Price
SSR 2013 R2 - $85US amazon.com
Acronis 2016 - $50US 3x$80US 5x100US
Macrium Reflect v6.1 $70US 4x $140US
Software Used
Ghost 12.0.5.29804
Free Acronis True Image WD Edition build 18.0.0.6126
http://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en
Free Macrium Reflect 6.1 build 6.1.871
http://www.filehorse.com/download-macrium-reflect-64/
http://www.filehorse.com/download-macrium-reflect-32/
Created a PE3.1 32bit and a PE10 64bit recovery disk for Macrium.
Created a recovery disk for Acronis True Image WD Edition.
Used to the recovery disk to create and recover the Macrium and Acronis Partition Images.
Source = 28GB of Data (Windows XP Install)
NTFS Images (Medium Compression)
Ghost = 13GB (Time to Image = 12min Time to Recover 10min)
Acronis = 12.5GB (Time to Image = 15min Time to Recover 12min)
Macrium = 13.7GB (Time to Image = 15min Time to Recover 10min)
Source = 31.6GB of Data (Windows 10 Install)
NTFS Images (Medium Compression)
Acronis = 11.0GB (Time to Image = 15min Time to Recover 12min)
Macrium = 11.8GB (Time to Image = 13min Time to Recover 10min)
Linux
Installed & Updated Linux Mint 17.2 LTS (ext4)
Installed & Updated Linux Elementary OS 0.3.1 (ext4)
Installed & Updated Linux Xubuntu 14.04 LTS (ext4)
Created an image with Free Acronis True Image WD Edition build 18.0.0.6126
10.5GB = Backup Image
Created an image with Free Macrium Reflect 6.1 build 6.1.871
7GB = Backup Image
Week later
Updated Linux Mint 17.2 LTS (ext4)
Updated Linux Elementary OS 0.3.1 (ext4)
Updated Linux Xubuntu 14.04 LTS (ext4)
Ran fsck
Ran sudo apt-get autoclean
Ran sudo apt-get autoremove
Wiped the free space with $00
Created an image with Free Acronis True Image WD Edition build 18.0.0.6126
5GB = Backup Image
Created an image with Free Macrium Reflect 6.1 build 6.1.871
6.4GB = Backup Image
This test with ext4 confirmed for me that Macrium Reflect can do a smartsector/intellegent copy of the ext4 file system. While Acronis does a sector by sector copy of the ext4 partition.
Ghost
Pros
Speed and Reliability.
Cons
History - unable to reconnect or rebuild orphaned image files
http://community.norton.com/forums/norton-ghost-120-backup-image-history-file
http://community.norton.com/en/forums/norton-ghost-120-backup-image-history-file-part-2
Error handling - usually hangs.
Users Manual.
Acronis
Pros
Windows XP - Windows10 Imaging and Recovery (Free).
ext4 support.
good compression.
Cons
No Windows command line.
Error handling - usually hangs.
Users Manual.
Slow in Recovering an Image.
Macrium
Pros
Windows 7 - Windows10 Imaging and Recovery (Free).
Mount an Image on the Recovery disk and Recover files.
Smartsector/intellegent copy of the ext4 file system.
Cons
Users Manual.
Have to build a recovery disk.
Claim it can be used to image Windows XP but there are some problem when you try to recover (nothing fatal).
NotaCanada