- Overview
- Select Source Drive(s) & Partition(s)
- Edit the Plan for this Backup
Overview
A disk image is a compressed file that contains a sector-level copy of whole disks and partitions. The disk image contains all of the information required to completely restore those selected disks and partitions. Additionally, a disk image of an operating system disk will include all of the information required to restore the operating system to an operational state, as opposed to a file-level backup which cannot be used to recover an operating system.
Deciding What to Image
A graphical view of the disks that are connected to the system where Reflect is installed, and the partitions on those disks, can be viewed on the 'Local Disks' tab nester under the 'Create Backups' tab. System partitions, partitions that contain operating system data and are required for the operating system to work correctly, are denoted by the Windows logo in the top-left of the partition.
First, it is important to decide what will be included in the disk image. You may decide to backup every disk connected to the system, only the operating system, or even a data partition that contains critical data.
The 'Disk Image' wizard can then be launched by selecting one of the following buttons:
| Button | Result |
| Image this disk... |
Selecting this option under a disk will open the disk image wizard and display only the relevant disk. Only the partitions that are selected in the 'Local Disks' tab, with the checkbox on each partition, will be preselected in the disk image wizard. |
| Image selected disks on this computer |
Selecting this option under the 'Create Backup Tasks' menu will open the disk image wizard and display every local disk. Only the disks and partitions that are selected in the 'Local Disks' tab, with the checkbox on each disk and partition, will be preselected in the disk image wizard. |
| Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows |
Selecting this option under the 'Create Backup Tasks' menu will open the disk image wizard and display every local disk that contains system partitions. All system partitions will be preselected in the disk image wizard. |
The Disk Image Wizard
Select Source Drive(s) & Partition(s)
The partitions that will be included in the disk image can be further edited on the first page of the image wizard. Any partition that has a check in the selected checkbox will be included in the disk image:
The destination for the image is specified at the bottom of this page. The destination can be a local drive or network share specified in UNC format (\\Server\Share). A name can also be specified for the resultant image file, to help make it more distinguishable at a glance. Read more about backup file naming here.
Alternative Locations
The 'Alternative Locations' option can be used to specify alternative locations for the image destination. If the primary backup location is not available when the image starts, each location specified will be tried in sequence until an available destination is found. This can be used to easily configure drive rotation, enabling images to be taken offsite for redundancy and provide extra resiliency if the primary destination is not available.
Alternative locations can be specified and added to the list of locations using the 'Add to list' button. The destinations will be attempted in the order they appear in this list. The order the destinations are attempted can be changed using the 'Up' and 'Down' buttons or removed from the list with the 'Remove' button.
Once all the alternative destinations have been specified, select 'OK' to complete the window.
Edit the Plan for this Backup
On the next page of the 'Disk Image' wizard, a schedule can be created to ensure that changes to the system are also backed up regularly.
To assist in creating a schedule, there is a set of "industry standard" schedules included with
Reflect. These schedules can be selected and then edited to make them a better fit for the system that is being backed up using the 'Add Schedule', 'Edit Schedule', and 'Delete Schedule' options:
Alternatively, a schedule can be created from scratch, without a template being selected. Click the 'Add Schedule' button, then select the type of image that will scheduled:
Three types of disk image can be specified when creating a schedule. The different type of backup defines what is backed up from the source disks and partitions.
Full - A full image file contains all of the data stored in the selected source partitions. This backup type has no dependencies and must always be created before subsequent differential and incremental backups can be performed. These are the largest type of backup since they contain all the data from the source partitions and will take the longest to create.
These backups have the advantage that they are fully independent, meaning they can be deleted and moved without affecting later backups.
Differential - A differential image file contains all the data that has changed from the source partitions since the full image was created. Initially, this will create a smaller file than a full backup and will also be faster to create. However, as more time elapses since the full backup was created, these will increase in size and the amount of time they take to create.
These have the advantage of only ever needing the differential backup file that will be restored and the full backup file that it is appended to, to be able to restore with intermediate files not being needed.
