# How to acquire drivers for rescue media & ReDeploy

A hardware driver is software that provides the link between the operating system and the underlying hardware. It is separate from the main OS code (kernel) to enable support for arbitrary hardware that may not even exist when the Operating System was released.

There is a default set of drivers provided by Microsoft. These cover most common hardware. For hardware without default support, or for enhanced features or performance the manufacturer will provide drivers.

A driver will contain the following

*   .inf file. This contains a description of the driver and its associated files. It will include a list of hardware it support and what operating system and CPU type it supports.
*   .sys file. This is the driver software.
*   .cat file. This is a list of included files with their cryptographic hashes, or _thumbprints_

It may also contain supplementary files containing localised text etc.

These files may either be shipped as a zip archive, a self extracting archive, or a full windows installer.

There are two points in the usage of Reflect where drivers may be required.

*   Building Reflect rescue media
*   Migrating an installed OS to new hardware — Redeploy.

Normally a driver will be added to an online (running) operating system. However, for Reflect usage, because the OS requiring the drivers is offline (not running) at install time, the discrete driver set is required; running a provided installer will install the files in the online (running) OS.

When the driver files are not distributed as a zip archive, there are two possible methods to extract these files.

### 7zip

7-Zip is a free and open-source file archiver. ([https://www.7-zip.org](https://www.7-zip.org/))

Using third-party tools, it is possible to open the archive of the executable and manually extract files from inside it. One such tool is 7zip a free, open source archiving tool.

In the example below, I will be extracting the relevant files out of the Intel NVMe driver application. This will allow the Rescue Environment to communicate with the NVMe drive.

![how-to-acquire-drivers-for-rescue-media--redeploy-2.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_acquire_drivers_for_rescue_media_redeploy_2_6d0de8649b.jpg)

This application in this example contained a 32bit and 64bit folder when extracted. Depending on the architecture of the machine you will be using the Rescue Media on, you can then extract the files from the relevant Windows installer.


![how-to-acquire-drivers-for-rescue-media--redeploy-3.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_acquire_drivers_for_rescue_media_redeploy_3_3f7478de5b.jpg)

![how-to-acquire-drivers-for-rescue-media--redeploy-4.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_acquire_drivers_for_rescue_media_redeploy_4_2184945318.jpg)

Once you have extracted the installer, you can locate where the driver files are located. Depending on how the installer is constructed, it may be necessary to extract further files. In this example, the NVMe driver files are located in a cabinet file (an archive file format).

![how-to-acquire-drivers-for-rescue-media--redeploy-5.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_acquire_drivers_for_rescue_media_redeploy_5_3e94a6eb96.jpg)

By opening this cabinet file, we can find the relevant driver files. These files can then be added to the Rescue Media.

### Temp

The second way to extract the driver files from the installer is to by running the installer. When the installer is running, these files are often stored in the %Temp% folder.

You can access this folder by pressing the Windows + R keys. This will open the ‘Run’ search menu. In the search box, enter %Temp% and press enter.

![how-to-acquire-drivers-for-rescue-media--redeploy-6.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_acquire_drivers_for_rescue_media_redeploy_6_9acb3fe8ef.jpg)

By checking the folders located in %Temp%, you can often locate these driver files.

![how-to-acquire-drivers-for-rescue-media--redeploy-7.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_acquire_drivers_for_rescue_media_redeploy_7_42c52e5ac2.jpg)

Once the drivers have been extracted, you can follow the article linked below to add these to the Rescue Media:

[https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/Adding+device+drivers+to+Windows+PE](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/Adding+device+drivers+to+Windows+PE)

and Redeploy

[https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW/Re-deploying+Windows+to+new+hardware+using+Macrium+ReDeploy](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW/Re-deploying+Windows+to+new+hardware+using+Macrium+ReDeploy)

It is not guaranteed that these methods will work with every installer, as it can depend on how the installer is constructed.

You can download a 30-Day Trial of Macrium Reflect [Home](/products/home), [Workstation](/products/business/standalone/workstation), [Server](/products/business/standalone/server), [Server Plus](/products/business/standalone/server-plus), or [Site Manager](/sitebackup).

how-to-acquire-drivers-for-rescue-media--redeploy.jpg

There is a default set of drivers provided by Microsoft. These cover most common hardware. For hardware without default support, or for enhanced features or performance the manufacturer will provide drivers.

How to acquire drivers for rescue media

# Cloning and Imaging Linux File Systems

The following applies identically to image backups and clones. For brevity, though cloning is discussed, what follows applies equally to both.  

When cloning a Linux file system, there are some important factors that must be taken into account. In this blog post we will be discussing these factors in regard to cloning a disk, however, the same will apply when imaging and restoring Linux disks.

## File Systems

Linux is often associated with the Extend File System (Ext), since it was created specifically for use with the Linux kernel. The Ext 2,3,4 file systems are supported by Macrium Reflect, meaning that an Intelligent Sector Copy can be performed. Other. less common, Linux file systems (XFS, JFS, BTRFS, etc) are not natively supported by Reflect. You will still be able to perform the clone, however, a Forensic Sector Copy will be performed. This will take more time due all sectors being copied, not just the in use sectors. When performing a backup, the resultant image may not be much larger than when performing an intelligent sector copy, due to long runs of 0s being very effectively compressed.

**Note:** _Windows by default will not recognise the Ext file system, you will not be able to browse Ext file system included in an image without the use of an additional driver, the Knowledgebase article linked below contains further details:_  
[https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW80/Browsing+Linux+EXT+File+System+Images](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW80/Browsing+Linux+EXT+File+System+Images)

## Offline Disk

Macrium Reflect is a Windows application and as such only run on the Windows platform. The file systems previously discussed are mainly supported in consideration to dual boot systems, and people who want to backup their whole disk, secondary boot drives included. Since Macrium Reflect is a Windows application it cannot be installed on A Linux partition, these partitions must be cloned while in an offline state. You can clone these partitions from either your Windows OS or Rescue Media.

## Partition Schemes

When cloning a Windows disk, the only partitioning schemes that must be considered are GUID Partition Table (GPT) and Master Boot Record (MBR). When cloning a Linux disk, a third-partitioning scheme must also be considered; Logical Volume Manager (LVM). LVM is not support by Macrium Reflect, meaning that the Linux disk will either have to be GPT or MBR to be cloned.

