Solved Latest Macrium Reflect X updates

Stigg · Oct 10, 2024

TraderGary said:
05:32 Last 8.1 backup before updating to X
04:18 X backup last night

I'm in Atlanta, GA, USA

It's quick where you are, Gary.

TraderGary · Oct 10, 2024

Stigg said:
It's quick where you are, Gary.

I'm imaging my C: drive that is currently 301GB. I'm writing every night to two Samsung T9 4TB Portable SSD drives using a Thunderbolt 4 port. Each SSD contains 7 rotating images. My compression is Medium (recommended). My PC specs are in "My Computer" below.

Since I make daily images, I'm quite pleased with X backup speeds averaging less than 5 minutes. For me the value of an annual $49.99 subscription for 4 licenses is definitely there. I will always have the latest updates, and I have Premium Support that never expires. I chose to do auto-renewal, and I will never be without my Macrium Reflect.

Jallen · Oct 10, 2024

@SeventhSon, I work for macrium and am a part of the support team.

Can you please reach out to the support team so we can understand and help you resolve this issue?

You can raise a ticket here: Contact Macrium Support

Steve C · Oct 10, 2024

Jallen said:
@SeventhSon, I work for macrium and am a part of the support team.

Can you please reach out to the support team so we can understand and help you resolve this issue?

You can raise a ticket here: Contact Macrium Support

You also need to fix the problem that recent v7 licences upgraded to v8 are not being offered the free trade in for a 3 year X licence as Macrium advertised. You already have a ticket from me.

TraderGary · Oct 10, 2024

Using X, I just created an image of my C: drive, 305GB, in 3:57! :hug:

Bree · Oct 10, 2024

Jallen said:
I work for macrium and am a part of the support team.

Welcome to Eleven Forum.

You may want to pass on to the appropriate section (or Jack Mansfield) that the ReflectX Knowledge Base page for licencing needs revising. It still has the 2021 wording that says licences are perpetual.

Licensing Policy - KnowledgeBase X - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

Jallen · Oct 10, 2024

@Steve C, we are working on this :)

@Bree, i have let jack know about this.

cereberus · Oct 10, 2024

Very

TraderGary said:
I have a number of subscriptions that I wouldn't be without. For me, if the value is there, I subscribe. I really don't care what others think.

Bree said:
I'm re-running the Full backup now, Reflect X with medium compression and no verification. The external HDD is very much my limiting factor, Task Manager shows 100% activity on the external HDD and only 25% to 50% for the CPU.

The processing may be faster for medium compression but the image is larger, 152.61GB vs 148.26GB for high compression. The time it takes to write that extra data to the HDD negates any gain from using faster compression, at least on my combination of hardware. Both took about 26 minutes to create the image.

View attachment 111735

I have found that trend on any hardware combination (HDDs, SSDs, NVMEs, i5, amd10, i7, i9 etc. ). It always takes slightly longer for virtually no space gain. I never use high any more (tested it recently).

Actually, removing compression does speed things up but at a much greater storage penalty. So my conclusion for many years is medium compression gives an optimal solution, and recent tests I did still show that to be the case.

cereberus · Oct 10, 2024

Bree said:
Welcome to Eleven Forum.

You may want to pass on to the appropriate section (or Jack Mansfield) that the ReflectX Knowledge Base page for licencing needs revising. It still has the 2021 wording that says licences are perpetual.

View attachment 111901

Licensing Policy - KnowledgeBase X - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

Or buy a licence and threaten to sue them if they renege

?

cereberus · Oct 10, 2024

For those who have spare V8.1 licences and you have decided to use VX, you can set up the boot menu to boot from VX using menus as usual of course.

However, you can also create a V8.1 setting in the menu as well.

1. create small partition circa 2GB on suitable internal drive (shrinking C drive or a data drive slightly)

2. format drive as

2. copy contents of Macrium V8.1 iso to that partition

3. create a boot entry using easybcd or using command file below - copy files to a .cmd text file, then run as admin.

4. Optional - remove drive letter from partition to hide it - pc will still boot from 8.1 if you select that option.

This way, you do not need to put all your eggs in one basket i.e. you can make the occasional V8.1 backup without having to hunt for your 8.1 Rescue drive.

PS this code works on other winpe isos e.g. windows installers, Aoemi iso, Hasleo iso - just edit name in quotes where it says "Macrium V8.1"

PPS - thanks to @KYHI who originally created this script which I modified slightly (only a smidgen).

PPPS - this also works with Reflect V8.0 free version iso.

