I was hoping for discounts on One-Time Purchases since I would like two licences. If they had reduced to £40/licence then Macrium could have had £80 off me so they lost a sale. I wil not consider the subscription model. Ah well, I'll keep using the 'Free' version as long as it works.
I just invested in Macrium--4 of them--for a significant savings. (It was only at the 4 item level that this level savings kicked in.). I wasn't looking hard, but I didn't notice any One-time purchase offers.
I have what I think might be one of the 'Free' versions but am so ignorant as to how to implement the program that I thought I should go for a supported version--at least the first time around.
Mostly, it's critical that my 2/Win10 systems remain in-tact and that my 1/Win11 system, careening between predictable and chaotic, stay alive long enough (I heard of a switch to Win12 this year) to give me time to decide whether it's going to become Win10.
I hope I find this imaging program as indispensable as most on this forum indicate. And I hope your free version continues to serve you well.
Did you use Macrium as only an imaging program or as an imaging AND backup program?
What you do with it depends on your needs. I have a small System drive, wth very little on it except the Windows OS, and a smallish Programs drive where I keep all of my utilities and apps. Those are both on my main M2 NVMe disk. I image that disk every night to my other M2 NVMe disk (Local Storage) before shutdown, and it only takes @ 1 min 25 secs. I couldn't count the times I've used those images to replace faulty things on my main drive. Wipe the mess; copy back the good stuff from last night or the night before, or just restore the whole disk from the latest good image, and I'm laughin'.
But I also run Thunderbird Mail, and it has a very important folder called profile that changes significantly every day. I want the extra security and easy recovery involved in backing that folder up every night. It's only @ 200 MB, and I use the File and Folder backup function of Macrium, without any compression, so it's just a straightforward backup copy. Takes five/six seconds max. File and folder backup is really easy to set up, and if you opt not to compress, it's that fast.
Good luck, and come back here for pointers if you need help negotiating the complexities of MR. After you get the hang of it, you'll find those complexities just sorta dissolve into simplicity.
I use it as both. Apart from the obvious security it gives you I like the ability to mount the image so that I can see all files in File Explorer and recover items selectively be it a folder or a single file if I so wish.
BTW the learning curve is the worst part and I agree with @Wisewiz 's last paragraph and sentence.
WD 1tb SSD C: in Samsung laptop LOL
WDSN740-SDDPNQD-1T00-1004
24H2 had some issues with WD SSDs, do not think mine was affected, firmware up to date. maybe that is why 24H2 never installed, until I installed with in-place accidently.
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2tb SSD second slot
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fiber 500/500
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Old 9th gen desktop still running in US, updated to 24H2 and working well.