## Disk Imaging and Cloning with Macrium Reflect

Perform disk imaging and cloning with our backup and recovery software, Macrium Reflect. 

Try it for free for [**home**](https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree#backup-and-recovery-software-for-home-pcs) or [**work**](https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree#business-backup-and-recovery-with-reflect-workstation) with our [**30-day trial**](https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree). 

[Download Your Free Trial](BUTTON_SUCCESS=/reflectfree)


cloning-and-imaging-linux-file-systems.jpg

What you need to consider ahead of cloning a Linux file system, as well as imaging and restoring Linux disks.

Cloning and Imaging Linux File Systems  |  Macrium Software

Cloning and imaging Linux file systems

# Technical support the Macrium Way

**_We wrote the original ‘Customer support the Macrium Way’ in 2012. There have been many changes in the last 7 years as we have grown but support remains a key company value and very close to our heart. Below is an updated version of the_** [**_original article_**](/blog/customer-support-the-macrium-way-98afa8d134ae)**_._**

### Customer support the Macrium Way 2019 Edition

**Macrium software has always been a developer led company, and in the early years of its life, the developers also responded to all support tickets. This created a virtuous loop with developers understanding users pain points and improvements and fixes being quickly released. Through this, and an obsession with not leaving any customer’s issues unresolved, we gained a reputation of having great support.**

**As our company grew around our expanding product range, we found that we had to rethink how we do support; developer time could not scale to supporting our rapidly increasing number of customers. The dilemma was how to grow while maintaining our unique customer experience.**

#### The Macrium support team

Our solution has been to build a support team, co-located within the development team. This maintains efficient communication ensuring that users still get the best technical support rapidly escalating to a developer when required. It also ensures that developers are still ‘in the loop’ with user issues and requests.

With the introduction of Windows 10, Microsoft now issue a bi-annual update. These updates have proved to contain significant breaking changes unlike the old Service Pack update cycle. The support team have the vital role of keeping up to date with insider previews vital to continued reliability.

#### Premium support

Having a dedicated support team enabled us to offer phone support, a frequently requested option. We charge a little extra for this.

Support for business editions is renewable, at either the standard or premium levels, and includes free access to new major versions as they become available.

#### Support during a Trial

If you are trialling our software, please don’t hesitate to raise a [support ticket](/support) or use our [customer forum](https://forum.macrium.com/). Frequently, it is when you are unfamiliar with our software that you have the most questions. The trial period runs for 30 days, but we will be happy to extend it, when required.

#### Worldwide sales support

Another change is that we now have an international distribution network, with a native team in London and Denver and partners in [German, Italy, Portugal, South Africa and Australia](/distributors) providing local support for an extensive network of [Reseller Partners](/partners/find) ready to answer any pre-sales questions you may have.

#### Other support resources

We maintain an up-to-date KnowledgeBase ([knowledgebase.macrium.com](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/)) and there is a very active support forum ([forum.macrium.com](https://forum.macrium.com/)).

Whatever you need please don’t hesitate to [contact us](/contact). Whatever channel you use for support you should receive an answer that is both personal and technically excellent. This is the least we feel our customers deserve.

[Contact Technical Support](/support)

The Macrium support team.

technical-support-the-macrium-way.jpg

We wrote the original ‘Customer support the Macrium Way’ in 2012. There have been many changes in the last 7 years as we have grown but support remains a key company value and very close to our heart. Below is an updated version.

Technical support the Macrium Way 2019

Technical support the Macrium Way

# What is in an image backup

This article will cover the details of what is included in a Macrium image backup.

A disk is divided into multiple partitions. On each partition, the allocation of space and indexing of data is managed by a file system. The Macrium imaging process takes a copy of the data underlying the filesystem. This, with a copy of the ‘metadata’ outside the filesystem, represents a faithful copy of everything stored on a disk enabling a system to be returned to a bootable state if a hard disk is corrupted or otherwise fails.

### What is always excluded

#### Page & Hibernation files

To minimise the size of the image file, the page and hibernation files are always excluded. These contain data discarded when Windows reboots, and consequently are not useful to restore a system to a bootable state.¹

#### The shadow copy storage area

Windows creates VSS snapshots at various points, as does Reflect as part of the backup process. While the snapshot is live, the copy on write process intercepts all writes to the disk, storing the data that is about to be over-written in the shadow copy storage area (also known as the diff area). The size of this diff area can be considerable. This is why pre-restore system restore points are not available in a restored system.

The diff area data is not excluded from image backups created in the Macrium rescue environment. The exclusion of the diff area is orchestrated by the VSS system optimisation writer, however the Windows snapshot subsystem is not available in Windows PE or RE. Therefore, you will find that image backups taken in the rescue environment will be larger.²

### What is optionally excluded by Intelligent sector copy mode

Reflect has two imaging modes Intelligent Sector Copy (the default) and Forensic Copy.

Filesystems allocate storage blocks as files are created and appended and deallocate blocks when a file is deleted. Intelligent sector copy mode only reads active blocks. This speeds up the backup process and reduces the size of the backup.³ For all normal purposes, this is the correct option and will enable a system to be restored from scratch.

The alternative mode, Forensic Copy, will include every storage block⁴ in the backup (excluding the data discussed above). This potentially enables the recovery of deleted files as deallocated data is also included in the backup. For SSD based storage, this option has no utility and will only have the effect of slowing down the backup process.⁵

#### Footnotes

\[1\] h[ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paging)

\[2\] Unfortunately, the inclusion of the diff area in rescue environment backup does not mean you will be able to recover your system restore points. The snapshot is invalidated on reboot as the diff area must remain in complete sync with all filesystem activity, and this cannot be maintained where there is a possibility of a foreign mount.

Read more about VSS here …  
[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/file-server/volume-shadow-copy-service](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/file-server/volume-shadow-copy-service)

\[3\] A storage block is the minimum allocation unit of a filesystem. For NTFS, it is called a cluster. It is made up of a contiguous block of sectors. A sector is the minimum addressable unit of data on a disk, and typically represents 512 or 4096 bytes.

\[4\] The size of the backup won’t be reduced by as much as you expect as compression will radically reduce the storage required for runs of zeros.

\[5\] On SSD based media, a TRIM command is executed for de-allocated sectors. In response, the SSD firmware will internally de-allocate the sectors from its page store (a page is the smallest unit of SSD storage that can be erased). Subsequent reading of de-allocated sectors on SSDs will not return the originally stored data; typically it will just return zeros.  
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim\_(computing)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_(computing))  
This presents an ongoing issue for legitimate computer forensics requiring the use of undocumented factory SSD commands to extract the de-allocated data.

