Solved Other than Macrium, what is your recommendation for a backup/clone software for PC

Steve C · Aug 6, 2024

hdmi said:
I once tried Macrium Reflect Free, but found that it has close to zero engineering. To make a backup of your Windows system partition so as to avoid having to do a clean install of Windows which causes all your apps, settings, etc. to be lost e.g. if the internal SSD breaks so it needs to be replaced or if the partition gets so badly corrupted that every attempt to fix it (like doing a repair install of Windows with an in-place upgrade or etc.) doesn't help, Macrium Reflect Free doesn't really add anything useful when compared to merely running the DISM command.

To avoid any and all problems with Acronis, I use only a WinPE-based bootable media of True Image 2021. It's easy to build with the Custom WinPE-based Media Builder community tool. Once built, I simply copied it onto my USB flash drive that I had previously already formatted with Ventoy. After I tested that the bootable media works, I uninstalled True Image from Windows by using the uninstall feature, and I also verified that none of the services from True Image still remained on Windows. They were all gone permanently, and so there no longer was any negative impact on the system performance nor any other type of problems. This was on a very old Intel Core i5-2320 machine w/ 8GB RAM and a 2TB Seagate 3.5″ HDD @ 7200rpm. If you don't believe, you could always decide to back up your Windows system partition with DISM before choosing to install Acronis. It's not exactly rocket science IMO........

To copy files/folders, imaging software is not necessary, and should actually even be avoided IMO because, for that, FastCopy is your friend.

Reflect is very well engineered & supported and it's a doddle to make a reliable backup of all partitions required to recover a Windows installation.

monkeylove · Aug 6, 2024

See if Hasleo has speeded up.

There's also Aomei, which sometimes has a promo for lifetime use.

cereberus · Aug 6, 2024

jimbo45 said:
Hi folks

All Free software here:

Stand alone bootable version (GUI) of Gparted -- great for cloning or install on any Linux distro rsync (usually included by default) and its GUI Grsync which is pretty good for data backup.

In command line the DD command is pretty good too.

I don't need any paid software for data backup / disk imaging or cloning.

To transfer data to cloud or other remote servers the Free filezilla program (works on Windows too) is pretty good -- uses the sftp:// protocol so decently secure as well.

These days Windows users shouldn't be scared of Linux for dping one or 2 basic tasks -- these days there's loads of "Live distros" which just boot with GUI's even more Windows like than Windows itself so most people would have no trouble using things like a partition manager, the DD command, Grsync etc.

Save yourself a load of dosh -- some Windows software for these functions is either already Paid or even worse subscription software. Even more annoying are the nags to "Go Pro" i.e PAY and if you don't the actual features you want are not in the "free" version.

Some Windows software doesn't even do what it says on the tin -- for example Hasleo says it can restore a current Windows2GO system back to an internal HDD -- (in the paid version) -- this is really fiddly and I|'ve never got it to work -- but all you actually have to do is simply "DD" the Windows2Go system back to your HDD having first made a simple Registry key change.

Simply change the marked key to '0' before cloning back to internal disk.

View attachment 103034

And to copy a running OS to a Windows2Go disk simply DD the disk to the external device and then boot a Windows install disk into command mode ("repair system") and then re-install the boot loader on to the efi partition (bcdboot.exe)

Cheers
jimbo

Do you seriously think the average user would even consider the above.

People who ask what tool to use would not have a clue how to do this!

cereberus · Aug 6, 2024

monkeylove said:
See if Hasleo has speeded up.

There's also Aomei, which sometimes has a promo for lifetime use.

Hasleo is as fast as its alternatives.

jimbo45 · Aug 6, 2024

cereberus said:
Do you seriously think the average user would even consider the above.

People who ask what tool to use would not have a clue how to do this!

People are a lot more savvy these days -- There's no problem using gparted compared to any other partition manager - the GUI is virtually identical to all the other ones. Anybody who can create a bootable usb stick via Rufus (and zillions can do that already) can create the bootable thumb drive.

As for a Windows2Go install -- anybody who can use dism /ApplyImage and bcdboot can create one from scratch easily enough and then simply via an easy reg key can update as and when required and can clone it back to a standard HDD again via a simple reg key. Hardly on a major level of difficulty. Even easier if they just want to clone an existing system to an external device -- again just a simple reg key change and possibly re-apply bcdboot.

I think most typical users would have far more difficulty in sorting out Windows Networking problems or even trying to find and install some specialized hardware drivers.

