+x

 

jphughan - 18 May 2021 7:59 PM

+x

 

Merlin - 18 May 2021 7:52 PM

Without writing a textbook, can someone tell me the benefit of having/using a virtual machine, since Version 8 includes it?
I know that if you are testing new software and you don't want to install it on a production system, it's safer to use a VM, basically in a sandbox.
You could already mount an image as a new drive letter to restore any files you wanted to.
So what's the benefit?
As an extension, another question. On a server, what's the benefit of running a VM and connecting to that with work systems, as opposed to just connecting to the system without the VM?
Wouldn't that use more resources/RAM, slowing things down?

The VM functionality (viBoot) was introduced in V7.  The new part for V8 is that you can optionally use VirtualBox instead of Hyper-V.  But the feature isn't about using VMs in general.  The feature Reflect adds is the ability to boot a Reflect image backup as a VM.  So let's say you have an image backup of a system that no longer exists.  Yes if you just need to grab some files out of that backup, you can just mount it.  But what if you need to run an application that was installed on that old system, perhaps to generate a data export?  Or in an enterprise scenario, let's say you've been making image backups of a physical server and it dies, and replacement parts will take a while to arrive.  You can start the backups of that server as a VM on some other server in order to keep that server running on your network even though the original hardware is down.  Yes it will likely be slower, but it will probably be far better than nothing.  And once you're able to replace the original hardware, you can make a new Reflect backup of the CURRENT state of that VM you were running during that gap, and restore that new backup onto the replacement hardware.

The question of whether you want to use VMs for whatever work you're doing is entirely separate from what Reflect offers with viBoot.

As for the server use case, sometimes you want to keep applications or server roles isolated from each other, possibly for security reasons or compatibility requirements, but you might still want to consolidate your physical hardware footprint to a single server, or perhaps a cluster of some sort.  Having multiple VMs all running on shared hardware allows you to do that.  It also means of course allow you to shut down or restart a VM that might be hosting one application without taking down every other application as would be the case if you installed everything into a single Windows environment.  But this again has nothing to do with viBoot.

+x

 

max2 - 18 May 2021 8:41 PM

Is it worth upgrading right now?

How long is the 50% discount until ?

+x

 

jphughan - 18 May 2021 9:02 PM

+x

 

max2 - 18 May 2021 8:41 PM

Is it worth upgrading right now?

How long is the 50% discount until ?

If memory serves, the 50% discount is always available for people upgrading from the previous major release.  But you can always buy the upgrade now and wait until later to start using it if you want to wait a while.

+x

 

Froggie - 18 May 2021 3:59 PM

It's on the front page of the website NOW!!!

1. Log into your Macrium account
2. In the Products tab select License Upgrade
   
3. Under the description of the Macrium Reflect Status Wizard click "Click here to begin"
4. Enter your "Licensee Email Address" and a License Key
   (Any license key of a multi-key set will do ... I think)
5. Click "Lookup my License Keys"
6. On the Reflect License Renewal display click "Continue for a xx% discount"
   (Mine says 50%.)

+x

 

jphughan - 18 May 2021 9:02 PM

+x

 

max2 - 18 May 2021 8:41 PM

Is it worth upgrading right now?

How long is the 50% discount until ?

If memory serves, the 50% discount is always available for people upgrading from the previous major release.  But you can always buy the upgrade now and wait until later to start using it if you want to wait a while.

+x

 

Patrick O'Keefe - 18 May 2021 9:23 PM

The 1 year Home Essentials support starts from the order date.  I suppose it might be slightly beneficial to wait until the previous support expires if it is still active.

+x

 

Homer712 - 18 May 2021 9:52 PM

For those of us who love to jump right in (although with Macrium Reflect this has never really been a risk) is there somewhere to download a V8 manual to step us through the upgrade process?