Backup files can be reduced in size without compromising data integrity. Compression results may vary depending on the compressibility of the source data, for example, a standard Windows install OS partition will compress to around 60-70% of its original size. The compression effectiveness for user data partitions and files will depend on the types of files being backed up. Files that won't compress further include most audio and video files, as well as existing compressed files like .zip, .tar, .7z, etc.

Compression Level	Description
None	Backup without compressing.
Medium (Recommended)	Medium compression generally provides the best compromise between performance and the resultant backup file size.
High	High compression may make backups take considerably longer to complete with the difference in file size being marginal.

Macrium Reflect LTSC uses a very fast, real-time, streaming block compression algorithm. This will not provide the same overall compression ratio as common compression utilities like 7-Zip which use, much slower, whole-file data compression techniques.

All 'mountable' backup files, such as those created by Macrium Reflect, require discrete blocks of data to be compressed and decompressed 'on the fly'. This enables images and backup files to be incremented and mounted as drives in Windows Explorer.

Option	Description
Intelligent Sector Copy	Only backup data blocks that are being used by files on the disk. This significantly reduces the time it takes for backups to complete and reduces the size of the backup files. Note: The data blocks in the pagefile (pagefile.sys) and hibernation (hiberfil.sys) files will be excluded from images. Data blocks in these files are temporary and not required when Windows starts. These files will be visible in the imaged file system but will take up zero space in the image file.
Forensic Copy	Backup all data blocks. This may significantly increase the size of image files. e.g., An image of a 1TB file system with only 1GB in use will contain 1TB of data blocks prior to any compression.

Option

Description

Intelligent Sector Copy

Only backup data blocks that are being used by files on the disk. This significantly reduces the time it takes for backups to complete and reduces the size of the backup files.

Note: The data blocks in the pagefile (pagefile.sys) and hibernation (hiberfil.sys) files will be excluded from images. Data blocks in these files are temporary and not required when Windows starts. These files will be visible in the imaged file system but will take up zero space in the image file.

Forensic Copy

Backup all data blocks. This may significantly increase the size of image files. e.g., An image of a 1TB file system with only 1GB in use will contain 1TB of data blocks prior to any compression.

File Size

This page of the defaults and settings enables a maximum file size limit when creating backup files, additional data will be written to another file. Alternatively, the destination file system for the image can be used to determine the maximum file size.

Incremental Retention Rules will not be run if backup files are split. This can be caused by setting a fixed size or if the destination file system is FAT32.

Option	Description
Automatic (Recommended)	When this option is selected the destination file system will determine how large the resultant backup files will be (NTFS, FAT32, DVD, CD). For example, FAT32 files are limited to 4GB therefore images are going to be split into 4GB, or less, files.
Fixed file size	Create Images that will be split into many fixed-size files. This is useful when copying Image files to optical media or some cloud storage providers.

Option

Description

Automatic (Recommended)

When this option is selected the destination file system will determine how large the resultant backup files will be (NTFS, FAT32, DVD, CD).

For example, FAT32 files are limited to 4GB therefore images are going to be split into 4GB, or less, files.

Fixed file size

Create Images that will be split into many fixed-size files. This is useful when copying Image files to optical media or some cloud storage providers.

Password

This page can be used to specify password protection for backup files. This provides additional security against unauthorized access to backup data. When this option is enabled, by default, all backup files that are created will require the password to be entered before they can be browsed or restored.

Option		Description
Enter Password:		The minimum password length is determined by the selected AES encryption level. Long passwords are much more secure than shorter passwords. The passwords are not saved to backup files. Macrium Reflect uses standard PBKDF2 key derivation functions with 260K iterations to save an irreversible hash of the password. To view an existing saved password in this window, click the 'eye' icon in the password edit field. After entering valid Windows Administrator credentials, the password will be shown in plain text.
AES Encryption	None	No encryption and the password can be any length.
	Standard 128 Bit	This is the default and requires a password containing at least 8 characters.
	Medium 192 Bit	Requires a password containing at least 16 characters.
	High 256 Bit	Requires a password containing at least 32 characters.
Encrypt stored passwords		Passwords are stored in backup definition files to enable unattended backups to run. Select this option to encrypt your passwords in the backup definition file using a steganographically hidden asymmetric key. To prevent unauthorized access we recommend that backup definition files are saved to a secure location on your file system. If having a reversible encrypted password saved on your system presents an unacceptable security risk then enter the password $PROMPT$ in the password field. Once typed, the letters become visible; running backup definitions with this password will enforce manual creation and require a password whenever the backup is run. Please note that it will not be possible to schedule unattended backups in this case:

Auto Verify Image

When this option is enabled, Macrium Reflect backup files will be verified immediately after creation. This helps ensure that no corruption of data occurred while the image was being written to the destination. Enabling this option can considerably increase the amount of time taken to create the image:

Imaging Rate Limit

If enabled, a rate limit can be set for writing to the destination. This will limit the write rate to a specified number of Mbits (megabits) per second.

