Advice Request What would be the most reliable and stable free image backup software?

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SearchLight

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What the... How could I not aware that they offer free version now? Their paid version probably one of the best backup and imaging software out there.
I'll definitely give it a try when I have time. Thanks for mentioning it on this thread!

Might try it myself. Looks impressive but the proof is in the restarting, and then using:)
 
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BoraMurdar

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What would make a user want to pick Paragon over the competition?
Many reasons, I may forget to mention some... Over the years vendors have experimented different compression algorithms in order to improve the performance of the product. AOMEI was the fastest in creating full image backups in 2015-2017 for free products just of use PPMD and LZMA methods but failed sometimes to restore from single or from multiple incremental parts. Macrium, on the other hand, has no incremental features and fail sometimes to create bootable media or verify the image. EASEUS just changed the dresses and fixed some cosmetic bugs over the years but I never liked its backup components. Their partition software is superb compared to TodoBackup. EASEUS just don't like Linux GPTs.
Paragon never gave me a single problem... EVER. I don't like its restoration or image checking speed but, in scenarios that I gave it, Paragon just did it. If we talk about reliability we need to talk about product's bootable media. It's paradoxical to expect that program may save your machine, put in the same hell where everything can go wrong ( C Partition). So, my recommendation is to use a program's bootable media. Always. Because of speed and everything else.

Testing reliability is mostly useless (except if done correctly for weeks and months) exercise because some may test software 100 times and it will work ok, others might try it once and it can fail the first time.

Since @upnorth mentioned it, Acronis has a giveaway link that still works just fine, It may give you the best features/performance/stability ratio.
 

zzz00m

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Jun 10, 2017
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Macrium Reflect Free has been fast and reliable for me. And the restore works well too!. I will admit that I recently crashed my Win 10 Pro system due to my fault (the bigger they are, the harder they fall, ha!), and the image restore got me back up and running on my last image in a little over 30 minutes.

Previously I had been using the built-in Windows 7 image program for years, and that works well, but I was seeking to automate the process.

So I downloaded the manuals for Acronis, Macrium, and Paragon. I didn't look into Aomei or EaseUS.

Macrium was the standout by far for simply having a readable, user friendly manual. The 2nd thing that I really liked was the rescue media wizard. It automatically downloads everything it needs, and builds WinPE for you. Finally the scheduler works very well.

For me, Macrium has been flawless for the past several years. Very pleased with it.
 

shmu26

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Many reasons, I may forget to mention some... Over the years vendors have experimented different compression algorithms in order to improve the performance of the product. AOMEI was the fastest in creating full image backups in 2015-2017 for free products just of use PPMD and LZMA methods but failed sometimes to restore from single or from multiple incremental parts. Macrium, on the other hand, has no incremental features and fail sometimes to create bootable media or verify the image. EASEUS just changed the dresses and fixed some cosmetic bugs over the years but I never liked its backup components. Their partition software is superb compared to TodoBackup. EASEUS just don't like Linux GPTs.
Paragon never gave me a single problem... EVER. I don't like its restoration or image checking speed but, in scenarios that I gave it, Paragon just did it. If we talk about reliability we need to talk about product's bootable media. It's paradoxical to expect that program may save your machine, put in the same hell where everything can go wrong ( C Partition). So, my recommendation is to use a program's bootable media. Always. Because of speed and everything else.

Testing reliability is mostly useless (except if done correctly for weeks and months) exercise because some may test software 100 times and it will work ok, others might try it once and it can fail the first time.

Since @upnorth mentioned it, Acronis has a giveaway link that still works just fine, It may give you the best features/performance/stability ratio.
Thanks, @BoraMurdar . That puts things in perspective.
 

jelson

Level 2
Jun 14, 2011
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I recommend Macrium Reflect Free... hands down. It's reliability is awesome. But the reason I recommend it is because it's so EASY to use... and -- this is very important -- they make it so easy to create the Rescue Media. That's vitally important because it something goes wrong... like a HDD failure, malware attack, bad program install... you will need to be able to boot a Rescue Media CD or USB stick to do a "bare metal" restore your system (Windows). Bare Metal restore = restore to a new or freshly formatted HDD.

If you need help, there's an awesome forum where a number of experts post tips and guides as well as answering people's questions:
Wilders Security Forums' Macrium thread (currently running 284 pages)

Note: there are other threads about Macrium and other imaging software in their "backup, imaging & disk mgmt" subforum
 

shmu26

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Macrium Reflect free does not have Incremental backups. Is differential backup better?
It's better, because you are chaining less backup files together, so less chance of failure, and faster restore speed.
But it usually takes longer to make a backup, and uses up more space on your hard drive.
 

notabot

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Oct 31, 2018
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Does Macrium Reflect support encrypting the backup, with eg AES 256, and saving to network drive ?

Also how long would it take on average to backup eg a 500gb ssd with Macrium Reflect ?
 
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Harlequin

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Jul 22, 2016
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Also how long would it take on average to backup eg a 500gb ssd with Macrium Reflect ?
I don't know whether different files types affect backup times, but to backup my local disk C (38 GB) takes about 5 minutes, and daily incrementals are about 50 seconds without major changes to the OS (I'm using the paid version which allows fast backups and incrementals, although from memory, even the free version was reasonably fast.
 

DeepWeb

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Macrium or AOMEI. Both are free. Both are pretty robust. But, AOMEI also allows for an alternative backup service if VSS is not functioning. Personally I use Macrium because it will launch long after you missed your scheduled backup date. AOMEI and Windows Backup are more hit or miss.
 

Cortex

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I've tried most & for me the next time Macrium Free lets me down will be the first - I install it on every PC I look after, although of course using any image program is the important thing - The interface on Macrium may look a little complex but in reality it isn't, great software.
 

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