This article will cover the details of what is included in a Macrium image backup.

What's an image backup?

What is in an image backup

# Virtualization with Macrium Reflect — Part 5

In this series of blogs, we have discussed how to move a physical server into a virtualized environment, using a variety of hypervisors:

Hyper-V: [Virtualization with Macrium Reflect — part](/blog/virtualization-with-macrium-reflect-5a3ceff61a7f) [1](/blog/virtualization-with-macrium-reflect-5a3ceff61a7f)

VMware: [Virtualization with Macrium Reflect — part 2](/blog/virtualization-with-macrium-reflect-part-2-3ce4df3b2e51)

Citrix Xen: [Virtualization with Macrium Reflect — part 3](/blog/virtualization-with-macrium-reflect-part-3-adbc94676361)

Proxmox: [Virtualization with Macrium Reflect — part 4](/blog/virtualization-with-macrium-reflect-part-4-318e2a1ec21f)

We have also discussed some of the advantages of doing this: centralised management, lower power consumption, scalability and in some cases, improved resilience.

In the final blog post in this series, we will be discussing Macrium Reflect’s tool, viBoot, and how it can be used to almost instantly create a Hyper-V virtual machine using a backup image. This is done by creating two Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (VHDX) files for each disk that is described in the selected Macrium Image File:

* The first disk that is created contains the relevant information to describe the disk layout and signature to mark it as a viBoot VHDX. The data for the disk is retrieved from the relevant Macrium Image File by the Macrium Virtual Disk Provider filter driver as required. Since the data is not actually stored in this VHDX file, the size will remain small.
* The second VHDX file is a differencing disk that will receive any modifications made during the lifetime of the virtual machine. This disk size can rapidly increase depending on the usage of the virtual machine.

The default location for these two VHDX files is C:\\ProgramData\\Macrium\\viBoot. However, this location can be configured in the Macrium viBoot UI.

To use viBoot, you will need to have the Hyper-V feature enabled in Windows. The article linked below contains details of how to enable this feature if you haven’t done so already:

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/quick-start/enable-hyper-v](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/quick-start/enable-hyper-v)

Note: viBoot only supports Microsoft Hyper-V running on a minimum of Windows 8.0 or Windows Server 2012.

Once Hyper-V has been enabled, you can now add viBoot to your Macrium Reflect installation, if you did not install it during your initial setup. To install viBoot on an existing Macrium Reflect installation, open the Windows Control Panel then select ‘Programs’.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-5-2.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_5_2_bc2597e9bf.jpg)

This will open a list of programs that you have installed. Select your Macrium Reflect installation and then select ‘Change’.

This will open the ‘Modify, Repair or Remove’ wizard. Select ‘Next’, you will then be presented with three options:

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-5-3.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_5_3_1db4c83803.jpg)

Select ‘Modify’, then select the checkbox next to ‘Install viBoot’. Once you have followed the wizard to completion, you will have viBoot installed.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-5-4.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_5_4_a44eff2f03.jpg)

To start using viBoot, you will first need an image that can be used to boot the virtual machine. If you have not already created your image, please see the article below:

[https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/Creating+a+backup+image+of+your+computer,+drive+or+partitions](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/Creating+a+backup+image+of+your+computer,+drive+or+partitions)

Now that you have installed viBoot, you will notice that the option is no longer greyed out in the ‘Restore’ tab when viewing the image that you have created.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-5-5.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_5_5_c07571a397.jpg)

Selecting this will open the ‘Hyper-V VM Settings. This is where you will configure the virtual hardware settings for your virtual machine you are about to create.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-5-6.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_5_6_fc3e493633.jpg)

These settings should be changed depending on the contents of the image and the purpose of the virtual machine you are about to create. If the computer that was imaged had more powerful hardware, you may want to assign more startup RAM and Processors to the virtual machine. You can also set a custom name to make distinguishing this virtual machines from others easier, by default this name will be ‘viBoot — \[NAME OF YOUR IMAGE\].mrimg’. Once you are happy with your choices, select ‘Finish’ and your virtual machine will be created.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-5-7.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_5_7_2fd9e64b19.jpg)

Once your virtual machine has been created, it will open automatically. You now have a virtual machine at the point in time that your image was created.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-5-8.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_5_8_fb2c67a869.jpg)

Your viBoot virtual machines can then be easily managed using the viBoot dashboard.

By selecting ‘New’, you can easily create more virtual machine based off your images.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-5-9.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_5_9_788c326f4d.jpg)

Once the machine is in an Off state, the ‘Backup…’ button can be selected to create an new image of the virtual machine.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-5-10.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_5_10_d2f199ffaf.jpg)

Delete allows you to delete the virtual machines that you no longer need. This also gives you the option to create a backup before the virtual machine is deleted.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-5-11.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_5_11_7c4b74ec04.jpg)

## Why use viBoot?

There is a massive number of practical applications for rapidly booting a virtual machine from a backup image. However, we will mainly talk about three scenarios where we often see viBoot used.

Recovery — An example we often see is users booting an image in viBoot, temporarily replacing their broken physical machine with a virtual machine, that takes over from the point in time where the image was created. With minimal configuration, your virtual machine can replace your physical machine while it is repaired. This can help mitigate potential hardware failure in scenarios where downtime can have disastrous consequences.

Making Changes to an Image — With viBoot, it is possible to boot an image make changes to the files contained within the image, and then create a new image using the ‘Backup…’ option. This new image will include any changes that you have made. By doing this, you can make any necessary changes to your image, before restoring it back to hardware.

