? Macrium Free Edition to be retired

There is nothing about Macrium 9 in that article but speculation.

I updated my Macrium 8 Free today and saw the EOL notice for Macrium 8, nowhere does it say that there will not be a free version of Macrium 9.

Nothing that I can find anywhere on the web actually says that.
Particularly nothing at Macrium themselves.

I could be wrong, which is why I'm asking if anyone has seen anything definitive.

But as far as I can see for now this story looks like a 'storm in a teacup' misinterpretation of what the EOL announcement/pop-up actually says.

Here is the notification. Sounds like it's being retired to me. Macrium doesn't seem to dispute it. I would think if Macrium Free was not being retired then Paramount would post something to refute it as this is all over the internet now. I also don't think Ghacks would post the article if it wasn't confirmed. 

 

Edit: It would nice if BC could confirm this with Paramount UK.

 

https://imgur.com/a/1MHA5C0

Edited by JohnC_21, 27 November 2022 - 11:26 AM.

Thanks,
I had already seen that at Macrium itself.

I think that we need a clearer statement from Macrium/Paramount.

If they come out and clearly say there will be no free version of 9 then that's their business decision to make.
At the moment though they are not saying that clearly.
(Maybe they are testing the reaction?)

Another free imaging option would be Veeam community edition.

 

https://www.veeam.com/agent-for-windows-community-edition.html

Actually, I can't see why the latest free version wouldn't run for years without updates. As long as I run W10, MR will run just fine. Once W10 is EOL I'm not sure what will happen, but I plan on running it for several years after that and I see no reason why Reflect would suddenly shut down.

Edited by ranchhand_, 01 December 2022 - 02:15 PM.

We only use MR for basic system images of C drive and wondered if when retired and  not receiving any more security updates etc, rather than running  a backup from the MR program on the PC which could be open to infection, if we ran both Backups and Restores from the USB PE with a write protect switch,  would that be a safer method ?

 

Did think about paying for MR 8 but seems the "lifetime" is for the product, that being  MR "8" as looks like it ends one year after the release of MR 9

https://www.macrium.com/product-support-policy

 

Feel MR/Parmount have shot themselves in the foot by doing this,  might have been a lot better to just charge the 'free' users a simple yearly charge of say $5 per machine that the majoriy of could easily afford rather than ten times that for how long until MR 9 or 10 is released ??

 

Have looked around at similar free programs and Pargon Free seems ok, though Free for how long ?

Did try @JohnC_21 suggestion of Veeam  but with a massive  9gb download and very lengthy install procedure it just seems way too advanced for us, sure it will suit larger users.

Also found RescueZilla very easy to use, backed up and restored easily, if a little slower than MR, but no real problem .

Edited by dino2014, 26 December 2022 - 11:39 AM.

RescueZilla is a GUI version of Clonezilla. I've used Clonezilla and it has never failed me although there is a learning curve to it.  Sometimes Aomei Backupper has free giveaways for their Pro version. You need to do a periodic google search for that offer. The free Standard version can still do full disk image backups though it is limited when cloning one disk to another. 

 

I don't see how you could get infected if using the Macrium PE bootable version.

Another Backup solution -  Hasleo Backup Suite Free

 

https://www.easyuefi.com/backup-software/backup-suite-free.html

 

Big discussion on this software at Wilders Security.

@JohnC_21  thanks for the comments and links, interesting info. 

 

Never heard of Hasleo before though they do say they have 15m users in 160 countries ..

I didn't take the time to read all of the Wilders' comments on Hasleo (per post #24-JohnC), but there was at least one tester who had his drive reformatted when attempting to use the USB auto-restore USB drive creation feature, and had to use MReflect to restore. Appears that Hasleo hasn't been in business a long time and is still working out bugs.  Others had no problem with this, and it is a nice feature if 100% dependable.

Save 41% on aomei https://stacksocial.com/sales/lifetime-of-aomei-backupper-professional

Just seen that the Free version is not being supported aafter Jan 2024 !!! (, but assuming it will still work after this date)

 

I have 3 PC's so the annual premium of over £100 is way too steep. Hopefully V9 will be free, or maybe Acronis or EasUs ?

Just seen that the Free version is not being supported aafter Jan 2024 !!! (, but assuming it will still work after this date)

 

I have 3 PC's so the annual premium of over £100 is way too steep. Hopefully V9 will be free, or maybe Acronis or EasUs ?

Yes, it will still work after Jan 2024. I wouldn't count on v9 being free. 

Time catches up.

 

balenEthcer now has a cloning option, I haven't tried it but it could be a good alternative.

 

AOMEI Backupper looks okey.

 

Clonezilla / Rescuezilla is great, but maybe not for everyone?

Edited by Flintheart, 15 January 2024 - 06:51 PM.