Clone the content from your files, folders or partitions and create images of your hard drives and archive them. Restore your system, upgrade your hard drive, optimize the disk space and schedule all processes. Browse the backed-up images, encrypt your archives and burn them onto external disks.
Macrium Reflect has been developed to help you create backup copies of your disks. In this respect, the tool supports both cloning and saving the contents of the disk in an image file. The program’s interface is quite straightforward, yet its successful use requires some computer skills.
The tool classifies as one of the best of its type. One of the features that make it stand out is its backup and restore speed, which is quite fast. Fortunately, it can also create live images of Windows operating system. Likewise, it supports incremental, differential and full backup schemes, which means that you can make different decisions based on your specific needs and conditions. Moreover, you can protect the copies with various encryption levels, using quite secure standards. It is a shame that it does not support high levels of compression, which would save some storage space in the target device.
If you need to perform frequent backups, it is ideal that the program allows scheduling this type of operation. Similarly, it lets you create boot-up emergency discs, which may come in handy in case of system crashes. The tool supports various target locations, such as local folders, mapped drives, and removable devices. In addition, it can burn data directly onto discs. It is also a great advantage that the program lets you load and explore the contents of the backup images.
All in all, Macrium Reflect is an excellent tool that deserves at least a try. It is available in various versions, including Free, Home, Workstation, Server, and Server Plus. The free version allows most basic operations, which is good. However, it does not support performing incremental backups, encrypting data or backing up specific files and folders.
v8.1 [Jan 13, 2023]
- Resilient File System (ReFS) and exFAT support for Server and Server Plus Editions
We've added support for Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) and Extensible File Allocation Table (ExFAT) file systems for Intelligent sector copy, MIG and, in the case of ReFS, for CBT as well.
- Dark Theme
Macrium Reflect v8 includes optimized Light and Dark theme user interface options to enhance the user experience.
- Intra-Daily scheduled backups
Macrium Reflect v8.0 now includes Intra-Daily scheduling of backups for a minimum of 15 minute intervals between start times, providing near continuous backup protection.
- Removable media Imaging and Cloning support
v8.0 includes support for imaging and cloning USB Flash drives. Flash drives can be imaged and cloned using the same functionality, and UI, as regular internal disk drives. USB Flash drives can be cloned to other USB flash drives or internal disks. Flash drives show in the Reflect main window alongside internal disks:
- Automatic partiton resizing when restoring or cloning to different sized disks
We've improved the Restore and Clone functionality by adding automatic fill/shrink where the target disk is a different size to the source. The most common disk copy tasks are now automated and we've also added the ability to set free space before and after a copied partition to precisely locate and resize partitions on the target disk.
- New 'Existing Backups' view
We've renamed the 'Restore' tab in v7 to 'Existing Backups' and added extra functionality, including the ability to view backup files in their backup chain hierarchy, navigate to individual folders where backups are stored and edit the comment field in existing backups.
- Improved File and Folder backup wizard
We've improved the user interface for adding folders to your File and Folder backups by adding a tree selection for 'root' folders
- Improved backup file name functionality
New run time parameters enable dynamic information to be included in backup file names at run time.
- New tbFAT driver for mounting File and Folder backups
In v8.0, F&F backups containing files larger than 4GB in size can now be mounted in Windows Explorer showing the original file size and contents. In earlier versions of Macrium Reflect, backed up files would be split into multiple 4GB chunks, and the only way to restore large files was by using the File Restore functionality in the main application.
We've added a new driver to mount all F&F backup files. The maximum size of a contained file is now 3.9 TB rather than 4 GB.
- Redesigned and Improved 'Log' view
The Log view page has been extensively redesigned in v8 to make locating logs much easier. We've also improved the performance when accessing and searching large quantities of logs, as may be necessary when running Intra-Daily backups.
- OAuth 2.0 email authentication for Gmail and Outlook 365
Macrium Reflect v8.0 includes OAuth 2.0 to authenticate Macrium Reflect to send emails using your Microsoft or Gmail account. It's easy to setup and uses your account sign in, including two factor if enabled, to securely authenticate.
- viBoot now includes Oracle VirtualBox support
v8.0 adds Oracle VirtualBox support for instant virtualization of Macrium Reflect Images. For customers without Windows operating systems capable of running Hyper-V, or those that require USB drive virtualization, VirtualBox provides a great solution to reduce Time To recover (TTR), or to test Image restore capability,
- Resilient File System (ReFS) and exFAT support for Server and Server Plus Editions
We've added support for Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) and Extensible File Allocation Table (ExFAT) file systems for Intelligent sector copy, MIG and, in the case of ReFS, for CBT as well.
- Dark Theme
Macrium Reflect v8 includes optimized Light and Dark theme user interface options to enhance the user experience.
- Intra-Daily scheduled backups
Macrium Reflect v8.0 now includes Intra-Daily scheduling of backups for a minimum of 15 minute intervals between start times, providing near continuous backup protection.
- Removable media Imaging and Cloning support
v8.0 includes support for imaging and cloning USB Flash drives. Flash drives can be imaged and cloned using the same functionality, and UI, as regular internal disk drives. USB Flash drives can be cloned to other USB flash drives or internal disks. Flash drives show in the Reflect main window alongside internal disks:
- Automatic partiton resizing when restoring or cloning to different sized disks
We've improved the Restore and Clone functionality by adding automatic fill/shrink where the target disk is a different size to the source. The most common disk copy tasks are now automated and we've also added the ability to set free space before and after a copied partition to precisely locate and resize partitions on the target disk.
