Windows Imaging Race. Which one is fastest?

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by SourMilk, Apr 3, 2009.

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  1. SourMilk

    SourMilk Registered Member

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    I regularly use Acronis True Image v11 offline boot CD for my imaging needs. I recently tried Paragon Hard Disk Manager v8.5 to image my Drive C using its offline boot CD and it was way too slow. We're talking hours not minutes!

    Does anyone have any disk imaging experience with "imagers" faster than Acronis? Twenty minutes for 15GB is what I get with ATI.

    Thanks for any replies,
    SourMilk out
     
  2. ambient_88

    ambient_88 Registered Member

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    The ones I know that are really fast are:
    - ShadowProtect Desktop
    - DriveSnapshot
    - Macrium Reflect

    Also, do you back up to an external drive or an internal?
     
  3. SourMilk

    SourMilk Registered Member

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    I use a second internal hard drive. I also keep a copy of the images contained on the second internal hard drive on a USB external hard drive.
     
  4. raakii

    raakii Registered Member

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    Drive snapshot and IFW are the fastest ones for me.For restore Active boot Disk has the fastest boot time.
     
  5. demonon

    demonon Guest

    When you say 15GB, is that the size of the image or the data on your HD?
     
  6. SourMilk

    SourMilk Registered Member

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    That is 3GB for OS and 12GB for programs uncompressed as found on Drive C.
     
  7. prius04

    prius04 Registered Member

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    Since the data I routinely image on the C drives on two of my PCs are almost the same size as the OP's (~15GB), I'll post my SPD times:

    Desktop 1: P4, 2.6GHz, 2.5GB RAM, 2 PATA internal HDDs, 1 external USB HDD:
    C to internal HDD = 9 minutes
    C to external HDD = 11 minutes

    Desktop 2: P4, 2.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 2 SATA internal HDDs, 1 external USB HDD:
    C to internal HDD = 7 minutes
    C to external HDD = 9 minutes

    Also tried DS on Desktop 1 and it took ~11 minutes to image C to internal HDD.

    EDIT: Both machines are running XP
     
  8. SourMilk

    SourMilk Registered Member

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    Which imager were you using? Drive Snapshot on Desktop 1 and 2? You'll have to forgive me 'cause I'm old and senility is just around the corner. :p
     
  9. ambient_88

    ambient_88 Registered Member

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    I believe he's using ShadowProtect Desktop (SPD).
     
  10. SourMilk

    SourMilk Registered Member

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    Thanks. INT (I needed that) :D

    SourMilk out
     
  11. suliman

    suliman Registered Member

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    When I used windows I had Shadowprotect desktop. It imaged ~45GB data (from a 160GB drive) in 14 minutes. It takes the same time to restore. And rock solid restores every time without verification. But I guess it depends somewhat on what kind of processor and hard drives you use.

    I have Intel dual core @2.88Ghz SATA 2 to and from a Samsung 7200rpm drive 4GB RAM.
     
  12. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I routinely average about 8-9 minutes to image 35gb, and about 7.5 to restore. Thats with Shadowprotect.

    Pete
     
  13. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    A backup with ShadowProtect of my Vista laptop to USB drive takes 21 minutes for 50 GB of C:/ (compressed is about 28GB). Acronis TI 9 which I use with my XP laptop takes longer, I have no exact figures at the moment as I only backup that machine every 3 months, but also the hardware is not as powerful as in the Vista one. .
     
  14. vijayind

    vijayind Registered Member

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    I have ATI and I trialled IFW & Paragon both took almost 2 hours for 78 GB disk image.
    In comparison, Macrium took 1 hour and 7 minutes. So IMO, Macrium Reflect is the fastest.

    I didn't try ShadowProtect. The cost is too prohibitive :(
     
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2009
  15. yashau

    yashau Registered Member

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    Acronis is the fastest for me. It uses all my 4 cores at 100% when backing up. That being said haven't tried DriveSnapshot yet (can't find a reason to either :))
     
  16. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    yashau,

    That's interesting. I've noticed there is a correlation between speed of a backup app and the % of the CPU it is using. Are you able to use other apps at a reasonable speed while TI is using 100% of the CPU? Or does TI back off a bit and let the other apps have some of the CPU?
     
  17. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    About 15 min to image 10GB NTFS C: drive, in vivo, with max compression used and ATI processes set at lower-than-normal priority, 2 min to restore from live CD (UBCD4WIN).

    I think speed is less important - quality of images is. If your images are corrupt, you're buggered. Realiability, first of all.

    Mrk
     
  18. Raza0007

    Raza0007 Registered Member

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    I recently made an image of my C partition with Paragon hard disk manager 2009 and it took about 25-30 minutes using normal (default) compression.

    data on C drive about 21 GB
    From C partition to D partition on the same drive
    Size of image 10.5 GB
    Image taken booting from outside windows
    Time: 25 -30 minutes.
    and check image integrity option was checked (it slows down the process slightly according to paragon)

    paragon is reasonably fast and more importantly the images are reliable.
     
  19. Huupi

    Huupi Registered Member

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    If speed is important,then imaging to a second internal drive with a serial connection straight/ MOBO is a necessity,USB is way slower.
    If i image to an ext.drive it take 12 min. to complete
    If i image to an internal drive it take 4 min. to complete.
     
  20. yashau

    yashau Registered Member

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    There's a difference between CPU time and priority. If the priority is high then it'll be hard to use the PC while backing up but if the priority is below normal or low it will just use what's left of the CPU while allowing other processes to run. I personally just let it run and grab a cup of coffee or something. :argh:
     
  21. RealResults

    RealResults Registered Member

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    I think another relevant questions to this thread is not only the fastest to image whether in Windows or boot CD, but which imaging program is the fastest to RESTORE the active partition from a boot CD.
     
  22. raakii

    raakii Registered Member

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    There are many threads which try to compare backup softwares, use the one that works most reliably for you.Most important is that , u need to reduce the amount of data on the C drive .You can even reduce it to 3gb and restore in a minute.So i think users in general must reduce the size on os partition,bcos the improves the restore time(which is better than trying an differnet imaging software).
     
  23. Osaban

    Osaban Registered Member

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    I think there is no empirical evidence to state there is a relationship between speed and reliability. ShadowProtect is well known to be fast and reliable (also expensive, alas). I have never had a corrupt image from SP or ATI, which means that if one gets a corrupt image, IMO there must be something terribly wrong in the system or the way one sets the parameters.
     
  24. huntnyc

    huntnyc Registered Member

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    Since ShadowProtect won't work with my Thinkpad laptop (may troubleshoot with support if time permits), I am using Image for Windows and Image for Linux to restore on this laptop. To image and verify within Windows 20 GB of data on C drive takes about 14 minutes. To restore about 9.5 GB compressed image from IFL CD takes about 5-6 minutes, very fast about the same as SP on restore.

    Gary
     
  25. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    Osaban, you're right. But if I have to choose, then I'd say: reliability.

    Mrk
     
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