Fast Physical to Virtual — Throughout this series, we have discussed the steps necessary to create a virtual machine, boot it with the Rescue Media, and then restore an image of your physical servers to that virtual machines. Using viBoot the virtual machine is created in the exact state the source machine was in when the backup was run, removing the need to boot the virtual machine into the Rescue Environment to then perform a restore. This can save large amounts of time if you intend to migrate several physical servers into a virtual environment. You can even manage these virtual machines in ‘Hyper-V Manager’ once they have been created.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-5-12.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_5_12_233cbf7f06.jpg)

More information on viBoot can be found in the KnowledgeBase article below:

[Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/Macrium+viBoot)

You can download a 30-Day Trial of Macrium Reflect [Home](/products/home), [Workstation](/products/business/standalone/workstation), [Server](/products/business/standalone/server), [Server Plus](/products/business/standalone/server-plus), or [Site Manager](/sitebackup).


virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-5-1.jpg

How to move a physical server into a virtualized environment, using a variety of hypervisors

Virtualization with Macrium Reflect — Part 5

Virtualization with Macrium Reflect — Part 5 in this series of blogs, we have discussed how to move a physical server into a virtualized environment, using a variety of hypervisors:


# Site Manager Update

With a new release of Site Manager comes a variety of new features. Today we will be discussing some of these in more detail, so that you can get the most out of this new update.

#### Scheduled Activity

The new ‘Scheduled Activity’ tab in Site Manager allows for all activity (backups and remote syncs) to be scheduled in one convenient location, with a new UI that makes it easy to see the information that matters most.

In this tab, you will be able to view all the repositories that you have configured. Below the repository, you will see all backups that are scheduled to use that repository as a destination, these scheduled backups can appear as four colours:

**Green** — This indicates that is are no fails or warnings for this scheduled backup.  
**Yellow** — This indicates that there is at least one warning for the scheduled backup, but no failures.  
**Red** — This indicates that there is at least one failed backup for the scheduled backup.  
**Grey** — This indicates that the scheduled backup has been disabled. This is done with the toggle switch next to ‘Run Now’.



Below the scheduled backups, you have the ‘Schedule Backup’ option. This allows you to schedule a backup for the repository you selected this under. In the wizard that opens, you can select the ‘Definition’ and ‘Schedule’ that you want to use for this backup schedule.

![](/no-image-to-display.jpg)

For more information on scheduling a backup using Site Manager, please see the following blog post:

[How to schedule a backup using Site Manager](/blog/how-to-schedule-a-backup-using-site-manager-f3148a608bb5)

Under the ‘Schedule Backup’ option, is the remote sync. If you have configured a sync for the repository, then you will see detailed statistics for the sync.

![](/no-image-to-display.jpg)

If you have not configured a sync, then it will show ‘No Remote Sync’, selecting this will present the ‘Configure Synchronization’ button, selecting this will open the ‘Schedule Activity’ wizard, allowing you to easily configure a sync. Once a remote sync has been configured, it will be displayed as one of three colours:

**Green** — the last performed sync was successful  
**Red** — the last performed sync failed (includes cancelled).  
**Grey** — the sync is not set up.

#### Repository Page

With the scheduling of backups being moved to the ‘Scheduled Activity’ page, the Repository page has been redesigned to focus on repository status and browsing.

![](/no-image-to-display.jpg)

#### File and Folder Backups

A feature that has often been requested is the ability to perform File and Folder backups from the Site Manager.

![](/no-image-to-display.jpg)

To schedule a File and Folder backup using Site Manager, navigate to the ‘Definitions’ tab and select ‘New Definition’. Once you have selected ‘Files and Folders’ you can then create a name and description.

On the ‘Computers’ page of the wizard, select the computers that you want to be included in the scheduled backup.

![](/no-image-to-display.jpg)

On the next page of the wizard, select ‘Add Folder’ and add the UNC path. You then have extra options that allows you to define ‘Files to include’, ‘Files to exclude’ and ‘Folders to exclude’.

![](/no-image-to-display.jpg)

Once you are finished, the rules that you have defined will be shown in the wizard.

![](/no-image-to-display.jpg)

On the final page of the wizard, you can select additional options for the backup:

**Compression** — This applies a level of compression to your backup.  
**Encryption** — This allows you to specify which level of AES encryption and password you want to apply to your backup file (if any).  
**Verification** — When verification is enabled the entire backup will be checked to ensure the integrity of the data inside.  
**Comment** — This allows you to add an additional comment to any backup file that is created by this definition.

More information about these options can be found in the knowledgebase article linked below:

[Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/MSM/Setup+-+Backup+Definitions#Setup-BackupDefinitions-Step3-Options)

Once the backup definition has been created, navigate to the ‘Scheduled Activity’ tab, then select ‘Schedule Backup’ under the repository you want to use as a destination. You can then select this definition and a schedule for how often the backup should be performed.

![](/no-image-to-display.jpg)

You have now scheduled a file and folder backup. Once you have created a file and folder backup it can be opened and verified in the same way as a disk image and will appear in the same interface when browsing a repository.

![](/no-image-to-display.jpg)

Note: File and Folder backups cannot be restored using Site Manager and can only be restored using the Agent.

#### Multiple File and Folder downloads

When browsing image files, it is now possible to download multiple files and folders as a single ZIP file. This can be done by selecting the ‘Repositories’ page in Site Manager and then selecting the repository that contains the backup you want to browse. Once you have selected the repository, select ‘Browse’ and then select the relevant image file.

![](/no-image-to-display.jpg)

Once you have selected ‘Open Image’, you will be presented with the ‘Image Browser’. This will allow you to select a partition that is included in the image. You can then select multiple files to download and select ‘Download’.

![](/no-image-to-display.jpg)

This will download all the select files as a ZIP file.

#### Backups During Remote Synchronisation

When configuring or editing a sync, you now have the option to ‘Allow Backup During Remote Synchronisation’.

![](/no-image-to-display.jpg)

The process for performing a backup during the remote sync is shown below:

1) The remote sync can only start when no backups are running — this is so that there is a consistent, point in time view of which backups exist.  
2) The sync process will find changes and data to upload and sort them by computer.  
3) Changes are uploaded for the computer with the smallest amount of data to upload.  
4) The computer from step 3 is ‘unlocked’ and backups for this computer may now start, this will only occur once all the data has been transferred for this computer.  
5) Steps 3 and 4 are repeated until all data is uploaded.  
6) The change is committed in the remote location. Before this step, if the sync fails, the changes can be rolled back to the previous repository state.

