How-To Geek

I really don't understand the time worry. When the imaging starts, there is a 'hide' button. You click that and go on doing something else. Macrium then minimizes to the tasktray where you can always check progress or unhide it. But when it is done, it reappears automatically.

And regarding the wear and tear, I really do not think that this is a problem. The normal OS operation reads and writes a thousand times more each day.

Btw: I assume you know that you can schedule the Macrium images - e.g. at a certain time of day, or at boot time, etc. Just right click on the xml file and you will see.

An alternate backup strategy is to create weekly images plus daily restore points for the case that something happens during the week.

Have a look at the last sentence I added to the above post - would that be something. Restore points take very little time.

That is a fair point. In a well maintained system, they do their job halfway OK. But if the HDD goes south, that is another problem. I use SSDs, so the risk is a lot smaller than with a spinner.

Rick, one day you will get whiplash. LOL

Irv:

V5 has been out a year:

"Macrium Reflect v4.2 and earlier are not compatible with Windows 8.

Also, please note that it has been over a year since Macrium Reflect v5.0 was released. This means that all support for version 4.2 has now ended.

If you wish to use Reflect with Windows 8, please upgrade to version 5. Along with Win8 compatibility, you also will receive a year of support and many new features (www.macrium.com/pages/features.aspx)."

On the subject of System Restore i think it's as good as Windows Imaging LOL! It's turned off mostly unless I want to try something out quickly (like testing to get rid of persistent toolbars for example) and revert it when I can't be bothered to reimage. :)

My next desktop will have an SSD boot drive (SATA III) for Win 7 and my programs only. I'll only have room and SATA ports for one and still have room and ports for the number of data drives I will eventually want (SSDs are still too expensive for massive storage). Not using RAID will be simpler and I won't have to worry about little details like replacing TRIM. Besides, it will run 24/7 so boot times aren't a huge concern and loading programs won't take all that long. Heck, all but two of my programs (calibre and Media Monkey) don't take long to start up on my Win 7 notebook's spinner (and it's a 5400 RPM drive). I don't open calibre (the one that takes longest to start) all that often and, with 16 GB of RAM, I could afford to just let Media Monkey idle in the background when I'm not using it. Both take a while to start only the first time after booting the computer; after that, they start reasonably fast (keep in mind, this is on a spinner).

I just timed the startup time for Media Monkey on my notebook for the first time after booting it up and it took a whopping 13 seconds. Big whoop. Just a single SSD will knock that way down. Halving that time with a RAID isn't going to be enough of a difference to be worth the trouble and cost.

I just timed Media Monkey's second start up time and it was only 5 seconds.

Ok, I just checked calibre's start times. The first one was 48 seconds; the second one, six seconds.

I am not the least bit interested in Windows 8.

I had this in mind for my SSD. At least it's affordable.

Of course, by the time I'm actually ready to build the machine, newer models will be out and prices already dropping (the 840 hasn't been out all that long).

There is also a non-Pro version of the 840 that is cheaper (and slower).

My only Win7 machine is my notebook. It has 262 GB on its 500 GB spinner and there is no way I would be able to cram my data, etc. onto a 120 GB SSD. The cost of an SSD big enough for the notebook is out of the question as is putting a drive in temporarily. Besides, it’s still under warranty so I don’t want to be messing with it.

My desktop is an XP machine. It’s not compatible with Win7. According to Micro$not’s compatibility program, it would run Win7 but only with restrictions; no Aero features at all, for example. I couldn’t care less about Glass. I could live without peek but there is no way I would do without Snap (I do have an aftermarket program that emulates Aerosnap in XP but I doubt it would run on Win7. Also, you can’t use TRIM in XP and I don't want to manually clean it up (I still remember the garbage collection headaches on my C64c). And, as much trouble as I have had with the desktop, I would just as soon not mess with it. I need to keep it running anyway while I get the new machine running.

As I said, if I just wait until I’m ready to build the machine, prices will be lower and there may be something better out for the same price by then.

OK, installed it and ran a test imaging of 3 partitions on 2 physical drives under W8.

I've got some 'issues'. All having to do with the SYSTRAY... I did take pictures and here they are :

The ONLY difference between the 2, the first one DID NOT have ALL the icons to be shown on the Systray, the 2nd one did. You'll see I had Macrium open, that is the TASK tray of the TASKBAR. The SYSTRAY has expanded with a BUNCH of 'empty' icons'. If I go to the CUSTOMIZE I see MANY MACRIUM 'type' icons (not the normal ones but thin green bars on the bottom probably depicting progress). Once Macrium finished, the Systray returned to normal.

Did NOT see anything like this mention in the forums they have either?

Irv S.

Just checked, it's not in the free version...you need to buy it to have that facility.

If that's a real killer for you download the trial version and see if that fits better.