Is Macrium Reflect 8.1 Home still available to buy

I know Macrium is no longer selling it.
I am just wondering if it is still available for sale on other websites.

I don't think it it is. You can still download the free version if you want. Download Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - MajorGeeks . There are other imaging programs you can try if you need more features than what Macrium free offers.

Thanks Winuser!
I will give the free edition a try. My C: Drive on an SSD is about 60 GB. I don’t mind a slow backup as long as the restoration of the backup is reasonably fast.

pewa said:

Thanks Winuser!
I will give the free edition a try. My C: Drive on an SSD is about 60 GB. I don’t mind a slow backup as long as the restoration of the backup is reasonably fast.

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For 60 GB, a Macrium "full" image shouldn't take over 4 or 5 minutes to save onto an SSD. Maybe less if you have a strong CPU. Restoration more than that but not long at all.

File size will probably be between 30 and 40 GB.

pewa said:

I know Macrium is no longer selling it.
I am just wondering if it is still available for sale on other websites.

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Welcome to Eleven Forum.

With the launch of Reflect X Macrium removed v8.1 Home from their consumer-facing website. However, it was still possible to purchase a one-time licence for v8.1 through Macrium's partner sites for several months after the launch. Those too now only sell Reflect X.

The only known offer of a v8.1 perpetual licence is now the 'Macrium Reflect LTSC Edition' for business customers, with a custom price on application only.

pewa said:

I will give the free edition a try.

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The Reflect Free v8.0 Download Agent is available direct from Macrium,
link at bottom of post #1 here: Latest Macrium Reflect 8 updates

Thanks for the welcome Bree! I think a server or workstation edition, if it is still available, is beyond my power to buy.

I don’t need anything fancy. I am ok with no password, no anti-virus or ransomware protection and no nas or cloud transfer. I just need to back up the image to an external disk.

Really Fishmill? Just 4 or 5 minutes. That’s a really speedy. I don’t mind even if it takes 15 minutes to restore.

Fishmill said:

For 60 GB, a Macrium "full" image shouldn't take over 4 or 5 minutes to save onto an SSD. Maybe less if you have a strong CPU. Restoration more than that but not long at all.

File size will probably be between 30 and 40 GB.

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Not sure how many folks save backups to SSD. Conventional backups are typically on slow portable 3500 rpm HDDs. I don't think having a "strong" CPU makes any difference. It's the reading and writing of the drive which is the bottleneck.

pewa said:

Really Fishmill? Just 4 or 5 minutes. That’s a really speedy. I don’t mind even if it takes 15 minutes to restore.

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I back up a C of about 50 GB on a semi-antique CPU (6600K). Takes 4 minutes and change when saved onto an ordinary NVME SSD. Including verification which takes maybe 15 seconds. I treat the image file (.mrimg extension) as valuable data, so it is backed up to another drive just like all other important files.

Yeah...I can't recall restore times. I don't do it often, but 15 minutes would be in the ballpark on my antique.

Be sure to immediately make Macrium Rescue Media on a USB stick and confirm it will IN FACT boot your PC. You'd be dead in the water without it if you had a complete drive failure.

That is cool.

I will let you know how long it takes me to back up and restore when I am done. I am backing up to a 120 GB SSD external drive.

Thanks for all your help.

pewa said:

Thanks for the welcome Bree! I think a server or workstation edition, if it is still available, is beyond my power to buy.
I don’t need anything fancy....

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Then Reflect Free v8.0 should be sufficient. It has however been retired by Macrium. This means that should any future change in Windows break it, then Macrium will not patch it. The chances of that happening any time soon are slim, Reflect Free v8.0 still works in the latest Insider builds.

If you want something that is in support then there are many alternatives to Reflect, one that seems to be becoming popular is the free Hasleo Backup Suite.

pewa said:

That is cool.

I will let you know how long it takes me to back up and restore when I am done. I am backing up to a 120 GB SSD external drive.

Thanks for all your help.

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You can't know if a restore will succeed until you try it.

Macrium success rate probably in the high 90s percentage.

Backing up to an external will be slower than my experience. I back up to internal SSD in 4 minutes.

It might relieve your anxiety a bit if you can actually do a restore to a spare drive and see if it will boot your PC to its previous state. Better to gain familiarity with the process and menu choices when not under pressure.

But I would NOT do a test restore to my primary drive...why wipe out a known good system when the restore success rate is short of 100 percent.

A 120 GB drive will likely hold 2, possible 3 of your images. It's up to you to decide how many you want to keep. I keep only my 2 most recent. I make one a month, just before I do a Windows Update. I have space for dozens, but don't see much point in keeping images from 6 months or 3 years ago. But that's entirely up to you.