Incremental - An incremental image contains all the changes that have occurred to the source partition since the last backup of any type was created. These are the smallest size backup files and the fastest to create.
To restore an incremental backup, all previous backups in the set must be available. If 'Inc 3' in the example above is deleted, inc 4, 5, and 6 also would not be able to be restored.
Combinations of these backup types can be defined in the schedule to create more flexible backup schedules; this also enables the benefits of each backup type while minimizing the negatives. The example below shows a Grandfather, Father, Son schedule which makes use of full, differential, and incremental backups:
Select 'Add Schedule'. In the window that opens the 'Frequency' and 'Options' for the schedule can be changed. The list of options on this page will change depending on the 'Frequency' that has been selected:
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Selecting 'Conditions' will display additional options that can be used to determine whether the task should run:
| Option | Description |
| Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed | If a scheduled start is missed, e.g. due to the system being powered off, the scheduled task will start when it's next possible. |
| Start the task only if the computer is on AC power | The task will not start if the computer is on battery power. |
| Stop if the computer switches to battery power | If the computer switches to battery power during the clone, the clone will stop. This option is only available if Windows Task Scheduler is selected in the 'Schedule Settings'. |
| Wake the computer to run this task | When selected, the system will attempt to wake from sleep to run the scheduled backup. |
Any triggers that have been created are displayed on the 'Edit the Plan for this Backup' page. Triggers can be edited and deleted by selecting a trigger and then selecting one of the options below the triggers table:
Define Retention Rules
Macrium Reflect retention rules provide a powerful and flexible way to manage the lifetime and storage space used by your backups. Choose how backups are matched, and how retention rules are applied to the target folder:
Retention rules are applied to the target folder of the backup by selecting one of two options:
| Matching backup sets in the target folder. |
Disk images are purged if they contain exactly the same partitions as the current image. Partitions are identified using the unique disk ID stored in sector 0 of the disk and the partition sector offset. Note: For GPT disks the unique GPT disk GUID is used instead of the Disk ID |
| All backup sets in the target folder. | All backup sets in the target folder of the same type (disk image or file and folder) are purged according to the retention rules. |
Next, select the age or number of backup types that will be kept:
| Option | Description |
| Full | When deleting full images, all linked incremental and differential images in the same backup set are also deleted. |
| Differential | When deleting differential images all linked incremental images in the same backup set are also deleted. |
| Incremental | When deleting incremental images the integrity of the backup set is maintained by ensuring that the set is never broken. This is achieved by merging older incremental backups when required. |
| Create a Synthetic Full if possible | When purging incremental images, if the image set only contains a full image followed by incremental images, then this option causes the full image to be 'rolled forward' to create a synthetic full image. This is also known as incremental forever. |
| Run the purge before the backup | Select this option to run the retention rules before the current image starts. |
| Delete the older backup set(s) if less than X GB on the target volume |
Automatically remove the oldest backup set(s) in the target folder if the free space on the drive drops below the GB threshold. Note: The free space threshold is actioned dynamically. If the free space available drops below the threshold then the running backup is temporarily paused while older backup sets are purged. |
Imaging Summary
The final page of the wizard shows a summary of the image that is about to be performed and the settings that were specified. We recommend double-checking the settings that have been selected. The '< Back' and 'Next >' buttons can be used to navigate through the wizard and make changes as necessary.
'Advanced Options' can be selected on any page of the wizard, to specify advanced options for the image that will be performed. Read more about the available options here.
Backup Save Options
After selecting 'Finish', the 'Backup Save Options' window will be displayed with options to 'Run this backup now' and 'Save as a Backup Definition File'.
If 'Run this backup now' is left unchecked, the backup will run at the next scheduled start time, if a schedule was specified, or can be launched manually on the 'Definition Files' tab:
'Save as a Backup Definition File' must be left checked if a schedule has been specified. This option can still be left checked if a schedule has not been specified to make manually running the same backup again in the future easier, as shown in the screenshot above.