How long to create a true image?

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by jgl51, Mar 13, 2007.

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  1. jgl51

    jgl51 Registered Member

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    I want to create an image of my notebook hard-drive (27 GB) on to an external drive (firewire connection to PC) of 75 GB.

    When I started the process Acronis (version 7.0) showed a duration of 22 hours. 14 hours later it showed.... 10% completed and a remaining duration of 1 day and 7 hours!

    Is this normal?

    Any way to "accelerate" the process?

    Thank you
     
  2. Tabvla

    Tabvla Registered Member

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    A couple of questions....

    1. Are you creating the backup from within Windows or from the Linux CD?
    2. You say "....on to an external drive (firewire connection to PC)...." Do you mean that the "external drive" is actually an "internal drive" on a PC?
    T.
     
  3. jgl51

    jgl51 Registered Member

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    Sounds complicated!

    1) Am only using Acronis TI to create a secure zone on the external disk and then create an image of the internal notebook drive.
    2) External means external! A box outside the noebook connected to it bywwire.
    The 20 GB disk is THe internal hard drive of the PC.
     
  4. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    The time depends on how much of the notebooks HD is actually used. If it has 20GB used then a very rough estimate of the time would be 0.7 X 20 X (1/0.5)=28minutes. The numbers represent: 70% compression, 20 GB, 0.5GB/min transfer rate. This assumes a speed comparable to USB2 which FW is (although a little faster).

    Are you doing this within Windows or with the TI bootable CD? Windows should get you a number something like I estimated; the bootable CD is anybody's guess depending on driver suitability.

    Does the drive support USB2 (and your notebook too)? If so, try it instead of the FW interface.
     
  5. Tabvla

    Tabvla Registered Member

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    Creating a Secure Zone on an external disk is not a good idea. If you refer to the User Guide (and posts in this Forum) you will see that Acronis strongly recommend that you create a Secure Zone ONLY on an internal disk.

    The whole purpose of the Secure Zone is to help users who only have a single disk to create a secure area where they can store backups that will not be affected by issues in the other partitions.

    In your case you don't need a Secure Zone because you have an external disk. On the external disk create a folder(s) where you will be keeping your backups and simply image the entire laptop hard disk to this folder using the "Image" process (NOT Files and Folders).

    I don't know version 7 so I cannot comment on the suitability of creating your backups via the Windows GUI or the Linux CD. The newer versions, create perfect image backups from within Windows. The time differential between using the Windows GUI or the Linux CD is approximately a factor of 10. A backup that will take 15 minutes via the Windows GUI will take about 2 hours 30 minutes via the Linux CD.

    The one problem that you do have is that it is very difficult to test whether or not your backup works. The one thing that you should NOT do is test-restore the backup to the original disk. If the restore goes wrong you will be left with a useless backup and an unbootable laptop. o_O

    So be careful. :)
     
  6. jgl51

    jgl51 Registered Member

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    Thanks. Will look into other options available in ATI 7.0 and, if necessary, upgrade.
    Must check the external disk too to see if it explains ATI giving me over 1 1/2 day to an image!!
    Thanks for your time and advice.
     
  7. dbknox

    dbknox Registered Member

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    Hey Tabvla I had to respond are you saying that using the windows environment you get 10 times faster results then when you use the rescue disk? My times are so closely matched that I can't say I ever noticed any difference. I was doing 10 gigabytes in approx. 6 minutes using either windows or Linux cd. ( The estimated times were usually around 15-17 minutes, but I have never seen the estimated time match the "real time")

    jgl51 maybe give us an idea of what OS you are using, memory plus cpu speed I would think using firewire it would be even faster then usb2, maybe someone else using version 7 can give us some insight on their speed.
     
  8. seekforever

    seekforever Registered Member

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    It depends on the match of your hardware to the Linux environment. I would estimate the difference I notice to be around 50% or so, ie, it takes 1.5 times longer with the rescue CD.
     
  9. Tabvla

    Tabvla Registered Member

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    The real time difference in both Backup and Restore between the Windows environment of the Linux environment will be different for every user but generally it may be expected that the Linux environment will result in longer times - often significantly longer. Some users may experience almost identical times between the two environments, other users may experience considerably longer times.

    In my previous post my comment was intended to make users aware that they should not be surprised if the Linux environment took up to a factor of 10 times longer than the Windows environment to perform the same task - although this would obviously not be everyone's experience.

    One of the reasons that the Linux environment is potentially much slower than the Windows environment is that the Linux environment is not optimised. The Acronis bootable CD has a Linux "Shell" or as some call it a "Kernel" OS, which is a subset of the core Linux operating elements. There is no functionality in the core elements that will obtain the best performance from a given system architecture.

    By contrast the Windows environment can make use of any number of tools to squeeze the most out of the components - CPU, RAM, Graphics card, BUS.... etc. So any task (including ATI) that runs in the Windows environment can potentially use the full array of Windows tools to maximise performance.

    As "Seekforever" wrote in a previous post
    . What this means is "how good a Linux driver do you have for your equipment..?" The "driver" is the single most important piece of code on your computer, because it is the "driver", more than anything else, that ensures a good marriage between your hardware and your Operating System. Given the huge installed base of Windows users it is not surprising that hardware manufacturers spend considerable time and money on optimising the Windows drivers for their equipment, and get Microsoft to test these drivers for certification purposes. By contrast Linux drivers are sometimes created by the manufacturer and sometimes by the volunteer Linux community. Performance of such a driver is very much dependent upon the skill, knowledge and experience of the programmer. Sometimes you will get a winner sometimes a loser.

    The bottom line is that users should not be concerned if there are substantial time penalties when using ATI from the Linux environment. If your particular experience is that the Linux and Windows times are about the same, then that is fortunate :cool:
     
  10. dbknox

    dbknox Registered Member

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    WOW Tabvla: thank-you for that explaination, where do you get the patience? Glad you have it though I had to right click on your name, figured there had to be more to "Tabvla" then just someone that visits this forum. Nice site, I recommend anybody to right click on Tabvla and visit his web site.
     
  11. dbknox

    dbknox Registered Member

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    Sorry don't right click on "Tabvla" left click on Tabvla, getting my left and right mixed up sorry.
     
  12. jgl51

    jgl51 Registered Member

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    Sorry for late reply as I was out of the country for a couple of weeks.

    I use Winodws XP Home witha Dell Insprion X200 and ane xternal LaCie 80 GB disk.

    I am not sure yet whether I have issues with:

    1) The external disk
    2) ATI Version 7.0
    3) My PC

    Will upgrade to ATI 10.0 and will see!

    Not sure how to check my external drive though.
     
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