#### Quiet Install

The ability to perform a ‘Quiet Install’ has now been added when manually installing Macrium Agent. This is useful when you are unable to perform a remote install of Macrium Remote Agent, but still want it installed without the desktop and start menu shortcuts. More information about performing a manual install can be found at the knowledgebase article below:

[https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/MSM/Agent+Manual+Install](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/MSM/Agent+Manual+Install)

![](/no-image-to-display.jpg)

For more detailed information about these changes, and information about fixes and changes to existing features, please view the Macrium Site Manager Knowledgebase shown below:  
[https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/MSM/](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/MSM/)

Contact us [for more information](/contact), for a demonstration,  
or [download a trial of Site Manager.](/sitebackup

20200825-macrium-site-manager-v7-2-5161-whats-new-f2925d09d686.jpeg

With a new release of Site Manager comes a variety of new features. Today we will be discussing some of these in more detail, so that you can get the most out of this new update.


Site Manager Update - March 2019

# How to schedule a backup using Site Manager

## What is Site Manager?

Macrium Site Manager is a powerful tool that lets you monitor and schedule backups for computers across your network. Once a computer has been added to Site Manager and the Agent has been installed, you can start creating your backup definitions and schedules.

## How to schedule a backup?

When scheduling a backup using Site Manager there are several steps that you must consider. These steps break down the backup process into several sections:

### Definitions

The backup definition outlines what will be included in the backup. By selecting one of the pre-made rules you can flexibly decide what will be included in the image.

In the ‘Definitions’ tab of Site Manager, select ‘New Definition’. Here you can select the relevant computers that will be included in this definition. There is no limit to the number of definitions that you can create. This means that you can create backup definitions to include any combination of computers. For example, I can create one backup definition to include all my servers and another backup definition to include my workstations.

![how-to-schedule-a-backup-using-site-manager-2.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_schedule_a_backup_using_site_manager_2_4fef6e250e.jpg)

You can then select the rule that dictates what will be included in the backup. These rules cover a wide array of combinations of partitions and disks, from ‘All Disks’ to ‘Partitions with specified drive letters’.

![how-to-schedule-a-backup-using-site-manager-3.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_schedule_a_backup_using_site_manager_3_e2d174248a.jpg)

You can then select additional options that will be applied to this definition.

![how-to-schedule-a-backup-using-site-manager-4.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_schedule_a_backup_using_site_manager_4_52c48fdaab.jpg)

Compression — This applies a level of compression to your backups. The higher the compression, the smaller the resultant backup file will be, however, it will also increase the amount of time the backup takes. Medium is recommended, as it strikes a balance between space and speed.

Encryption — This allows you to specify which level of AES encryption and password you want to apply to your backup file (if any). This will prevent anyone from browsing or restoring the image file until the password is supplied.

Verification — When verification is enabled the entire backup will be checked to ensure the integrity of the data inside. When the backup is created, an MD5 hash digest is created and stored in the index of the image file. When verification takes place, a new MD5 hash is calculated and then compared to the MD5 hash that is stored in the index. This ensures that the data contained within the image is the same as when it was written. Any differences between these hash values indicates that the image is corrupt, and the verification will fail.

Comment — This allows you to add an additional comment to any backup file that is created by this definition. This can make identifying your image files easier in the future.

![how-to-schedule-a-backup-using-site-manager-5.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_schedule_a_backup_using_site_manager_5_ca4219a8da.jpg)

Your new definition will then be added to the list of available backup definitions.

### Schedules

The schedule is where you decide how often these backups will be performed. You can either select a pre-made schedule or your own, to create a schedule that meets your backup needs.

In the ‘Schedules’ tab of Site Manager, select ‘New Schedule’. The first page of the wizard allows you to ‘Add Triggers’ for when the schedules will take place. You can specify several options to customize how regularly backups will trigger.

Each trigger specifies whether it will perform a Full, Differential or Incremental backup when it happens. Different triggers with different levels of backup can be mixed to produce a complex backup schedule. If two triggers occur at the same time, the one with the highest level of backup is performed. For example, if a schedule is configured to perform a full backup every Saturday at 11pm and incremental backups every day at 11pm, the schedule will perform an incremental every night except on Saturday when a full will happen instead.

![how-to-schedule-a-backup-using-site-manager-6.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_schedule_a_backup_using_site_manager_6_d2569888cd.jpg)

![how-to-schedule-a-backup-using-site-manager-7.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_schedule_a_backup_using_site_manager_7_e7d3be677d.jpg)

The next page of the wizard is where you will define your retention rules. This enforces how many (or how long) backups will be stored in the repository at one time. By configuring these, you can ensure that there is always enough space in the repository for your newest backups.

![how-to-schedule-a-backup-using-site-manager-8.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_schedule_a_backup_using_site_manager_8_df37dd8144.jpg)

Create Synthetic Full Backup if possible — If this option is checked, Instead of deleting Incremental backup files once they have reached the limit of retention, they are merged into the Full backup they are based on, creating a new Full backup containing all the data up to the merge point.

Run the purge before backup — This option applies retention rules and deletes any files according to retention rules before the backup starts.

On the next page of the wizard you can then select additional options that will be applied to this backup schedule:

![how-to-schedule-a-backup-using-site-manager-9.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_schedule_a_backup_using_site_manager_9_70a41accf3.jpg)

Defer backups until computer is online — If this option is selected, scheduled backups which cannot be performed because a computer is offline will be performed when the computer comes back online. If the option is unchecked, scheduled backups will fail if the computer is offline.

Send Wake On LAN message before a backup — If this option is selected, Site Manager will attempt to use Wake On LAN to wake offline computers before starting a backup. If Wake On LAN attempts fail, it will behave as the “Fail backups for offline computers” option.

Fail backups for offline computers — If this option is selected, backups will be failed if the computer is offline and the computer will not perform a backup until the next trigger time or next retry time as set below.

Retry backups which fail — If a backup attempt fails, it can be retried up to the number of times specified here.

Allow X minutes between attempts of failed backups — The time between each attempt which Site Manager will wait. May be set to between 2 and 120 minutes. Backups of other computers may occur between the retries.

### Repository

The repository page of Site Manager is where you define a storage area that will be used for your backups. You can then pair your definition and schedule created previously, to begin taking backups of your agent computers.

![how-to-schedule-a-backup-using-site-manager-10.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_schedule_a_backup_using_site_manager_10_ff2324b824.jpg)

There are several types of repository that you can configure.

