imaging in Linux with IFW/IFD/IFL

just did some test tonight with IFL and IFD.

on a Linux machine, i restored an image in 3:15 minutes with IFD and 5:05 minutes with IFL.

is it possible to use IFW from a live cd on a Linux machine, and does anyone has made speed comparisons?
IFW has always been the fastest for me do on Windows and i'm thinking of using that on Linux...

 

moontan,

I like IFW from a WinPE disk and I find it is faster in restoring a Linux OS partition then IFD or IFL. IFL is a little slower than IFD in my system too but others claim IFL is the fastest of the three.

 

You can, as Brian K pointed out above. Haven't done it myself...I find IFL to be very fast for imaging and restoring on it's own. Good luck!

 

The IFL bootdisk is always up-to-date with the latest SATA and chipset drivers in Linux. For that reason I never use IFD, unless its an old IDE drive. Why take the chance?

 

IFD is close to 40% faster on my machine than IFL.
there's a big difference between 3 and 5 minutes.

i'll test it further though, along with IFW.
tnx for the heads-up.

 

Imaging my WinXP with IFW, IFD and IFL (exact same conditions) I find IFW much faster than its siblings and I find very little time differences between IFD & IFL (although I really like the new IFD GUI)!

 

that has been my observation as well, although for me, IFD has always been faster than IFL.
IFW has always been the fastest for me as well.

depends on the machine, i guess...

 

I'd say it does depend on the machine. On the few I have (both different hardware vendors), IFL is way faster than IFD and IFW.

 

I do not yet have a Blu-Ray Burner. Does anyone have any experience/feedback on burning Images to single layer Blu-Ray discs? Is the Image Burn process any faster? How much faster are Restores from bootable Blu-Ray discs than bootable DVD's?

Yesterday, I confirmed on Terabyte's Forum that IFW/IFD/IFL are compatible with burning Blu-Ray discs.

Thanks in Advance.

 

I consider the speed of the backup (or restore) to be the least important factor in choosing a backup program. It amazes me that people are concerned about that.

I could probably use Acronis or Ghost if I wanted something faster, but I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole.

 

there's nothing wrong with the 'need for speed' as long as the imaging app is reliable.

why spend 10 minutes doing something when it can be done in 5?
i can think of a whole lot of things that are more fun to do than watching a progress bar crawling along.

 

I think it depends on machine, driver and bit of OS and app.

Just sharing one thing to you,

I have tested imagex.exe(Windows Imaging Utility), both 32bit and 64 bit on Win7 x86 and x64

the result is imagex.exe 64 bit running on x64 OS faster than imagex.exe 32bit running on x86 and x64.

So, if IFW have native 64bit version and running on x64 OS/WinPE, maybe it would faster than ifw 32bit running on both x86 and x64 OS.

 

@ andylau:

i'm on 32 bits and i don't think Terabyte has 64 bits versions of their softwares. not sure.

but your suggestion is a good one to keep in mind.
it might help with other imaging apps for people on 64 bits.

 

IFW works on 32 and 64-bit Windows.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm

 

i have always found ifw faster than the other 2 personally

 

i might built a WinPE disk with IFW later.
i have a scenario where that might come in handy.
but i forgot what it was. lol

as my restore time is under 3 minutes with IFD i'll put that idea aside for awhile.
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edit:
so can people can understand why i have the 'need for speed':
some days i can image and restore maybe 5 times.

it might not be a concern for people who use an imaging once in a blue moon but i use imaging and restore as a 'souped-up' uninstaller.

 

IFD boots in a few seconds and a WinPE takes 30 to 60 seconds to boot (depends on flavour) so IFW has to be a lot faster to catch up with IFD. In your case of 3 minutes IFW couldn't make up the 30 seconds. But if the restore was 10 minutes plus then IFW would probably be faster overall.

 

tnx Brian!

that's good to know and it re-enforces my decision to stick with IFD.

 

i do the same when i want to remove more important things like a av for example i would rather go back to before it was installed then remove it and install something else so i know the new one is on a clean install.

i just wish ifw would have the winpe built in instead of having to always create a new one with each new build like active@ has the ability to make a winpe without aik

 

zfactor,

I though I told you how to make one TeraByte WinPE where you can update IFW without updating the WinPE. Want me to go through it again?

 

oh i know how but for the average person it makes it difficult rather than just clicking make disc if you know what i mean, makes it hard to recc the the not so savy users

 

Brian, I know 32bit IFW works on x64 OS

The above I say is "NATIVE" 64bit app running on x64 OS maybe faster.

But IFW did not have native 64bit yet.

 

I've run into some issues with IFL.

On Linux Mint 10(Maverick) for some reason I cannot restore without screwing up grub.
Secondly if I try to resize the partition it fails and I have the latest IFL.

 

apathy,

I don't have grub in the MBR so I don't have that issue. My grub is in the partition boot sector. Do you restore the First Track when you restore an image?

BIBM can resize a Linux partition but I'm not sure if IFL can.

 

Same here with restoring Mint 11, although I tried it to a smaller than original parition. It gave a succssful message, but it didn't work, and even somehow messed everything up in the Linux target partitions (/ & /home). I always put Grub2 on the / partition, and use EasyBCD in Windows to create a boot menu.