Macrium Reflect

What is included in Macrium Reflect?

Disk Imaging – Full, incremental and differential image backups.
Image Guardian – Blocks ransomware from altering backup files.
ReDeploy Recovery – Boots restored images on dissimilar hardware.
Rescue Media – Bootable USB recovers unbootable Windows systems.
Performance Metric – Backups run up to twice faster.
Important – Home edition excludes commercial use and Windows Server support.

What are the main benefits of Macrium Reflect?

Macrium Reflect is Windows disk-imaging software that captures a whole system into a single, mountable image for fast disaster recovery. It is built for full-system and bare-metal restores rather than continuous cloud sync or file versioning.

Fast Recovery – Restore a failed system in minutes.
Ransomware Defense – Image Guardian locks backups from tampering.
Hardware Migration – Move Windows onto new or replacement machines.
Verified Backups – Image verification confirms a backup is restorable.
Flexible Scheduling – Automate full, incremental and differential runs.
ARM Support – Bare-metal restore for Copilot+ ARM PCs.

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What does Macrium Reflect do?

Macrium Reflect copies an entire drive or selected partitions into one compressed, mountable image file. It uses Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy Service to take a consistent point-in-time snapshot while Windows keeps running, so the operating system and open files are captured cleanly. You can restore a full disk, individual partitions, or browse the image and pull back single files and folders. Because the .mrimg image mounts as a drive letter in File Explorer, recovering one deleted document is as quick as rebuilding a dead disk.

Who gets the most out of Macrium Reflect?

It fits anyone who needs to return a whole Windows machine to a known-good state quickly, not just sync files to the cloud. After a failed drive or a broken Windows update, a single image restore rebuilds the OS, applications and settings in one pass instead of hours of reinstallation. ReDeploy then adapts that restored image to different hardware, so a backup from a dead laptop can boot on a replacement model. Home users protecting one PC and small businesses imaging a few workstations run the same engine; the edition only changes licensing and OS scope.

What is the difference between the Home, Workstation and Server editions?

All three editions share the same Reflect X engine, including Rapid Delta Restore, Image Guardian and ReDeploy, so the core backup and recovery experience is identical. The difference is licensing and operating-system scope: Home is licensed for personal, non-commercial use, and the PC editions will not install on a server operating system. Workstation adds the right to use Reflect commercially on desktop and laptop Windows, while Server is required for Windows Server and adds intelligent ReFS imaging. The table below summarizes the practical split.

Is there still a free version of Macrium Reflect?

No. Macrium discontinued Reflect Free, and its v8 code base received only security patches until 1 January 2024, with no further feature or compatibility updates. The current line-up is paid across the Home, Workstation and Server editions, replacing the old perpetual free edition. A 30-day trial of the paid editions is still available, but ReDeploy is not enabled in the trial and its restore ability stops working once the trial ends. If your licence later lapses, Reflect falls back to a restore-only mode so you can still recover existing images.

Which file systems and platforms does Macrium Reflect support?

Reflect performs intelligent, in-use-only imaging on FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT and Ext2/3/4 file systems, copying only used clusters to keep images small and fast. ReFS intelligent imaging is reserved for the Server and Server Plus editions; other editions image unsupported file systems sector by sector instead. It is Windows-only, spanning legacy Windows through current Windows 11, and Reflect X added native bare-metal restore for Copilot+ ARM devices. Rapid Delta Restore and Rapid Delta Clone work on NTFS only, so non-NTFS volumes fall back to a full restore or clone.

What should you check before buying Macrium Reflect?

First match the edition to your use: Home is personal-use only, commercial users need Workstation, and any Windows Server machine needs the Server edition because the PC editions refuse to install on a server OS. Reflect is Windows-only, with no native macOS or Linux desktop client, so it does not cover a mixed-platform estate on its own. It is image-based disaster recovery rather than cloud sync, so add offsite or cloud storage if you need geographic redundancy. The standalone editions are installed per machine; centralized scheduling across many computers is handled by the separate SiteManager platform, not Reflect itself.

Frequently asked questions about Macrium Reflect

Can Macrium Reflect back up directly to the cloud?

Reflect writes images to local disks, USB drives and network shares, but it has no built-in uploader for cloud services such as OneDrive or S3. A common workaround is to back up to a local folder that a cloud client then syncs, or to copy finished images to cloud storage afterwards for offsite protection.

Can Macrium Reflect clone a disk as well as create an image?

Yes. Alongside image files, Reflect performs direct disk-to-disk cloning with automatic partition resizing, which is the usual way to migrate Windows onto a larger or faster SSD. Rapid Delta Clone speeds repeat clones by writing only changed data, but it applies to NTFS volumes only.

Can a Macrium backup be booted as a virtual machine?

Yes. The viBoot tool boots a Reflect image directly as a Hyper-V or VirtualBox virtual machine, so you can confirm a backup actually boots, or temporarily run an old system, without performing a full restore.