Macrium Reflect: "Image this drive" vs "Clone this drive" + bonus

[LeanMan82]

I was reading this thread and one of the users commented

OH my bad XD yea clone this disk NOT Image this disk. hahaha

I know this is an old thread and didn't want to comment on it because it was already answered, but the issues the original poster (OP) had are the same issues that I am seeing. In any case, I'm getting familiar with the Macrium Reflect software and was wondering what is the difference between "Image this drive" and "Clone this drive" in the context of dealing with small HDD restored to a larger HDD and large HDD restored to a smaller HDD? Thanks for any answers in reference to this question.

Bonus question:
What is the difference between "differential backup" and "incremental backup"? Most people I see on forums talk about "incremental backups" but rarely recommend or mention "differential backup." Thanks all!

 

[USAFRet]

Clone vs image.

In the Macrium world, an Image of a drive results in a single file, representing the entire drive (or whichever partitions you've selected).
whatever.mrimage.
This file can live on a different drive, along with all sorts of other stuff. You can have multiple images in the same folder, off on a different drive.
This is good for backups.
To resurrect this 'image', you use a Macrium Rescue CD or USB you create.

A Clone will do a complete copy of the drive to a different drive. And consume that whole target drive.
This is useful for changing the system from a small SSD to a larger, or an HDD to a new SSD.


Differential vs Incremental
Basically, it would consist of a Full image, and then a diff or inc on a regular schedule.
Read here at Macrium for the exact differences:
http://kb.macrium.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50143.aspx

 

[LeanMan82]

Ok I'm still getting familiar with the software. I was able to clone my 120 SSD to a 500 GB HDD.

The 120 GB SSD had three partitions:
Kingston 120 GB SSD - |100 MB Active:118.70 GB Primary:450 MB Primary|

I used macrium reflect to clone to a 500 GB HDD:
WD Blue 500 GB HDD - |100 MB Active:465.22 GB Primary:450 MB Primary|

Things I noticed? The 500 GB HDD was much MUCH slower than normal ... why would this be? Could it be that its an HDD and not an SSD and its at 5400 RPM that it is slow?

Secondly, when I tried to move the order of the partitions - the clone would not boot up and just hang after the Windows 10 logo disappeared. The way I created this clone was:
WD Blue 500 GB HDD - |100 MB Active:450 MB Primary:465.22 GB Primary|

Why is this? When I used the Samsung Migration software to migrate my Kingston SSD data to my Samsung SSD, it appeared to have merged the 100 MB and 450 MB partitions into a single 500 MB partition and then kept the rest as the Primary and it works solidly. I couldn't be happier with Samsung's migration tool but why was my manual manipulation with macrium reflect does not work?

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, a 5400RPM HDD will be vastly slower than an SSD.

There was no reason for you to manually try to move the partitions around. That probably mucked something up.

 

[LeanMan82]

There was no reason for you to manually try to move the partitions around. That probably mucked something up.

The following forum post gives a little bit of clue of what happens when you move windows partitions around like that. I'll leave it here because it will be useful for future reference and if anyone wants to try this in the future:

https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/moved-windows-partition-to-the-left-won-t-boot-efi-636042/
https://superuser.com/questions/815267/can-i-fix-error-0xc0000225-without-reinstalling-windows

 

[LeanMan82]

Clone vs image.

In the Macrium world, an Image of a drive results in a single file, representing the entire drive (or whichever partitions you've selected).
whatever.mrimage.
This file can live on a different drive, along with all sorts of other stuff. You can have multiple images in the same folder, off on a different drive.
This is good for backups.
To resurrect this 'image', you use a Macrium Rescue CD or USB you create.

A Clone will do a complete copy of the drive to a different drive. And consume that whole target drive.
This is useful for changing the system from a small SSD to a larger, or an HDD to a new SSD.


Differential vs Incremental
Basically, it would consist of a Full image, and then a diff or inc on a regular schedule.
Read here at Macrium for the exact differences:
http://kb.macrium.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50143.aspx

USAFRet, I picked your answer as the solution. thanks. I have one more question. I've been reading your backup scheme. Which "Backup Plan" do you use on Macrium Reflect and why? There are five different options:
1). Create your own
2). Grandfather, Father, Son
3). Differential Backup Set
4). Incremental Backup Set
5). Incremental Forever

I read somewhere you run a full backup, then do incrementals and then roll it up into a full backup every two weeks. Sounds like option 5, is that right? Also, does Macrium Reflect do off site backups or cloud support? If not, is there something else you do in reference to this? Thanks for all your help!

 

[USAFRet]

USAFRet, I picked your answer as the solution. thanks. I have one more question. I've been reading your backup scheme. Which "Backup Plan" do you use on Macrium Reflect and why? There are five different options:
1). Create your own
2). Grandfather, Father, Son
3). Differential Backup Set
4). Incremental Backup Set
5). Incremental Forever

I read somewhere you run a full backup, then do incrementals and then roll it up into a full backup every two weeks. Sounds like option 5, is that right? Also, does Macrium Reflect do off site backups or cloud support? If not, is there something else you do in reference to this? Thanks for all your help!

#5, Incremental forever.
Macrium doesn't have any direct cloud integration. I do my own cloud, which is a drive in a desk drawer at work.

 

[LeanMan82]

#5, Incremental forever.
Macrium doesn't have any direct cloud integration. I do my own cloud, which is a drive in a desk drawer at work.

How do you do that? How does it backup to your machine over the internet? Is this a product or some methods you pUT together? Do you have a tutorial or article explainin your methods/implementation and reasoning behind your decision to go with this approach? Much appreciated.

 

[USAFRet]

#5, Incremental forever.
Macrium doesn't have any direct cloud integration. I do my own cloud, which is a drive in a desk drawer at work.

How do you do that? How does it backup to your machine over the internet? Is this a product or some methods you pUT together? Do you have a tutorial or article explainin your methods/implementation and reasoning behind your decision to go with this approach? Much appreciated.

No cloud/internet...
Every once in a while, I bring that drive home and plug it in.
Copy over anything new and critical.
Take it out, and take it to work.

And that drive is only for really critical things, that absolutely need to survive a fire/flood. Scans of birth certs, passports, licenses, pics of my kids/grandkids...

Everything else is not life critical, and covered under the 2 or 3 layer backups here in the house.
PC->NAS->NAS backup. Which will survive anything short of my house burning down, or a Cat5 hurricane.

And just today, I received the last two 4TB drives I need to update the NAS box to 4 x 4TB. So I'll have a couple of spare 3TB drives. I can put those in a rotation of drives to and from the desk drawer at work.