Disk imaging programs

[divine]

For example, Acronis True Image - how big are the images they produce?

Say I wanted to image an install that was taking up 20GB of a 100GB partition, would the image be 20GB? Or is it compressed?

[Daz]

Could be either, programs I used to use let me specify.

Short answer: no less than the compressed size of the actual data on the disk, no more than the physical capacity of it, depending on the software and the options you choose.

[Burble]

It'll be 20Gb. Compression is optional but I find that Acronis compression isn't all that effective.

[LeperousDust]

Surely the Acronis compression really depends on what youre compressing. Most stuff is stored pretty well compressed now days anyway. Like trying to compress an mp3 or a video file, in most cases they're stored in an incompressable format.

Saying all that i could have no ****ing clue what i'm talking about as well like...

[Burble]

Surely the Acronis compression really depends on what youre compressing. Most stuff is stored pretty well compressed now days anyway. Like trying to compress an mp3 or a video file, in most cases they're stored in an incompressable format.

Sort of. Acronis compresses the image itself rather than the files within it. To take into account the contents of the image (so to get better compression on text files, less compression on mp3's for example) would be far too CPU and time inefficient so it applies a generic zip like profile to the image.

[divine]

Okey dokey, cheers. It's not a massive problem either way, just wanted to know.