Macrium Reflect is an image based backup and cloning software. It can easily create full, incremental or differential backup images that are very accurate and reliable. Since it was first invented in 2006 when Nick Sills (SEO and Founder) experienced a personal data disaster, Macrium software is now the most popular backup applications with over 4 million downloads and over 900 resellers worldwide. Using Macrium Reflect, you can do backup of whole computer, partitions or individual folders and files. Backup is done into a single compressed, mountable archive file which is easy to restore. In this way, you will be able to restore the exact images of partitions or a hard disk. It is now safe and easy for you to upgrade your hard disk or recover your system if it breaks. You can also mount images as a virtual drive in Windows Explorer to easily recover Files and Folders using Copy and Paste. The program is available in three versions for the home users; free, home and workstation. You will never experience any type of system loss, the program will help you to restore the entire disk, partitions, or individual files and folders. The current version of Macrium Reflect 7 was launched in February 2017. It includes many new features and faster disk imaging times Homepage: https://www.macrium.com/ Current version: 7.1.2722 Release date: November 21, 2017 Macrium versions available: Please visit this page to revise all the differences: https://www.macrium.com/product-comparison Macrium Reflect Workstation: This version of the software is designed for endpoint backup of business-critical PCs and workstations. Peace of mind for organizations when backing up Windows PCs. Program Page: https://www.macrium.com/products/business/standalone/workstation Download and installation: You can download free trial version from the official website. Using the Macrium download manager, simply input your license to download Macrium Reflect Installer and PE Components. Installation is very easy and doesn't need any skills. After installation, you will have 30 days free trial Updates: The program automatically check for any updates and pop up window inform you about the changes and new features. You can click on the download button to install the update. The whole process is complete in a few minutes System requirements: Windows XP Service Pack 3 and later, 512MB RAM, A keyboard and mouse, rescue media usel needs either a CD/DVD writing drive or USB pen drive. User Interface: The user interface is very friendly and easy to use even if you are a beginner. There is built-un stepped wizard that guide users during backup and restore processes Purchase: Macrium Reflect licenses are perpetual with no expiry date or annual renewal. On the other hand, the support is offered for 12 months. After this period, you can renew the premium support in the workstation version of Macrium software. Backup menu: Restore menu: Other task Menu: Key Features: Backup your entire PC or workstation to a single compressed image file. Backup files and folders to a single compressed archive file. Rapid Delta Cloning increases cloning speed by copying file system deltas MBR and GPT disk support Recover partitions and entire disk images with just a few clicks of your mouse Mount images in Windows Explorer for easy item level recovery Rapid Delta Restore recovers your images in minutes or even seconds Protect your backups from ransomware with Macrium Image Guardian With a new Backup Engine Incremental and differential images are faster than ever Instant virtual booting of backup images: instantly create, start and manage Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines Ultra-fast Live imaging of windows systems, physical and virtual Restore images to dissimilar hardware using Macrium ReDeploy Greatly simplified administration including pre-defined Backup Plans for popular backup strategies Fully featured file and folder level backup and recovery Updated support for all the latest Windows Operating Systems and disk formats Video: Changelog and New Features: The full list of new releases of the program with all of the new features and bug fixes are found in this page: http://updates.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.1.2722/details7.1.2722.htm Macrium Image Guardian (MIG): This is a new feature that offers a good security for all users. It will protect Macrium backup files against ransomware attacks. It prevent any type of unauthorized access or modification of your backup files . You can easily recover latest backups with the help of this tool. The small footprint allows you to use this tool with no impact on your PC performance. It All denies write access of any process and grants write access to Macrium Reflect version 7.1 only. In addition, it protects local NTFS volumes and allows Macrium Reflect 7.1 and later to use the protected volume as a shared network resource. Task Scheduler 2.0: This is an improvement over the previous Task Scheduler 1.0 which was available in the previous version 6. It helps to overcomes errors and issues Changed Block Tracking (CBT): This is a powerful unique technology that is available in Macrium reflect v7. It helps to reduce image creation time. For example, time required for creation of incremental and differential images. This is done by monitoring the changes to an NTFS formatted volume in real-time. This feature will be of importance to any user especially if your system has many large files Macrium viBoot: This is built in instant virtualization tool which allows easy creation of a Hyper-V Virtual Machine using couple of mouse clicks. You can instantly create, start and manage Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines using one or more Macrium Reflect image files. Windows PE and the