Image file 3X larger than used space. Used Macrium Reflect free ver.

[KDT]

After talking to some 'friends' about which to use, I chose macrium to help me backup windows 7. For the compression and I heard it's able to backup even if windows is totally screwed up.

So I want EXACTLY what's on my drive and it came out weird.

The system reserve is 100 MB, I've used 35MB.
The actual drive has 99GB used and is a total of 465 free (Solid State Drive Samsung Evo)

And I got a 314 GB image file (thankfully I used my pretty empty external drive, thought it would've been smaller and was close to thinking a 150 GB drive would be more than sufficient space...)

So when I mount it in macrium, I'm getting 25MB used out of the 100MB reserve for system. And the other one I'm getting around 89 GB out of the total 465.

So the numbers are different as well.....


My procedure:

Clicked on the C drive which has system reserve and all my programs. Clicked on IMAGE THIS DISK.

Chose destination which is my F external drive.

In the next one "EDIT PLAN FOR BACKUP" I didn't add anything because I just wanted a one time thing and I unchecked everything, including the retention rules

The compression is on medium recommended.


Am I missing something? It's suppose to be at LEAST same size if not smaller :/

 

[whs]

My procedure:

Clicked on the C drive which has system reserve and all my programs. Clicked on IMAGE THIS DISK.

How can the C partition have the system reserved. Did you copy the bootmgr to C ??

Try to image the partitions rather than the whole disk.

 

[DavidE]

For the Macrium Compression setting did you use Intelligent sector copy or Make an exact copy... ?

 

[KDT]

Since I wanted the exact copy of my system, I chose the "Make an exact copy of partition", but I'm guessing that's not it even though it says it is. So I did it again and I got 60GB. However, I still have some size difference:

On macrium (not in the image), it says that I'm using around 35 MB out of 100. In the image mount, it says it is 24 MB.

The other one says 99 GB out of 465 GB
But on the image it says 88.5 out of 465


Is that normal?

 

[DavidE]

Are you saying when you did it again you selected Intelligent sector copy rather than Make an exact copy... that you used before?

If that's true i can understand some size differences because Intelligent sector copy doesn't include the pagefile or hibernate file.
That info is in my post #3 screen print.

I can't comment on the System Reserved size question, i don't use System Reserved for the bootloader, my bootloader is in the partition. The only thing that matters to me is Macrium can reliably backup and restore my PC OS partition, and it does. You might want to test Macrium Backup/Restore with a small unimportant partition so you can test it and verify it works for you.

 

[KDT]

Yeah, that's right. I thought make an exact copy (right in the name too) was what I should've chose because that's exactly what I want, everything exactly like that should I ever need to reinstall and have everything like it is now.

And yeah, I might dig out an old hard drive and see if I can install it on there for testing it, thanks for bringing that up as well.


Oh yeah, I gotta make one of those disks, emergency or recovery disk (what it asked me to do). Hm...gotta ask around for a dvd. Not sure if I have a usb

 

[DavidE]

I never used Intelligent sector copy Exact copy because i want smaller images, but i understand why you did.
It's just part of the learning process we all go through

You do want a recovery disc (or usb flash stick) so you can run Macrium if your HD fails and restore a backup image from a different HD.
You don't need a DVD, Macrium Recovery fits on a CD.

 

[KDT]

I never used Intelligent sector copy because i want smaller images, but i understand why you did.
It's just part of the learning process we all go through

You do want a recovery disc (or usb flash stick) so you can run Macrium if your HD fails and restore a backup image from a different HD.
You don't need a DVD, Macrium Recovery fits on a CD.

I think you meant exact copy? The intelligent sector copy is the one that creates smaller images.

That's good to know, I tried to see how large the recovery disk needs to be and it started on it's own so I freaked out and stopped it.

 

[DavidE]

You're right, i meant exact copy, i always use intelligent sector copy.
Thanks for correcting me and pointing out my mistake.

EDIT: Post #7 edited, thanks again !

 

[KDT]

You're right, i meant exact copy, i always use intelligent sector copy.
Thanks for correcting me and pointing out my mistake.

EDIT: Post #7 edited, thanks again !

Na, I simply thought you did a typo, it's all good man

I should be thanking you.

Actually, thanks a bunch guys! I'll try to check up on the image file and see how it goes. I'll back it up on a normal HDD maybe, in case my ssd craps out *knocks on wood*

 

[mjf]

The system reserve is 100 MB, I've used 35MB.
The actual drive has 99GB used and is a total of 465 free (Solid State Drive Samsung Evo)

Assuming you are using the free version default settings which should have "Intelligent Sector copy" selected in the Advanced options then if you select:
"Create an image of the partition(s) required to back and restore Windows"
from the opening selection options I would expect a system image of ~60GB. This assumes the default "Medium Compression".