Note: In the backup progress, a higher transfer rate than the rate limit may be displayed. This is because the transfer limit counts the amount of data read from the source disk and saved into the backup file without including compression.

After the backup is completed, the read and write rate is shown in the backup log.

Verify File System

The 'Verify File System' option is used to check the integrity of the file source system before a backup is created.

Macrium Reflect will automatically verify the integrity of FAT32 and NTFS file systems being backed up. This means checking that all files and folders have their data entries correctly mapped to the file allocation table (FAT) or $MFT Bitmap (NTFS).

This is a comprehensive check, and similar in functionality to the MS-DOS CHKDSK. command. When enabled, this option may increase the time taken to complete a backup.

Backup Set File Name Prefix

By default, when using a custom name for the image file, the image ID will be appended to the start of the custom name. This helps ensure that "name collisions" do not occur which could lead to older backups being mistakenly overwritten.

This option can be used to prevent the image ID from being appended to the start of the backup name.

Read more about backup file naming here.

Comments

The 'Comment' page enables a comment to be specified that can be used to help identify and describe the images that are created by this definition:

The comment will be visible when viewing backups in the 'Existing Backups' tab of Macrium Reflect and the rescue media:

The comment can also be viewed in the 'Backup Comment' column using Windows Explorer:

Shutdown

This will control the power-saving option that is applied when the disk image is created:

Option	Description
Shutdown	When selected the system will shutdown after the backup is complete. A sub-option can be enabled to force all programs to close without querying the user whether they can be closed.
Hibernate	When selected the system will hibernate after the backup is complete.
Suspend	When selected, the system will suspend after the backup is complete.

Option

Description

Shutdown

When selected the system will shutdown after the backup is complete.

A sub-option can be enabled to force all programs to close without querying the user whether they can be closed.

Hibernate

When selected the system will hibernate after the backup is complete.

Suspend

When selected, the system will suspend after the backup is complete.

Email

This page of the image options is used to configure email notifications that will be sent when an image has been completed. The email notifications configured here are dependent on the 'Email Server' being configured in the 'Email Settings and Defaults'.

The settings below may already be configured if the default email success or failure options have been configured in the 'Email Settings and Defaults'. In this case, the options here can be used to change the notifications from the defaults or to enable email notifications for definitions that were created before the default notifications were configured.

Email Success

Option	Description
Send email notification on success	When enabled, an email notification will be sent when the image completes successfully.
Attach log file	Attach the image log file to the email notification.
Attach VSS log file	Attach the VSS log file to the email notification. This option will only apply if VSS is used during the image.
Recipient List	The email address(es) of the recipient(s) of the email notification. Multiple emails can be specified with a semicolon (;) separated list: example1@domain.com; example2@domain.com; example3@domain.com
Subject	This controls the subject of the email notification.
Content	This controls the body of the email notification.

Email Warning

Option	Description
Send email notification on warning	When enabled, an email notification will be sent when the image completes successfully with a warning(s).
Attach log file	Attach the image log file to the email notification.
Attach VSS log file	Attach the VSS log file to the email notification. This option will only apply if VSS is used during the image.
Recipient List	The email address(es) of the recipient(s) of the email notification. Multiple emails can be specified with a semicolon (;) separated list: example1@domain.com; example2@domain.com; example3@domain.com
Subject	This controls the subject of the email notification.
Content	This controls the body of the email notification.

Email Failure

Option	Description
Send email notification on failure	When enabled, an email notification will be sent when an image fails to complete.
Include Cancellations	When this option is enabled, failure notification emails will also be sent when an image is cancelled.
Include skipped scheduled backups	When this option is enabled, failure notification emails will also be sent when a scheduled image is skipped, for example, when a schedule conflict results in a scheduled image not running.
Attach log file	Attach the image log file to the email notification.
Attach VSS log file	Attach the VSS log file to the email notification. This option will only apply if VSS is used during the image.
Recipient List	The email address(es) of the recipient(s) of the email notification. Multiple emails can be specified with a semicolon (;) separated list: example1@domain.com; example2@domain.com; example3@domain.com
Subject	This controls the subject of the email notification.
Content	This controls the body of the email notification.