Cheers
jimbo

hdmi · Aug 6, 2024

Steve C said:
Reflect is very well engineered

Congrats with your magnificent sales pitch. lol It [Macrium Reflect] adds nothing for me. As a matter of fact it doesn't even work reliably for me, for how I use my laptop. Or well, at least it doesn't always. As a result, keeping it installed on my laptop isn't even worth the storage space that it takes up, and the same also holds true about Acronis True Image. IMO both of them become bloat after the bootable media has been built (and tested to verify that the bootable media works). So, I only use the bootable media like I earlier said. In this case actually, well engineered bloat is even worse than just bloat.

Snapshots aren't backups, and, a backup of a Windows system partition (cold image) should not be confounded with a backup that is based on a snaphot of a live Windows system partition (hot image). This is regardless of the fact that the average user can still use them interchangeably without problems, at least under the vast majority of circumstances. But personally, I, like to do all sorts of hobby stuff on Windows that effectively makes that impossible, and, even if this hadn't been the case, I still wouldn't want to rely solely on hot images as the only backups of my Windows system patition. Only the louziest of engineers would choose to solely rely on hot imaging BTW, as there can be hidden factors that add the potential risk of unreliable data having been captured reliably in the backup. This is just a simple old fact. It has all been explained in the official docs from Microsoft a very, very long time ago. But then, a lot of people don't read the docs. Or if they do, they misinterpret them because that's just what the vast majority always do, and people are parrots.

For the average user, the risk will usually be small. But the consequence might not be small. If the majority of people prefer to take the risk, does it mean that that's what everyone should be doing? Enough said...

The reason why I use the bootable media of Acronis rather than the bootable media of Macrium Reflect is pretty simple. The former has several more features and these additional features are incredibly useful to me. As another bonus, the image verification that the former uses (as part of the image creation process itself, that is...) also makes the former more reliable than the latter choice. But I am not going to re-re-re-explain about that particular part of this subject. Not again........

Steve C · Aug 6, 2024

hdmi said:
Congrats with your magnificent sales pitch. lol It [Macrium Reflect] adds nothing for me. As a matter of fact it doesn't even work reliably for me, for how I use my laptop. Or well, at least it doesn't always. As a result, keeping it installed on my laptop isn't even worth the storage space that it takes up, and the same also holds true about Acronis True Image. IMO both of them become bloat after the bootable media has been built (and tested to verify that the bootable media works). So, I only use the bootable media like I earlier said. In this case actually, well engineered bloat is even worse than just bloat.

Snapshots aren't backups, and, a backup of a Windows system partition (cold image) should not be confounded with a backup that is based on a snaphot of a live Windows system partition (hot image). This is regardless of the fact that the average user can still use them interchangeably without problems, at least under the vast majority of circumstances. But personally, I, like to do all sorts of hobby stuff on Windows that effectively makes that impossible, and, even if this hadn't been the case, I still wouldn't want to rely solely on hot images as the only backups of my Windows system patition. Only the louziest of engineers would choose to solely rely on hot imaging BTW, as there can be hidden factors that add the potential risk of unreliable data having been captured reliably in the backup. This is just a simple old fact. It has all been explained in the official docs from Microsoft a very, very long time ago. But then, a lot of people don't read the docs. Or if they do, they misinterpret them because that's just what the vast majority always do, and people are parrots.

For the average user, the risk will usually be small. But the consequence might not be small. If the majority of people prefer to take the risk, does it mean that that's what everyone should be doing? Enough said...

The reason why I use the bootable media of Acronis rather than the bootable media of Macrium Reflect is pretty simple. The former has several more features and these additional features are incredibly useful to me. As another bonus, the image verification that the former uses (as part of the image creation process itself, that is...) also makes the former more reliable than the latter choice. But I am not going to re-re-re-explain about that particular part of this subject. Not again........

Best of luck with Acronis software which is poory engineered and supported. I've nver had a problem recovering from a Reflect backup image on vatious PCs.

Bree · Aug 6, 2024

hdmi said:
...a backup of a Windows system partition (cold image) should not be confounded with a backup that is based on a snaphot of a live Windows system partition (hot image). ... The reason why I use the bootable media of Acronis rather than the bootable media of Macrium Reflect is pretty simple. The former has several more features and these additional features are incredibly useful to me. As another bonus, the image verification that the former uses (as part of the image creation process itself, that is...) also makes the former more reliable than the latter choice.

I often make cold images using my Reflect bootable media. That too has image verification as part of the image creation process.

hdmi · Aug 6, 2024

Steve C said:
Best of luck with Acronis software which is poory engineered and supported.

Luck isn't even a factor, as I simply don't use it. Like I already said multiple times now, I use only the bootable media thereof. If you can't understand the difference, then clearly, you don't have the engineering skills that it takes to be able to judge the quality (or lack thereof).

Steve C said:
I've nver had a problem recovering from a Reflect backup image on vatious PCs.