Code:

rem Macrium UEFI BOOT MENU OPTION v17.01.24

rem ================================ YY.MM.DD

color 17

:start

cls

echo.

echo ===============================================================================

echo.  YOU HAVE CHOOSEN TO ADD A WINPESE BOOTABLE PARTITION TO YOUR HOST

echo ===============================================================================

echo.

set /p drvlttr= ^> ENTER THE DRIVE LETTER ASSIGNED TO THE MACRIUM REFLECT PARTITION:

if [%drvlttr%]==[] echo.&echo Invalid User Input&echo.&echo The Partition Drive Letter Can Not Be Blank&echo.&pause&goto :start

if not exist %drvlttr%:\sources\boot.wim echo.&echo Invalid User Input&echo.&echo The %drvlttr%:\sources\boot.wim Was Not Found&echo.&pause&goto :start

cls

echo.

echo Configuring UEFI Boot Option for Macrium Reflect 8.1 Boot Entry

echo --------------------------------------------------------------------------

for /f "tokens=2 delims={}" %%g in ('bcdedit.exe /create /d "Macrium V8.1" /Device') do (set deviceid={%%g})

echo --------------------------------------------------------------------------

echo DEVICE ID = %deviceid%

echo --------------------------------------------------------------------------

bcdedit /set %deviceid% ramdisksdidevice partition=%drvlttr%:

bcdedit /set %deviceid% ramdisksdipath \boot\boot.sdi

for /f "tokens=2 delims={}" %%g in ('bcdedit.exe /create /d "Macrium V8.1" /application osloader') do (set guid={%%g})

echo --------------------------------------------------------------------------

echo GUID = %guid%

echo --------------------------------------------------------------------------

bcdedit /set %guid% device ramdisk=[%drvlttr%:]\sources\boot.wim,%deviceid%

bcdedit /set %guid% osdevice ramdisk=[%drvlttr%:]\sources\boot.wim,%deviceid%

bcdedit /set %guid% systemroot \windows

bcdedit /set %guid% path \Windows\system32\boot\winload.efi

bcdedit /set %guid% winpe yes

bcdedit /set %guid% detecthal yes

bcdedit /displayorder %guid% /addlast

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu False

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} timeout 10

echo.

echo DONE... Reboot your PC

timeout /t 5 >nul

Stigg · Oct 12, 2024

Stigg said:
I've been reading some comments below this video (sorted by newest first), and there are quite a few complaints about the subscription license model.

They turned the comments off.

cereberus · Oct 12, 2024

Despite my reticence, I decided to sacrifice my single V8 licence for 50% off VX lease price. I still have 4 V8.1 and 4 V7.1 licences.

In the end, £18/year is low enough for permanent support and all major upgrades. Of course, new users pay £36/year which I felt was too high.

I have noticed one "issue" - if you select to exclude files rather than the standard ones selected, VSS is really slow taking over 60 seconds negating any VX benefit (I suspect it is handling the 10,000 files in the software causing VSS to be so slow).

So I recommend you just leave this as default.

I am also disappointed, as I thought the exclude files option would allow you to exclude slected folders/files.

Bree · Oct 12, 2024

cereberus said:
I am also disappointed, as I thought the exclude files option would allow you to exclude slected folders/files.

It does. That's in 'Advanced Exclusions > Filters'. Use 'Add Wildcard...' to exclude folders.

BTW, the ability to exclude files/folders is not new for vX, you can do so in v8 too. What's new in vX is a GUI to set it up, for v8 you had to edit the registry yourself.

How to exclude files from a Disk Image - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

cereberus · Oct 12, 2024

Bree said:
It does. That's in 'Advanced Exclusions > Filters'. Use 'Add Wildcard...' to exclude folders.

View attachment 112258

BTW, the ability to exclude files/folders is not new for vX, you can do so in v8 too. What's new in vX is a GUI to set it up, for v8 you had to edit the registry yourself.

How to exclude files from a Disk Image - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

Yeah I realised that after I posted.

Froggie · Oct 12, 2024

You will also find out that using this feature will increase the VSS lock time significantly, especially if there's lots of files to consider. I believe this to be a Microsoft VSS issue but I'm sure Macrium will take a good look at it (it's been reported).

Bree · Oct 12, 2024

Froggie said:
I believe this to be a Microsoft VSS issue.....

Yes, it is, excluding files is done by Microsoft's VSS, and Reflect has to rely on that. Not sure there's any way round it.

Macrium said:
Microsoft VSS includes the ability to exclude file patterns from snapshots. .... Removing files is reliant on the VSS Optimization Writer

How to exclude files from a Disk Image - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

Froggie · Oct 12, 2024

When I tested removing all available CheckBox files except for the filtered ones (1280 files, 1.68gB) on my NvME OS device, VSS was still pretty quick (a few more seconds) so I expect it to mirror the specific hardware configuration being used.

cereberus · Oct 12, 2024

Froggie said:
When I tested removing all available CheckBox files except for the filtered ones (1280 files, 1.68gB) on my NvME OS device, VSS was still pretty quick (a few more seconds) so I expect it to mirror the specific hardware configuration being used.

Hmm this is weird - the problem seems to have gone away even with every box ticked. Now working as one would expect.

Froggie · Oct 12, 2024

Maybe it was a one time setup thing...

cereberus · Oct 12, 2024

Froggie said:
Maybe it was a one time setup thing...

Or simply rebooting pc several times often sorts out such weird issues.

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