Macrium Reflect vs Windows 10 built-in for System Image backup

[mustafa.islam1548]

So I would like to know which is best to use to make a full system image that I can use to make an exact same drive with all windows boot files and all my softwares and personal files, in case my main drive fails. Please let me know which is best and why.

 

[USAFRet]

So I would like to know which is best to use to make a full system image that I can use to make an exact same drive with all windows boot files and all my softwares and personal files, in case my main drive fails. Please let me know which is best and why.

Macrium Reflect, no question.

The Windows System image is just that...the windows system stuff.
Macrium will do an Image of the entire drive, on whatever schedule you desire.
And if you wish, Differential or Incremental images as time goes on.

For instance...my system does a Full image every 2 weeks, and daily Incremental images between.
I could recreate the system as it was on any day in the last two weeks.

Read here for the specifics:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3383768/backup-situation-home.html

 

[mustafa.islam1548]

So I would like to know which is best to use to make a full system image that I can use to make an exact same drive with all windows boot files and all my softwares and personal files, in case my main drive fails. Please let me know which is best and why.

Macrium Reflect, no question.

The Windows System image is just that...the windows system stuff.
Macrium will do an Image of the entire drive, on whatever schedule you desire.
And if you wish, Differential or Incremental images as time goes on.

For instance...my system does a Full image every 2 weeks, and daily Incremental images between.
I could recreate the system as it was on any day in the last two weeks.

Read here for the specifics:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3383768/backup-situation-home.html

Ok so I have used Reflect and made an image of my main drive. I also used the windows method so now I have 2 images, one in the macrium's format and one in windows' format. The macrium made image is only 79gb while the windows one is 96gb. My main drive that the image is of, has 96gb of used space. Does macrium do some compression with the files, or are some things missing from it? Does it include all the windows boot files and everything else?

 

[LukeFatwalker]

I use Macrium Reflect for system backup, Rollback Rx Home for data backup. Both work wonderfully and are free.

Windows imaging is unreliable. Which would be acceptable if there wasn't better freeware solutions out there like Macrium Reflect or Clonezilla.

 

[USAFRet]

Ok so I have used Reflect and made an image of my main drive. I also used the windows method so now I have 2 images, one in the macrium's format and one in windows' format. The macrium made image is only 79gb while the windows one is 96gb. My main drive that the image is of, has 96gb of used space. Does macrium do some compression with the files, or are some things missing from it? Does it include all the windows boot files and everything else?

Yes, Macrium does a bit of compression.
It also leaves off things that are not needed, like the pagefile and hibernation file.

From the v7 user manual:
"Intelligent
Sector Copy
Only backup the sectors that are being used by data on the disk. Pagefile (pagefile.sys) and hibernation ( hiberfil.sys) will also be excluded"


And yes, it includes everything needed to reconstitute that image to a fully working, bootable drive.

Just for my own peace of mind when I started using it, I tested this out specifically.
Create an image of the C drive.
Take that physical drive out, put in a different one
Boot from the Macrium Rescue CD I had created earlier, tell it which image and which new drive
Go.
The new drive worked exactly as the previous one did.

Exact full functionality.

 

[mustafa.islam1548]

Ok so I have used Reflect and made an image of my main drive. I also used the windows method so now I have 2 images, one in the macrium's format and one in windows' format. The macrium made image is only 79gb while the windows one is 96gb. My main drive that the image is of, has 96gb of used space. Does macrium do some compression with the files, or are some things missing from it? Does it include all the windows boot files and everything else?

Yes, Macrium does a bit of compression.
It also leaves off things that are not needed, like the pagefile and hibernation file.

From the v7 user manual:
"Intelligent
Sector Copy
Only backup the sectors that are being used by data on the disk. Pagefile (pagefile.sys) and hibernation ( hiberfil.sys) will also be excluded"


And yes, it includes everything needed to reconstitute that image to a fully working, bootable drive.

Just for my own peace of mind when I started using it, I tested this out specifically.
Create an image of the C drive.
Take that physical drive out, put in a different one
Boot from the Macrium Rescue CD I had created earlier, tell it which image and which new drive
Go.
The new drive worked exactly as the previous one did.

Exact full functionality.

Thank you so much for clearing all this up, i searched everywhere online for help and couldn't find much, only how to create the image and restore it.
Hopefully anyone else who needs this information stumbles onto this post and benefits from your input!