I can say the same exact thing about DISM. But this doesn't also mean that I want to use DISM for making a backup image of my Windows partition each time. Even so, when compared to DISM, Macrium Reflect still adds nothing for me. That's why I call it zero engineering. This isn't an opinion. It isn't a personal preference either. It's just a simple fact, and easy enough to demonstrate also in addition to that.

kelper · Aug 6, 2024

hdmi said:
I once tried Macrium Reflect Free, but found that it has close to zero engineering. To make a backup of your Windows system partition so as to avoid having to do a clean install of Windows which causes all your apps, settings, etc. to be lost e.g. if the internal SSD breaks so it needs to be replaced or if the partition gets so badly corrupted that every attempt to fix it (like doing a repair install of Windows with an in-place upgrade or etc.) doesn't help, Macrium Reflect Free doesn't really add anything useful when compared to merely running the DISM command.

To avoid any and all problems with Acronis, I use only a WinPE-based bootable media of True Image 2021. It's easy to build with the Custom WinPE-based Media Builder community tool. Once built, I simply copied it onto my USB flash drive that I had previously already formatted with Ventoy. After I tested that the bootable media works, I uninstalled True Image from Windows by using the uninstall feature, and I also verified that none of the services from True Image still remained on Windows. They were all gone permanently, and so there no longer was any negative impact on the system performance nor any other type of problems. This was on a very old Intel Core i5-2320 machine w/ 8GB RAM and a 2TB Seagate 3.5″ HDD @ 7200rpm. If you don't believe, you could always decide to back up your Windows system partition with DISM before choosing to install Acronis. It's not exactly rocket science IMO........

To copy files/folders, imaging software is not necessary, and should actually even be avoided IMO because, for that, FastCopy is your friend.

What is the DISM command you use to make an image backup? I think Macrium Reflect will serve anyone well unless they are very familiar with DISM and command prompts!

Steve C · Aug 6, 2024

hdmi said:
Luck isn't even a factor, as I simply don't use it. Like I already said multiple times now, I use only the bootable media thereof. If you can't understand the difference, then clearly, you don't have the engineering skills that it takes to be able to judge the quality (or lack thereof).

I can say the same exact thing about DISM. But this doesn't also mean that I want to use DISM for making a backup image of my Windows partition each time. Even so, when compared to DISM, Macrium Reflect still adds nothing for me. That's why I call it zero engineering. This isn't an opinion. It isn't a personal preference either. It's just a simple fact, and easy enough to demonstrate also in addition to that.

What a snotty post. You said The reason why I use the bootable media of Acronis rather than the bootable media of Macrium Reflect is pretty simple...

Therefore you do depend on Acronis software engineering. If you can't understand what you said then clearly, you lack engineering skills.

cereberus · Aug 6, 2024

jimbo45 said:
People are a lot more savvy these days -- There's no problem using gparted compared to any other partition manager - the GUI is virtually identical to all the other ones. Anybody who can create a bootable usb stick via Rufus (and zillions can do that already) can create the bootable thumb drive.

As for a Windows2Go install -- anybody who can use dism /ApplyImage and bcdboot can create one from scratch easily enough and then simply via an easy reg key can update as and when required and can clone it back to a standard HDD again via a simple reg key. Hardly on a major level of difficulty. Even easier if they just want to clone an existing system to an external device -- again just a simple reg key change and possibly re-apply bcdboot.

I think most typical users would have far more difficulty in sorting out Windows Networking problems or even trying to find and install some specialized hardware drivers.

Cheers
jimbo

You miss my point - a savvy person would not ask about imaging tools. Digressing about networks is irrelevant to the thread title.

hdmi · Aug 6, 2024

kelper said:
What is the DISM command you use to make an image backup? I think Macrium Reflect will serve anyone well unless they are very familiar with DISM and command prompts!

Capture and apply Windows Full Flash Update (FFU) images

Deploy Windows faster on the factory floor by using the Full Flash Update (FFU) image format.

learn.microsoft.com

hdmi · Aug 6, 2024

Bree said:
I often make cold images using my Reflect bootable media. That too has image verification as part of the image creation process.

View attachment 103293

With the bootable media of Acronis, the verification method performs the same exact operations as when you do a restore with only one difference, which is that the data stored in the newly created image file is not actually written to the source, but is compared to the data already present in the source. AFAIK it is still unclear whether the bootable media of Macrium Reflect uses the same approach to this. But even if I could assume that it does (and that's still only a big IF), then due to the fact that choosing to enable this option adds a significant amount of time to the backup process (like stated in your screenshot), I want to be able to speed it up to compensate, e.g. by not having to waste additional time futzing around in the registry of WinPE each time when I want to specify file/folder exclusions. Or waste additional time as a result of being not allowed to pick a destination folder that will be included in the source. Hopefully this helps to explain what I mean with 'zero engineering'.

