Personal Protection

Macrium Reflect Home Edition

Complete disk imaging, cloning, and backup for your personal computers. Ransomware protection, encryption, instant VM boot, and automated scheduling — everything the Free edition offers, plus the features that matter most.

View Pricing Start Free Trial

Home Edition Features

Everything you need to protect your personal computers from data loss, drive failure, and ransomware.

Full Disk Imaging

Create complete sector-level backups of your entire hard drive, including the operating system, boot records, installed applications, drivers, and all personal data. Full, incremental, and differential backup modes are all included.

Direct Disk Cloning

Clone your entire disk directly to a new SSD or HDD without creating an intermediate image file. Intelligent sector copy, automatic partition resizing, and 4K SSD alignment are built in.

Flexible Scheduling

Schedule backups to run automatically at any time — daily, weekly, monthly, or on custom intervals. Event-based triggers fire backups at login, logout, or USB drive connection.

Macrium Image Guardian

Kernel-level ransomware protection that prevents unauthorized processes from modifying or deleting your backup images. Even if ransomware gains administrator access, Image Guardian blocks access at the driver level.

AES-256 Encryption

Encrypt your backup images with AES-256 bit encryption. Protect sensitive data on external drives and NAS devices — even if the storage media is physically stolen, your backups remain secure.

Rapid Delta Restore (RDR)

Restore only the blocks that have changed since the backup was created, dramatically reducing restore time. A typical full system restore with RDR completes in minutes rather than hours.

viBoot Instant Boot

Boot any backup image as a Hyper-V virtual machine directly — no restore required. Instantly verify that your backups are bootable, or use the virtual machine for temporary access while a full restore completes in the background.

Rescue Media Builder

Create bootable USB or ISO rescue media powered by Windows PE. Recover your system even when Windows cannot boot. Includes network connectivity for restoring from NAS or network shares.

Home vs Free: Feature Comparison

The Free edition provides solid baseline protection. Home unlocks critical security and automation features.

Feature	Free	Home
Full disk imaging (full, incremental, differential)
Direct disk cloning with SSD alignment
Bootable rescue media (WinPE)
Backup scheduling (time-based)
Macrium Image Guardian (ransomware protection)
AES-256 encryption for backup images
Rapid Delta Restore (RDR)
viBoot instant VM boot from backup
Event-based backup triggers
Backup to cloud (S3 / Azure)
Backup chain retention policies
Email notifications
Pre/post backup scripts
Centralized management (Site Manager)
Technical support
Commercial use license

Who Is Home Edition For?

Family Computer Protection

Set up automated weekly full images and daily incrementals for every computer in your household. If anyone's laptop crashes, gets infected, or suffers a failed Windows update, restore the entire system to its exact state from the last backup — including all their files, applications, bookmarks, and settings.

SSD Upgrade Made Simple

Upgrading from a hard drive to an SSD is the single most impactful performance improvement for any PC. Macrium Reflect Home clones your entire Windows installation, applications, and data to the new SSD with automatic partition resizing and 4K alignment. No need to reinstall Windows or reconfigure anything.

Ransomware Insurance

Image Guardian prevents ransomware from encrypting your backup files, and encrypted backup images ensure your data stays private even if an attacker accesses your backup storage. If ransomware hits, boot from rescue media and restore your pre-infection backup — full recovery in under an hour.

Before Major Changes

Create a snapshot backup before installing new software, updating drivers, modifying the registry, or applying a major Windows update. If anything goes wrong, restore the pre-change image and your system is exactly as it was — no troubleshooting required.

Pricing and Licensing

Macrium Reflect Home is now sold as an annual subscription, with a 30-day free trial to evaluate it before you commit. This is different from the older Reflect 8 Home, which was a one-time, perpetual-license purchase — that model ended when Reflect X replaced Reflect 8 in October 2024.

Each license covers one computer. For exact current pricing, multi-device options, and licensing terms, check Macrium's official pricing page — figures here can go stale as pricing changes.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many computers can I use Macrium Reflect Home on?

Each Macrium Reflect Home license covers one computer. If you need to protect multiple machines, purchase additional licenses or consider the Home 4-Pack which provides four licenses at a significant discount.

Is Macrium Reflect Home a subscription or one-time purchase?

Macrium Reflect Home (as part of Reflect X) is primarily sold as an annual subscription, with a 30-day free trial to evaluate it first. This is a change from the older Reflect 8 line, which was a one-time, perpetual-license purchase. Confirm current terms on Macrium's official pricing page before buying.

Can I upgrade from Free to Home without reinstalling?

Yes. Enter your Home license key into the existing Macrium Reflect Free installation and all Home features are unlocked immediately. No reinstallation, no reconfiguration, and all existing backup definitions and schedules are preserved.

Does Home edition support NVMe SSDs?

Yes. Macrium Reflect Home fully supports NVMe M.2 drives, SATA SSDs, and PCIe storage devices for both imaging and cloning. SSD TRIM support and 4K alignment are automatic.

What is Image Guardian and why do I need it?

Image Guardian is a kernel-level driver that protects your backup images from modification or deletion by any process — including ransomware running with administrator privileges. Without Image Guardian, sophisticated ransomware can locate and encrypt your backup files, leaving you with no recovery option. Image Guardian is exclusive to paid editions.

Written by

Last updated: July 23, 2026

MacriumReflects Editorial Team

MacriumReflects is an independent site that researches and writes guides on backup, disk imaging, and disk cloning software, including Macrium Reflect and its alternatives. We are not affiliated with Macrium Software Ltd.

Upgrade to Home Edition

Start with the Free edition to experience Macrium Reflect, then upgrade to Home for ransomware protection, encryption, and automated scheduling.

View Pricing Get Reflect X

30-day free trial. Confirm current pricing on Macrium's official site.

Related Guides & Resources

Explore more expert guides on disk imaging, cloning, and backup.