![how-to-schedule-a-backup-using-site-manager-11.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_schedule_a_backup_using_site_manager_11_ec2dceffb2.jpg)

The article linked below contains details on configuring the above repositories:

[https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/MSM/Setup+-+Repositories](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/MSM/Setup+-+Repositories)

Once the repository has been configured select ‘Schedule Backup’.

![how-to-schedule-a-backup-using-site-manager-12.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/how_to_schedule_a_backup_using_site_manager_12_bccdb0ae43.jpg)

You can then select the definition and schedule that you configured earlier. The backups that will then take place to this repository will appear in the ‘Forecast’, from here you can monitor all the scheduled backups that will take place to this repository.

The forecast will also show scheduled synchronization to remote servers, pending backups, retries due to backup failures and other backup activity.

[Contact us](/contact) for more information, for a demonstration,  
or [download a trial of Site Manager.](/sitebackup)

how-to-schedule-a-backup-using-site-manager.jpg

Once a computer has been added to Site Manager and the Agent has been installed, you can start creating your backup definitions and schedules.

Schedule a backup using Site Manager

Macrium Site Manager is a powerful tool that lets you monitor and schedule backups for computers across your network. Once a computer has been added to Site Manager and the Agent has been installed, you can start creating your backup definitions and schedules.

How to schedule a backup using Site Manager

# Virtualization with Macrium Reflect — Part 4


In the previous blog post in this series ([Virtualization with Macrium Reflect — Part 3](/blog/virtualization-with-macrium-reflect-part-3-adbc94676361)), we outlined the necessary steps to take when migrating servers into a Citrix Xen environment and how this can be easily achieved with Macrium Reflect. This article will detail the steps to take when migrating a physical server into a Proxmox Virtual Environment.

The steps below will detail how to convert a physical server to a virtual server using Proxmox Virtual Environment 6.0–4 and Macrium Reflect.

Proxmox Hypervisor is an open-source virtualisation environment that allows the creation of virtual machines and containers. Proxmox includes a web interface, making the management and deployment of virtual machines extremely easy from anywhere on your network. Promox uses Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) virtualization, essentially turning the Linux installation into a hypervisor, acting closer to a Type 1 Hypervisor (bare-metal) than a Type 2 Hypervisor. This comes with several advantages:

Security — Type 1 Hypervisors are more secure. The security concerns that are endemic to

Operating systems are missing from Type 1 Hypervisors, reducing the attack vector that can be used to compromise a system and the virtual machines it contains.

Efficiency — Type 1 Hypervisors are also more efficient. When using a machine for strictly virtualization, a host OS becomes unnecessary, consuming system resources that could otherwise be available to the virtual machines. A Type 2 Hypervisor (e.g. Virtual Box) must be installed on top of an operating system, by removing the need for the operating system, you free up more resources for the virtual machines you want to create.

However, at the time of writing Proxmox hypervisor does not fully support UEFI booting. To run ‘Fix Windows Boot Problems’, the Rescue Media must be run in the correct mode for your disk. If the disk is GPT the Rescue Media must be UEFI booted, if the disk is MBR the Rescue Media must be Legacy MBR booted. This means that it is not possible to boot the Rescue Media in the correct mode to run Fix Windows Boot Problems on a GPT disk. Therefore, it is advised that the steps outlined in this article are only used when migrating a server, that has an MBR boot disk, to a virtualised server.

Alternatively, you can restore your UEFI/GPT system image to a legacy MBR disk. This will allow you to legacy boot the restored image. More information on this can be found at the article below, these steps should be followed when restoring the image from inside the Rescue Media ISO:

[https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=7734460](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=7734460)

If you have not already configured Proxmox, a detailed Admin Guide is available on their website that details how to configure Proxmox up to the point where a Virtual Machine can be created for us to restore our image to:

[https://www.proxmox.com/en/downloads](https://www.proxmox.com/en/downloads)

To convert our physical servers to virtual servers, you will only need two things. The first thing you need is the Macrium Reflect Rescue Environment ISO (a bootable environment we can use to restore images. The article linked below contains detailed steps on how to create your Rescue Media ISO:

[The Macrium Rescue Environment](/blog/the-macrium-rescue-environment-cca57a4ebc61)

The second thing we need is an image of the physical server we are converting to a virtual server. It is advised that this image is stored in a network share accessible to the Proxmox host, as this will make accessing the image from inside the Rescue Media easier.

The first step to take is adding our Rescue Media ISO to the local storage on the Proxmox host. To do this, select ‘Local (node name)’ under the relevant node you want the ISO to be stored on. In our example the node is called ‘pve’.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-2.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_2_454c7f4795.jpg)

Next, select ‘ISO Image’ next to storage and then ‘Select File…’. You can then navigate to where your Rescue Media is located and select ‘Upload’. This will add your Rescue Media ISO to the local storage of the Proxmox host.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-3.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_3_4f799bd686.jpg)

Once the ISO has been added to the local storage, you are ready to create your virtual machine. To do this, select ‘Create VM’, this will open the ‘Create: Virtual Machine’ wizard, allowing you to configure the settings for your virtualized server.

Below is a brief overview of the different options available in the wizard:

General — This page of the wizard allows you to configure the general settings for your virtual machine. These include the virtual machine’s display name, the ID and the node that which host the virtual machine (in the case of multiple nodes being configured).

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-4.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_4_791aa3007d.jpg)

OS — The next page of the wizard allows you to choose an ISO file that the virtual machine will use to boot initially. Select ‘Local’ from the ‘Storage’ dropdown menu and select your Rescue Media ISO. This will boot the virtual machine into the Rescue Environment when it is turned on, allowing us to restore our image. You can also define the ‘Guest OS’, since our image is of a Windows Server 2016 OS, we will pick these options. Select the options most relevant to the Server that you imaged.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-5.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_5_159db7be2a.jpg)

System — In this page you can select the virtual graphics card and SCSI controller that your virtual machine will use. We will be leaving these as default.