rescue environment: Using this tool, you can create rescue media which helps you to start your PC If there is system crash and you can’t start your computer. Simply, use Macrium Reflect rescue media available on CD, DVD, or USB stick. It contains a bootable, lightweight version of Windows (Windows PE ) and a full version of Macrium Reflect. It downloads just those components you need to rescue your system. If you are planning to move to new computer, you can restore to the new system or virtual machine using Macrium ReDeploy. It lets you reconfigure your windows installation for the new hardware. Macrium ReDeploy: This unique tool lets you Re-deploy Windows to new hardware. This allows you to run a Windows installation on new hardware which helps to overcome issues with Windows boot processes. Significant changes to the hardware can cause issues with Windows boot process and failure to boot your system in the normal way There are many situations you will need this feature, for example; hardware failure or planned upgrade or moving between a physical and a virtual machine Creating a backup image of your computer, drive or partitions You have three options to select from; image selected disks on this computer, create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows, or create file and folder backup. After making one choice, you need to specify the output location and the advanced settings. Next step; you can add and edit the backup plan and retention rules Verifying image and backup files: This feature allows to check the entire contents of backup files against MD5 message hashes created from the source data when the backup was created. Cloning a disk: Thanks to this built in tool, you can easily clone an entire hard drive or specific partitions on a hard drive. Cloning creates a bootable new hard drive with the state of your computer at the time you undertook the clone. This is useful in many situations. For example, if you are upgrading to a larger hard drive, you can boot the target disk on the same system after cloning. Differential and incremental disk images: When your first full backup, you can run differential and incremental backups. This will help you to capture just the changes which occurred since the backup process. This will save your time because it is quicker. Macrium manages these backup sets for you. All you have to do is to right click the file you want to backup up and select the type of image to create. Macrium Rapid Delta Clone (RDC): This feature offers a clone solution that would effectively and rapidly copy only the differences between the source and target file systems. Macrium Rapid Delta Restore (RDR): This feature offers a restore of an incremental image to a file system at a known state. Advanced Options: Compression: to reduce the file size. File Size to enter a fixed file size for the image, this is useful when using CD/DVD. Password: to encrypt the image. Auto Verify Image (needs more time) Comments (set comments for the image or backup) Shutdown: computer shutdown after complete backup Scheduling, retention and disk space: when you create any type of computer backup, you have the option to create a backup plan using the scheduling and retention wizard. Backup plan templates (Scheduling and Retention rules): The program has built-in templates for automating backup plans. This will help you to maximize retention for your available storage space. You can easily access, modify or create your own backup templates. These are located under backup menu Backup Plan let you create time based backup cycles and specify whether full, differential or incremental. Retention Rules let you retain a specific number of each type of backup for a number of days or weeks before cleaning up. Restore: You can easily restore system image or individual folders and files. Macrium Reflect will restore your disk partitions exactly as they were when the backup was taken. File and Folder backups lets you restore all or selected files and folders to their original or new location. You can even restore whole computers with few mouse clicks Disk Write Performance: The main function of the program is creation of disk image. To complete this process successfully, large amounts of data are transferred from the source partition to the destination image file. This process needs to be as quick as possible. The program has a tool that assess the best method when writing image file data. This is disk write performance tool Log viewer: Boot menu option: Addition of Windows boot menu specific for macrium reflect is very useful option. It allows users to directly access Macrium Windows PE recovery environment without the need to burn a DVD or USB Flash drive. Event viewer: Settings: The program has many settings that are categorized under many headings including backup settings, restore settings, update settings, scripts, email settings, events and advanced Pros: Backup of the entire computer Backup of specific driver Differential and incremental backup Easy Restore Windows PE and rescue environment Macrium Image Guardian Easy to use with friendly interface And many more Cons: None Conclusion: Macrium Reflect is the trusted endpoint backup and cloning solution for home and business. It will help you to backup your files, folders, drives and even the entire hard disc. You will never have any data loss. At any time, you can easily restore your computer exactly the same when the image was created. It is fast and reliable. In addition, if your system crashes and unable to boot, Macrium windows PE will solve your problem and lets you restore your system back. Now, it includes ransomware protection with Macrium Image Guardian Macrium Reflect is the complete backup solution you will ever need, just download and try