Image for Windows: Don't backup empty space

Tree,

Because you are turning a defragmented partition into a "fragmented" one. Perhaps more so with file placement rather than with fragmented files. If you look at the partition (with PerfectDisk) before and after restoring you will see what I mean regarding file placement. Most of my computers have hard drives rather than SSDs.

 

Brian,

I do not think SSDs need to care about sector placement. Even HDDs sector placement is not that important.

It is not "rare" nowadays as more people use SSD for their OS disk. If you ask people to compact or resize their partition, that means more steps they need to do, they may not like this. Why do not use one that is more flexible and easy to use?

Also, compaction or resizing is no use for an old image e.g. old image is 200GB in sector spread to restore to a 128GB SSD.

 

andylau,

We'll have to agree to disagree. No problem with me.

Upgrading to a SSD (smaller partition) is not a crash procedure. You don't have to use an old image. It involves planning. Deciding which partitions to copy from the HD to the SSD and which partitions to leave on the HD. Deciding whether the OS will function from a single partition or whether you need 3 or 4 partitions as in the case of a UEFI system. After you have planned your approach you can create/restore your images or clone (Copy) the partitions to unallocated space on the blank SSD. With UEFI systems I resize the OS partition on the HD to the size I want it to be on the SSD. Then I create images as I know what the SSD will look like after restoring the images. I've also found it doesn't matter in which order you restore the partitions in a UEFI system but mainly they are restored in their original order.

 

I've successfully re-sized partitions, to get things the way I like, so many times over the years it's second nature for me to do so and no big deal at all. In some cases it was to restore to a smaller partition but usually it's for freeing up space for a storage partition(s) or to fit a Linux installation onto the same drive. I prefer my Operating systems to take up around 70% or so (no more than 80%) of the space I've allocated for it.

 

wat0114,

Thanks for your comments on resizing and free space in HD partitions. Just a comment about the amount of free space to leave in a SSD partition. It doesn't matter, you can leave 0% free space as long as you have about 10% of free space (10% of the SSD capacity) somewhere else on the SSD for over-provisioning. The 10% free space can be inside several partitions or unallocated free space.

 

Good to know, thanks Brian!

 

In that case, you would have to first restore the image to a drive large enough and then compact or resize it. The restore could be done directly to a virtual disk if a physical disk isn't available.

 

It is a waste of time, and making it more complicated.
The simplest way is to clone from HDD to SSD(or say migrate to SSD) if source HDD is available. If not, mounting the image and then clone it.
Of course, I mean use another app for cloning because I didn't think IFW can do so in this situation.

 

Interesting discussion. The TB evangelists vs the skeptics.

 

andylau's scenario is interesting. It's a situation that shouldn't happen as normally you would simply copy your HD partitions from the HD to the SSD. But let's say the source HD was unavailable and you just had an IFW image where the sector spread was 200 GB and the SSD was 128 GB. MudCrab has provided two methods to enable the image to be restored to the SSD. The first method is obvious but let's say you don't have a large drive. In the second method you would restore the image to a virtual drive on the current HD, compact the data in the virtual partition and copy the partition to the SSD. Job done!

Remember, if you have to compact data in a partition it only takes a minute or two. It's no big deal. IFW will let you know before you create an image or copy a partition whether compaction of data is needed.

Edit...
An alternative method is to restore the image to a virtual drive and select the "Resize After Restore" option. Type in the desired partition size for the SSD. Now the compaction step isn't needed.

 

I have used both these options in the past, but neither of them is suited for novice users. I would rather see another option in IFW/IFL/IFD like "compact image" (e.g. IFW selects an image and creates a differential/incremental, but instead of using the original partition as the source, it uses the image as the source and performs the compacting inside the new differential/incremental one, while creating it).

Panagiotis

 

Panagiotis,

I agree it's not for beginners. But this isn't an average real life scenario. How often would the source HD be missing? When the source HD is available a "1 minute" compaction could be done followed by a Copy. No image needed.

 

Hi Brian,

is very common for users with laptops. Most users that I know have 1 or 2 laptops and some external hdds and almost all of them do not have a docking station. For them the above direct clone scenario is impossible, unless they buy a docking station or an external enclosure.

Panagiotis

 

Panagiotis,

A misunderstanding. By the "source HD be missing" I meant it doesn't exist. Broken, stolen, etc. At least I thought that was andylau's scenario. An image that couldn't be re-created because the source HD wasn't available.

 

Some of my friends' OS HDDs were broken, then they brought a new SSD to replace, and the old image could not restore to the new SSD.
I think ask beginners to do extra steps is not a good idea. Sometimes they may not know how to do.