Hard Disk — On the ‘Hard Disk’ page of the wizard, you can select settings for the disk that your virtual machine will be booting from. Select the settings that are most relevant for the server that you imaged. Since our server used SATA drives, we will select SATA as the Bus/Device and a disk size of 50 GiB.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-6.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_6_0d10fa1862.jpg)

CPU — You can now select the settings for your virtual CPU. Your choices here will depend on the hardware that is available to the node you select, and the role your server will be performing.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-7.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_7_7aa74fe01e.jpg)

Memory (MiB) — You can now specify how much virtual memory will available to your server. Your choice here will again depend on the role the server will perform and the memory available to the node. You will not be able to virtualize hardware with more memory than the system has available.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-8.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_8_6a77fffdf2.jpg)

Network — Next, select the network settings for your virtual server, including the virtualised network adapter. Since our image is stored on a network share, we will add a network adapter.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-9.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_9_640bd362f3.jpg)

Confirm — The final page of the wizard will give you a detailed overview of the virtual machine that you are about to create. Once all the settings have been double-checked, select ‘Finish’ to create the virtual machine.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-10.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_10_6bca6ffca8.jpg)

Now that your virtual machine has been created, you can select it from the list of available virtual machines under the node you selected.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-11.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_11_9616375f8a.jpg)

Select ‘Start and the virtual machine will automatically boot into the rescue environment. Select ‘Console’ to open the display and begin interacting with the virtual machine.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-12.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_12_8a0ad38fdb.jpg)

You can now begin the process of restoring the image of your physical server to your virtual server. This can be done by navigating to the ‘Restore’ tab and selecting ‘Browse for an image file…’. You will then be able to ‘Map Network Drive’ of where the image is stored.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-13.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_13_fe310bfd16.jpg)

Once the credentials have been entered, select ‘Ok’, open the drive and select your image. Your image will then be shown in the ‘Restore’ tab, with details about the image and the partitions it includes. You can now restore this image to your virtual hard disk.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-14.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_14_990f240ad5.jpg)

Once you have selected the ‘Restore Image’ option, you are presented with the restore wizard. You can then select ‘Copy selected partitions’ or manually drag the partitions from the source to the destination. Once the partitions are on the destination disk, you can select ‘Restored Partitions Properties’ to change the size and drive letter assignment for the partition.

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-15.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_15_a06cc6baae.jpg)

Once you have finished editing your partitions, select ‘Next’. You will then be presented with a detailed ‘Restore Summary’ which shows the operations that will be undertaken when restoring your image. Once you have reviewed the summary, select ‘Finish’ to start your restore!

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-16.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_16_2a4718c818.jpg)

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-17.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_17_f40cf08f7d.jpg)

Once the restore has completed, you now need to run Macrium ReDeploy. ReDeploy detects changes to critical system features, locates relevant drivers and injects them into your Windows operating system, allowing it to boot. For more information about Macrium ReDeploy, please see the article linked below:

[https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/Re-deploying+Windows+to+new+hardware+using+Macrium+ReDeploy](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/Re-deploying+Windows+to+new+hardware+using+Macrium+ReDeploy)

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-18.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_18_366049034c.jpg)

Once ReDeploy has been run, you can eject the Rescue Media ISO and boot into your restored Server Operating System.

If you experience any issues booting into your Restored Server Operating System, boot back into the Rescue Media, and run ‘Fix Windows boot problems’, which will fix common issues that can prevent a restored image from booting. For more information about ‘Fix Windows boot problems’ and how to use it, please see the article linked below:

[https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/Fixing+Windows+boot+problems](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/Fixing+Windows+boot+problems)

![virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4-19.jpg](https://strapistoragemacrium.blob.core.windows.net/strapi-uploads/uploads/virtualization_with_macrium_reflectpart_4_19_161ca0dc47.jpg)

You now have a virtualized server!

You can download a 30-Day Trial of Macrium Reflect [Home](/products/home), [Workstation](/products/business/standalone/workstation), [Server](/products/business/standalone/server), [Server Plus](/products/business/standalone/server-plus), or [Site Manager](/site-manager).


virtualization-with-macrium-reflectpart-4.jpg

Virtualization with Macrium Reflect — Part 4In the previous blog post in this

Virtualization with Macrium Reflect — Part 4

# Advanced Backup Techniques

Macrium Reflect offers you flexibility tools to create backups that meet your needs. Today we will be discussing some of the more advanced options available.

#### Incremental Imaging

Incremental images work by only backing up the changes that have occurred since the previous backup. This keeps the backup files created small, and the time required to create them low. Together, compared with only creating full images, this enables you to create many more backup points using the same resources.

The entire incremental backup set must be present for a restore to take place, if the chain is broken you will be unable to restore an incremental backup after this break.

There are two common misconceptions regarding incremental imaging.

1.  They will take more time to restore, as the full image is restored, followed by the incremental images.  
    In actuality, the restore is completed in a single pass being no slower than restoring a single full image.
2.  An incremental backup set is more susceptible to corruption.  
    The image data used for a restore is stored once on the disk (either in one full image file or also dispersed across several incremental image files) so is as equally likely to encounter a non-correctable surface error and therefore equally robust. You could argue that an incremental backup set is more vulnerable to an accidental deletion of a file in the set.

#### Differential Images

Differential images are special case incremental images. Instead of referencing the previous incremental, these always reference the full image. As changes accumulate over time since the full image, the size and time required since differential images will consequently increase. The advantage, however, is that the backup chain will only consist of the full and a single differential image. This can make management of off-site or archive storage easier as older differential backup files can be deleted without invalidating the backup chain. For this reason, it is used as the second level of the GFS scheme ([https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW80/Retention+and+consolidation](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW80/Retention+and+consolidation)).

### Advanced Backup Options:

#### Macrium Change Block Tracker (CBT)

Incremental and differential backups are fast because Reflect uses the filesytem index to identify changes since the last backup to be appended to. Though Reflect can rapidly identify which files have changed, the changes within a file can only be located with a bytewise comparison; for large files this can be slow.

Macrium CBT vastly accelerates the change identification phase of incremental (and differential) backups. It is implemented as a kernel mode driver, logging each block that is modified by the filesystem. This provides huge improvements in backup performance.

More information about CBT can be found here:

[Macrium Reflect Changed Block Tracker](/blog/techie-tuesday-macrium-changed-block-tracker-1ec3f27e7694)

#### Delta indexes

Each Macrium backup file has two parts; an index and the data. Standard backup files all contain a full index containing the location of any data block independent of the file in which it is located. This improves the performance of mounted backups. However, it makes the backup files larger and somewhat slower to create.

In the case where backups are frequent, or it is important to minimise the size of incremental / differential backups, you can enable delta indexes. A delta index only references data in the that file. The reduction in size and backup creation time comes at a cost of slightly slower mounted images.