Granted, Macrium Reflect has Rapid Delta Restore. But I don't need it, as I only need to do a restore after the SSD breaks or after my Windows partition gets so badly corrupted somehow that... well, I also already explained that particular part of this subject.

hdmi · Aug 6, 2024

Steve C said:
What a snotty post.

I lol'd...

Steve C said:
You said The reason why I use the bootable media of Acronis rather than the bootable media of Macrium Reflect is pretty simple...

Therefore you do depend on Acronis software engineering. If you can't understand what you said then clearly, you lack engineering skills.

If, after all this snottiness of "Acronis software is poorly engineered" that has alread been repeated multiple dozens of times in this and in other threads on both Elevenforum and Tenforums, you still can't understand why the bootable media of Acronis True Image should not be confounded with Acronis True Image, then no. I do not think my post was snotty, even in the slightest. Much to the contrary, I think my post was truly amazing........

Bree · Aug 6, 2024

hdmi said:
With the bootable media of Acronis, the verification method performs the same exact operations as when you do a restore with only one difference, which is that the data stored in the newly created image file is not actually written to the source, but is compared to the data already present in the source. AFAIK it is still unclear whether the bootable media of Macrium Reflect uses the same approach to this.

Whether it's the boot media creating a cold image, or the installed Reflect creating a live image, verification works the same way. Checksums are calculated as the data is read from the source disk and stored in the image index. Verification reads all the data from the image and calculates the checksums again. If the two match then the data in the image is verified as being identical to the data read from the source disk.

Macrium said:
When an image is created each block of data (generally 64K but may be larger depending on the partition size) has an MD5 hash digest created after it is read from the disk and before it is written to the image file. This hash value is saved in the index of the image file. When the file is read back the hash value is recalculated and compared with the original hash in the index. Any discrepancy between the two values indicates that the image file is corrupt or cannot be read back reliably.

Understanding Image Verification Failures - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

hdmi · Aug 7, 2024

Bree said:
Whether it's the boot media creating a cold image, or the installed Reflect creating a live image, verification works the same way. Checksums are calculated as the data is read from the source disk and stored in the image index. Verification reads all the data from the image and calculates the checksums again. If the two match then the data in the image is verified as being identical to the data read from the source disk.

Understanding Image Verification Failures - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

So, to verify an image immediately after the image file is created, the bootable media of Macrium Reflect uses an inferior verification method. The reason why it is inferior is pretty simple. It ignores the potential risk of read errors that went undetected while the data was being retrieved from the source. Whereas the booatable media of Acronis True Image 1/ addresses this risk and 2/ in addition, makes the difference between this verification process and the actual restore process as small as possible so as to achieve the kind of reliability that is robust. Robustness assures that anticipated challenges under off nominal conditions are addressed, i.e. by expanding reliability specifications to prevent or tolerate known risks.

Before anyone should ask, no, when talking about backup solutions for the average user, robustness is certainly not overkill, as robustness should not be confounded with resilience. (Resilience assures that unanticipated challenges under unexpected conditions are addressed.)

Froggie · Aug 7, 2024

If you're experiencing UNDETECTED READ ERRORS on a System, you have a lot more serious issues going on than just a bit accurate backup can handle.

hdmi · Aug 7, 2024

Froggie said:
If you're experiencing UNDETECTED READ ERRORS on a System, you have a lot more serious issues going on than just a bit accurate backup can handle.

That in fact is one of the reasons why, when compared to that of the bootable media of Macrium Reflect, the verification method, or mechanism that the bootable media of Acronis True Image uses for this purpose is superior by design. It's to effectively mitigate the potential risk of "a lot more serious issues" going undetected until it is already too late. The chance of a read error going twice undetected is very small. So, the data is read twice from the source (one time to be able to write it to the image file that is being created, one time to be able to verify that the data read from the image file that has been created matches the data read from the source in such a way that is still not entirely bulletproof, but that nevertheless does meet the criteria of being robust).

Froggie · Aug 7, 2024

On any System experiencing "undetected" READ ERRORS, by the time you off-line image your System with the "robust" method you describe above, the DATA being imaged is almost sure to be trashed before the image is even executed. Just think of all those corrupted (non-error detected) DATA changes being changed by apps and rewritten back to the System in an error free state... worthless DATA at this point no matter what type of imaging verification method is used.

In relation to undetected READ ERRORS, the above discussion seems pointless.

Solved Other than Macrium, what is your recommendation for a backup/clone software for PC

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