Backing-up takes too long.

[thyde9337]

I have pruned my hard disk and archived a lot of my video files, this has left my C:drive storing 252 GB out of a total capacity of 1..15 TB. I have now backed up the C:drive to an external hard drive (I and the backup has a total volume of 452 GB. Incidentally, it took nearly 4 hours to carry out the backup even though there was already a previous system backup on that hard drive (I. Why is the new backup so large and why did the process take so long?

I have carried out a search in the Forums but I have not found an article that answers my questions.

thyde9337

My System: Dell Studio XPS 8100, Intel Core 3.2 GHz processor. 6.0GB memory. 1.15 GB hard drive, 1.5 GB Toshiba external hard drive I, 1.0TB Toshiba external hard drive (J:.K:,L , 500 GB Iomega external hard drive (M. Dell 922 Scanner/Printer.

 

[Lemur]

You're not backing up the Windows files, are you? Also, you may want to explore incremental backups.

 

[marsmimar]

I have pruned my hard disk and archived a lot of my video files, this has left my C:drive storing 252 GB out of a total capacity of 1..15 TB. I have now backed up the C:drive to an external hard drive (I and the backup has a total volume of 452 GB. Incidentally, it took nearly 4 hours to carry out the backup even though there was already a previous system backup on that hard drive (I. Why is the new backup so large and why did the process take so long?

I have carried out a search in the Forums but I have not found an article that answers my questions.

Hello thyde9337 and welcome to the Forum.

Did you do a sector by sector backup with no file compression? That could account for the time.

 

[SledgeDG]

Setting backup compression to the highest level also increases the time factor immensely (without saving so much more space than on "normal" level).

 

[thyde9337]

Thanks Lemur & marsimar for your prompt replies. I used the Windows 7 backup routine for my system image no options were indicated apart from choosing the date and frequency of automatic backups. I have now discovered that I need to start the backup process before selecting which parts of the system to backup. This can be difficult because I have little idea of which parts of my system have changed since the last backup. I was hoping that the backup program would recognise and backup only the changed folders/files and ignore the others.

thyde9337

 

[marsmimar]

Thanks Lemur & marsimar for your prompt replies. I used the Windows 7 backup routine for my system image no options were indicated apart from choosing the date and frequency of automatic backups. I have now discovered that I need to start the backup process before selecting which parts of the system to backup. This can be difficult because I have little idea of which parts of my system have changed since the last backup. I was hoping that the backup program would recognise and backup only the changed folders/files and ignore the others.

thyde9337

Just for comparison, I've got a 500GB HD with about 280GB on it. Using the 7 imaging tool takes about 45 minutes if I let it update (overwrite) a previously made image. The initial image will always take the longest ... nothing for it to reference as to what's been changed.

A lot of forum members recommend another free imaging software called Macrium Reflect. They say it offers more user flexibility.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html

 

[Maxxwire]

thyse9337- 4 hours is quite a long time for a backup. My C drive only has about 23 GB to back up, but it only takes 3 1/2 minutes using freeware Macrium Reflect and the 'medium' compression backup is only about 8 GB in size which is 1/3 the size of the Windows System Image 24 GB backups and can be mounted as a drive in Explorer so that files may be removed or added at the user's discretion...

~Maxx~

 

[xarden]

Our School of Engineering image is the largest one I work with (Solidworks, CS5, 4 versions of Java). It takes about 3-4 hours to image to our network share using Zen10. The final image is about 30GB.
I also use Ghost to image to a USB, or for legacy images, or for the Mac guys. Image size is about 25GB for the same drive, taking about 60-90minutes.
It probably doesnt help you at the moment, but its another benchmark to go off.

Also, as SledgeDG mentions, using a higher compression will result in a smaller image filesize but at the cost of time.
When I get back to work in the morning, I'l try to post some more accurate numbers.

But now, a question of interest...
How many drives/partitions are you using? And your backups, are they just the system and program files, or are you including your user files too?

A good idea, would be to put your user folders on another drive or partition. So when it comes to your next backup, you can just do the system/program files drive then the users folders later, instead of doing the whole shabang in one long hit.

 

[Zeplash]

Macrium Reflect is the way to go,it also makes image,incremental,differential and normal file backups... Do it,,Do it now!!

 

[thyde9337]

Thanks to those users who replied to my message. I have run backup again after finding out how to control which items should be backed up. The new backup is only 13GB but I do not know how long it ran because the computer was unattended during the backup process. It seems that the problem is now resolved.

 

[Maxxwire]

The new backup is only 13GB. It seems that the problem is now resolved.

I must ask how you did that because even though I have trimmed down my Win 7 partition to 16.2 GB the Windows System Image is still 24 GB with the mandatory 9.46 GB Factory Image included.

~Maxx~

 

[pparks1]

Macrium Reflect is the way to go,it also makes image,incremental,differential and normal file backups... Do it,,Do it now!!

That's only with the paid version that you get differential and incremental as backup options. On the free version, you can just take an entire image.