[https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW80/Delta+Indexes+for+Incremental+Backups](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW80/Delta+Indexes+for+Incremental+Backups)

#### Retention and Consolidation

Once you have decided on the type of backups you want to perform, you can then define your retention rules to further manage your storage space. Retention rules allow you to specify how many or how long backups are retained for. By doing this you can ensure that you’re your destination always has sufficient storage for the most recent backup images. The logic applied for retention depends on the type of backup and how the retention rules are configured. For a detailed breakdown of how retention rules are applied to your backups, please see this KnowledgeBase article:

[https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW80/Retention+and+consolidation](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW80/Retention+and+consolidation)

Simple retention involves rules based deletion of backup files. Consolidation enables more sophisticated retention rules.

In particular consolidation overcomes a significant limitation of incremental backup chains; with a continuous incremental backup chain you cannot retain the latest n backups by deleting the older incremental backups as that would invalidate the chain. Consolidation achieves retention of the latest n backups by copying the data from the older / to be discarded backups into the full or first incremental backup. This scheme is known as ‘Incrementals forever’.

Note that care has to be taken when maintaining a remote copy of a backup set when using consolidation. Unlike a standard backup set, consolidation will update previously created files in the set.

Read about ‘Incrementals forever’ and other consolidation modes here.

[Retention and consolidation - KnowledgeBase - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW80/Retention+and+consolidation)

You can download a 30-Day Trial of Macrium Reflect [Home](/products/home), [Workstation](/products/business/standalone/workstation), [Server](/products/business/standalone/server), [Server Plus](/products/business/standalone/server-plus), or [Site Manager](/sitebackup).

advanced-backup-techniques.jpg

Macrium Reflect offers you flexibility tools to create backups that meet your needs. Today we will be discussing some of the more advanced options available.

Advanced Backup with Macrium Reflect

Advanced Backup Techniques

# MBR and GPT
#### What are partitions?

To enable multiple volumes to exist on one storage device, it is divided into partitions. The partitioning scheme chosen also defines the boot mechanism. Partitions typically contain filesystems.

There are many schemes to partition a disk, however MBR and GPT are the two found on hardware platforms running Windows.

#### Master Boot Record

The older of the two partitioning schemes is Master Boot Record (MBR). MBR refers directly to a special boot sector located at the very beginning of a mass storage device. This sector contains the partition table and executable code used to bootstrap the loading of the Operating System. Each table entry contains the location of the partition and the partition (filesystem) type. There is also a flag to indicate which partition contains the files required to continue the boot process.

The MBR scheme can only address 2TB of storage and supports a maximum of 4 bootable partitions.

The associated booting scheme is known as BIOS (also known as legacy by EFI firmware). It is intimately associated with the real mode x86 instruction set. If you install 64Bit Windows on a BIOS booting system, the first stage of the boot process will require the CPU to operate in an 8086 compatible mode ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real\_mode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_mode)). This and the sector at a time disk i/o results in a very slow first stage boot process. BIOS is only compatible with x86 compatible CPUs.

#### GUID Partition Table

When the ill fated Itanium was introduced, Intel needed a new boot scheme (due to the limitations of BIOS mentioned above). This led to GUID Partition Table (GPT) was introduced as part of the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) standard, for use with UEFI-based systems.

Features include support for 9.4 ZB disks, 128 partitions, checksum protection with a backup table maintained at the back of the disk in case of a checksum failure of the primary table. The G in GPT references the two GUIDs used to uniquely identify each partition and its type. A type is reserved for a FAT32 formatted (EFI system partition). This partition will be mounted as part of the EFI boot process; it will contain EFI boot code and configuration data specific for the installed OS and CPU ISA.

The GPT starts on sector 1. Sector 0, by convention, contains a (protective) MBR configured with a single partition spanning the entire disk. This prevents applications that may not be ‘GPT aware’ (created before the EFI standard) from accidentally overwriting the GPT partitions.

UEFI enables Microsoft to include signed boot loader checks. This is known as Secure Boot and provides protection from an entire class of malware.

#### GPT disks

Windows XP (64 bit only), Windows Vista (32 & 64 bit) and Windows 2k3 SP1 and later support GPT (non-boot disks only).

Limited UEFI boot support was included with Win7. Windows 8 and later fully support UEFI boot.

#### MBR vs GPT

This leads to the questions of which partitioning scheme has more advantages and which you should be using for your disks.

Firstly, if your motherboard or operating system does not support GPT/UEFI, then your only choice is MBR.

If your mobo and OS support GPT/UEFI even if your boot disk is smaller than 2TB, this is the recommended option due to speed, security and flexibility.  
Unless your are installing your own operating system, your system builder will have made the choice for you. Note that once Windows has booted, there is no (user visible) the advantages of a GPT configured system cease.

#### MBR, GPT and Macrium Reflect

Macrium Reflect supports both MBR and GPT. It does not support LVM systems (except for Microsoft Dynamic disks).

If you want to do an in place conversion from MBR to GPT, you can use the following Windows 10 tool. Ensure your motherboard supports it first. MBR2GPT can be found on Windows PE version 1703 or later.

[MBR2GPT](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/mbr-to-gpt)

Read the following, if you wish to restore an MBR backup to a GPT configured disk.

[Restoring an MBR System image to UEFI/GPT - KnowledgeBase v7.2 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=23396929)

In some situations, it may be necessary to restore from a GPT disk to an MBR disk for use with a BIOS-only system. For more information on doing this, please see the article linked below:

[Restoring a UEFI/GPT System image to MBR - KnowledgeBase v7.2 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=23396933)

#### Other useful links:

Windows and GPT FAQ

[Windows and GPT FAQ](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/windows-and-gpt-faq)

Macrium KB on Windows Partitions found on MBR and GPT systems.

[https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Windows+Partitions](https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Windows+Partitions)

To enable multiple volumes to exist on one storage device, it is divided into partitions. The partitioning scheme chosen also defines the boot mechanism. Partitions typically contain filesystems.

Master Boot Record and GUID Partition Table

What are partitions?To enable multiple volumes to exist on one storage device,

MBR and GPT

Your #1 resource for data backup, recovery, imaging and deployment insights and tips to help you develop your organisation's disaster recovery plan. | 2019

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