Search results still call Macrium Reflect free. Macrium does not. The Free edition was retired, and anyone planning an SSD clone deserves the current facts before they download anything — including the good news that a one-time clone still does not have to cost you money, done the right way.
This page exists because the internet's memory is longer than the product's life. Old articles, videos and forum posts describe Macrium Reflect Free as the obvious free cloner — and for years it was. Then Macrium retired it. Below is the honest, current picture, verified against Macrium's own support policy: what happened to the Free edition, what exists today, and the lawful routes to clone your drive without paying for software you will use once. No download tricks, no grey sources — software that touches your entire disk is the last thing to fetch from a stranger's website.
Macrium ended the Free edition as a deliberate business decision. Reflect Free v8.0 was the last free version to receive feature and bug-fix updates, and its security patches stopped on 1 January 2024. Macrium no longer offers it for download. Reflect 8, the paid line of the same generation, has itself reached end of life, with Macrium pointing everyone to its successor. None of this makes an already-installed copy explode — Reflect Free on your PC still opens and still clones today — but it is unsupported software now: if a future Windows update breaks it, no fix is coming, and one widely reported clash between a Windows update and the old free version's driver has already shown what that means in practice.
The current product is Macrium Reflect X, sold for home users on annual plans and one-time purchase options — check Macrium's site for live pricing, because prices and bundles change and this page will not invent figures. The part that matters for an SSD upgrade: Macrium offers a full-featured 30-day free trial. The trial is the complete product, and its disk cloning works entirely. For a one-time job like an HDD to SSD migration, 30 days is not a limitation at all — you need one afternoon. After a trial expires, Macrium states the software can still restore backups made earlier, but creating new clones and images is blocked until you buy a licence.
Put plainly, in order of preference:
What is not on this list: "cracked" Reflect downloads and activation hacks. Beyond the legal obviousness, a cloner runs with total access to your disk — a tampered copy is the single worst program on your PC to pirate.
For the clone alone, no — the trial did the job. The honest case for buying is the clone's bigger sibling: scheduled image backups. If this upgrade taught you how painless a full-system copy can be, a licensed Reflect X turning that into an automatic weekly image is a genuinely good purchase, because restoring an image is how a dead drive becomes a minor event instead of a catastrophe. Buy it for the backups you will actually keep, or do not buy it at all — both are respectable; the disreputable option is only ever the pirated copy.
The video walks the clone itself; this page makes sure you start it with the right edition in hand. Two minutes here saves a confusing download hunt later.
▶️ Watch Full VideoNo. Macrium retired the Free edition — v8.0 was its final version, security patches ended on 1 January 2024, and the official site no longer offers it. What Macrium offers today is Reflect X with a full 30-day free trial, which covers a one-time clone completely.
Yes — installed copies still run and the cloning function works as it always did. Just go in with clear eyes: the product is unsupported, receives no patches, and a future Windows update could break it without a fix following. For a clone you are doing today, it remains a workable route.
The trial is the full product for 30 days — cloning, imaging and restore all work. Macrium's own terms are that after expiry you can still restore backups you already made, but new backups and clones require a licence. A one-time SSD migration fits comfortably inside the window.