Macrium Reflect

Click on Existing Backups Choose your existing backup, click to highlight Choose New from the options you now have two options Create Differential Create Incremental and away you go.

Thanks, but if the existing backup consists of an initial back-up and one or more incremental back-ups, do you click on the initial back-up or the most recent incremental version?

On Wed, 19 Jan 2022 19:23:31 +0000, Scott snipped-for-privacy@gefion.myzen.co.uk> wrote: [snip]

It seems not to matter.

With Incremental images they only store file system changes since the *last image*, either Full, Differential, or Incremental. So in a backup set it does not matter.

Thanks very much for clarifying that. It does seem to me this software is far more complex than it needs to be. I preferred Acronis until they discontinued True Image and replaced it with a new app that is ... far more complex than it needs to be.

At least Macrium Reflect doesn't perform all those unnecessary and buggy background tasks that were introduced into later versions of Acronis True Inage. For many years I used Acronis but switched to Macrium Reflect last year. The switch resulted in my computer being ready for use a lot faster after switch on. It appears that although the Acronis GUI had user configuration to disable the new additions they didn't actually do much in the way of killing background tasks :(

My problem is that the process seems to be set up on the assumption that a schedule will be set. I was always told to disconnect the external drive when not in use to minimise the chances of it being hit by a virus at the same time as the primary drive. A 'manual' backup then seems to be very fiddly. It seems to me there should be a single button shortcut to perform incremental backup using the exact same settings as the last incremental back-up. This is the most likely action anyone would want to take. The whole interface seems to be designed for IT professionals rather than ordinary users.

I use Macrium Reflect and find that it works for me, both for regular schedules and commanded backups.

Previously I had used Acronis, but it had a number of fundamental shortcomings, which the company showed no signs of addressing in subsequent releases, and needed frequent manual intervention. It was hopeless at managing automatic deletion of old images, using rules, and it insisted on verifying the whole set, even for an incremental, which took ages.

I moved to Acronis from Ghost, because of the way it behaved on XP. I had a problem - BSOD intermittently when backing up the boot partition - which gave me great grief, until I found others with the same problem. It got to the point that the only use I was having to make of my backups was restoring when Ghost had trashed Windows.

Chris

Quite - all too easy to lockup as completely non responsive.

For multi-file sets, there is sufficient tracking information inside each file, to piece the files together.

While having consistent filenames is a help to humans, the Reflect logic may not entirely be dependent on it.

It may have to scan the headers in the file(s) in the current directory, to ascertain whether sufficient fileset members are present for the requested operation. They try not to depend on user habits of renaming stuff, to ruin their schemes. For example, as a bonehead move, maybe I rename my MRING files to MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY for example. They have to tolerate free-format naming as best they can.

The latest version 8 of Macrium, tries (by default) to insert a software-usable random string into the filename, but the software also claims you can remove the random string by using Preferences. But you have to turn it off for each and every backup made, to have that field in the filename, go away.

There may be a logfile on C: , providing some tracking information. Dunno about other partitions.

In Windows, if you do Properties on a .mrimg and Macrium is installed on the computer, there is a fifth properties tab supported by some Macrium service task.

Summary

Backup type Image Backup [can be image or paid-version file by file] Backup Method Full [Full, Differential, Incremental, Incremental Forever] Backup Time Monday, March 11, 2021 14:11:19 Compression None Password protected No

Drives and partitions backed up

Drive: MYDISK (L:), Primary Partition, NTFS [FAT32, ExFAT, NTFS, EXT4]

HTH, Paul

The Macrium Reflect V7 User Guide PDF is 422 pages long.

Have you looked at it at all ?

Not trying to place blame or anything, but they do provide a manual. At one time, the average user manual for a backup program was 150 pages. Giving you some idea how far out into 3 sigma country a 422 page document is.

On page 196, it shows how to make a shortcut for a particular XML backup you designed. The XML script keeps track of all the details of the backup pattern (Incremental file set size, whether to delete the previous Full or whatever).

Opening the XML file in an editor, allows you as the operator, to review what the file says in terms of patterns.

What the tool should be able to do, is figure out it has done its third incremental and now it is making the fourth one. Since the XML should identify the location on the external, you would want the drive letter to be "consistent" at backup time.

Around page 400 or so, it explains the Incrementals are block based. The tool compares blocks on the disk, between one MRIMG and the next, to figure out what to add to the Incremental it is taking. It doesn't actually "detect" changed files. It looks at the data using MD5SUM to compute a hash for each block, then just back up any blocks that are changed.

That could be helpful for files that just have a few extra lines added to the end. It might only need to put one block into the Incremental, to track the change.

Paul

I rest my case, M'Lud.

Have you read the Companies Act 2006? It contains over 1,300 sections :-)

I think this vindicates my point that Macrium is designed more for IT professionals than ordinary computer users. I think it should come with a warning at point of sale.

Interesting progression. I also went from Ghost to Acronis to (currently) Reflect ....

Me too - and Reflect is the most difficult to use.