Macrium Reflect is like a disk imaging and backup Swiss knife software solution that provides an incredible amount of features, offering both reliability and flexibility to literally back up everything the way you want, whenever you want, and effortlessly.
What is Macrium Reflect?
Macrium Reflect is a fully-featured backup solution developed by Paramount Software UK Limited for personal or professional use. It features a well-designed interface, can back up everything you want (from a single file to several whole disks and partitions), offers lots of settings to ensure you save just what you want, provides several backup strategies, and has you covered regarding security and scheduling. In a nutshell, it's the kind of backup solution on steroids you should try.
What are the key features of Macrium Reflect?
- Backup everything: You can create a single backup of one or many folders, a complete hard disk, or many partitions. Another amazing thing is that you can include and exclude filters to ensure you only back up the relevant items (and by default, you can exclude system and hidden files).
- Several backup strategies: Macrium Reflect can create different types of backups adapted to different scenarios, like full, incremental (successive copies of data containing only the portions that changed), and differential (preserves data and stores only the differences) backup images.
- Multiple compression levels: You can choose from numerous compression levels to optimize speed and file size.
- Backup storage: Your backups can be saved to local drives, optical drives (CD, DVD), or network drives. Besides, you can create backup definitions as XML files and execute them with a single click.
- Restoration: Once backed up, you can restore a partition to a different one (for example, a logical partition can be restored as a bootable primary partition if you want to). Also, it allows you to resize the restored partition to make it fill the space you need.
- Security at heart: You can password-protect your backups to prevent unauthorized access using AES-256 encryption for maximum protection. Also, it can automatically or separately verify backup files before restoration to ensure everything is correct.
- Script integration: If you are keen to get complete control, you must know it includes a VBScript integration and generator so you can finely tune all parameters.
- Schedule: Scheduling is necessary if you want your backup process to be reliable and consistent over time, and luckily, Macrium Reflect provides flexible scheduling features. It lets you schedule daily, weekly, or monthly, fully log all backup operations, and report unattended completion. Regarding types of backups, automatic incremental and differential images and automatic disk space management for remote and local hard drives are supported.
How to use Macrium Reflect?
For more information, check the dedicated article about how to clone a disk and look at their blog.
Create a recovery drive
- Select the disk and click on "Image This Disk...".
- Under Destination, select the ellipses (...) beside the Folder field to designate a location for your backup file. Alternatively, choose CD/DVD Burner and select Next.
- Then, you can create an automated backup schedule and choose one of the options under Select a Template for your Backup Plan. Click Next to skip this step.
- Check out the summary page and click on Finish and OK.
- Wait for the backup to complete.
Restore your backup files
- Go to the Restore section.
- Select the data you want to restore and click on Restore Image.
- Wait for the process to finish.
Create a recovery disk
- Insert a blank DVD or flash drive into your computer.
- In Macrium Reflect, select Other Tasks > Create Rescue Media.
- Select the DVD or USB drive, ensure all the fields under Rescue Media options are checked, and then select Build.
Is Macrium Reflect free?
Yes, the Macrium Reflect version we offer you is free to use. If you want to take advantage of all the features, you can take a look at the paid versions online.
Is Macrium Reflect safe?
Macrium Reflect is considered a safe and reliable solution to use.