it, no need for me to upgrade.

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The upgrade is a "nice to have" but not a "must have". I think you could postpone an upgrade for another year or two before reconsidering. V8 does not lose any of its reliability.

Quandary said:

I will continue using the licensed MR 8.1 permanent license until it no longer works (likely 3-5 years), then switch. Hasleo look like the contender but that could change by the time when it is needed.

I was considering a second license for a desktop PC for full and incremental file backups. The free MR version does not support this. A discounted permanent MR license could be justified but that has not been offered for over a year, and I will not do subscriptions.

This led to a lot of research of other products. The trend seems to be to the subscription model, a trickle down from the business arm. Back in the day this was the rental model for data processing machines, telephones, etc., a lucrative business. Then competition changed the landscape to the purchased model. The pendulum seems to be swinging back, so we have to hope that the alternate vendors provide a good competitive product at a reasonable price. Provide it and they will come!

ps. none of the image backup product vendors provide the full/increment/differential features with advanced scheduling that I need, but I have found a non-image backup product that with a permanent license.

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I have lifetime for EaseUS, and it offers all those features.. IMHO

I bought a Seagate 4 tb USB backup drive about 5 years ago, and they do not cost much... it comes with decent software, 'toolkit' to set any backs you want.. I use it quit a bit, usually do a manual backup of item, never hurts to makes extra backups... plus being a usb connection, very easy to connect to as many computers as you wish (one at a time)