Macrium Reflect

About this release

This is imaging rather than file copying, and the difference shows up on the worst day. A file backup gives you your documents back and leaves you a day of reinstalling everything else. An image restores the entire volume: system, applications, settings, licences and layout, in the state it was in when the image ran. A machine that failed in the morning can be back exactly as it was before lunch.

The backup engine is built for running continuously without being noticed. Full, differential and incremental images with a retention scheme that prunes old ones automatically, block level change tracking so an incremental takes minutes rather than hours, volume snapshots so open files and running databases image cleanly, and compression and encryption applied as the image is written.

Restoring is where it earns its reputation. Boot media built from the application starts a full recovery environment with network and storage drivers included, images mount as ordinary drive letters so a single file can be pulled out without a full restore, and the hardware independent restore option injects the drivers needed to bring an image up on a completely different machine.

The higher editions extend it toward machines that cannot be turned off. Live imaging of servers, application aware snapshots for databases and mail stores, rapid delta restore that writes back only the blocks that differ, and scripting hooks that run before and after each job so a backup can fit into an existing maintenance window.

What it does

Full disk imaging

Restore an entire system exactly as it was rather than copying files back onto a fresh install.

Incremental with change tracking

Block level tracking makes routine incremental images fast enough to run daily without disruption.

Recovery boot media

Build rescue media with network and storage drivers included so a dead machine can be restored from bare metal.

Mountable images

Open an image as a drive letter and retrieve individual files without restoring the volume.

Hardware independent restore

Bring an image up on different hardware with the necessary drivers injected during restore.

Scheduling and retention

Backup sets with automatic pruning so storage does not fill up unattended.

Changed in this version

• Faster incremental imaging on very large volumes.
• Recovery media builder updated with a wider driver set.
• Improved handling of encrypted volumes during imaging.
• Retention rules gain clearer previews before a set is pruned.
• Reduced memory use during long running server jobs.

System requirements

Install order

1. Unpack the archive and run the installer, choosing the edition you want.
2. Build the recovery media immediately after installing, before anything goes wrong.
3. Point image storage at a drive separate from the one being imaged.
4. Run one full image and verify it before setting up the schedule.

Worth knowing before you start

File details