This topic is chiefly an inquiry on how best and safe to go about (if possible) in restoring a larger source backup image to a smaller disk capacity. I'll cut to the chase. Is it out of the question or not to restore a backup image from say a 1 Terabyte HDD to a 750GB one. That said the actual amount of actual usage files on the disk are a good deal under a 750GB threshold. What i want to determine is if this can be done, and if so how exactly to go about such an odd dissimilar pair of HDD's. New territory for me and i yet to google it because we in this forum have the best in the business with plenty of experience when it comes to imaging/restore matters so i want to throw this out there to see if both HDD's must be equal or of there is a way (safe one) to transfer a larger restore image somehow onto a lesser capacity. Thanks for any insight or suggestions should that method actually be possible at all.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/image-for-windows.362725/page-71#post-3106528 See the section about sectors in use.
I've restored larger capacity hard drives to smaller SSD hard drives using Drive Snapshot without a single issue. My method. Open Drive Snapshot Select the image to restore Take a look at what it says for "Required Size" - See this screenshot of my Windows 11 image https://i.imgur.com/Cv2wyJN.png Will that size fit the smaller hard drive? If yes - proceed and you'll see a screen like this https://i.imgur.com/7xqLi9H.png If no - use something like Defraggler to see where all those files are located and defrag the partition (however I'd strongly recommend you make an image before doing so, to cover your arse if anything goes wrong).
@Brian K & @Gaddster Thank You guys. Soon as it comes in i'll give it a swing and see if it can be pulled off without a snag or not. I do have BOTH IFW and Drive Snapshot, and there is where the choice program of performing such a stuff n fetch comes to play. Like mentioned, this is new territory.
You really can't go wrong with either of those, which if IFW was cheaper and allowed batch file progress to be shown I'd buy it but £44 is expensive, especially for something that can only minimise / hide the GUI from a batch file but doesn't actually show any progress output from the running batch file (like Drive Snapshot does). If anyone knows how to get IFW to output like this https://flic.kr/p/2nUaWNo I'd be very grateful as I've tried all sorts of stuff.
Gaddster, 99% of my backups are run as Scheduled Tasks or from a shortcut to a Scheduled Task. There is no UAC prompt or any output to the monitor. You wouldn't know the backup is happening. Occasionally I'll do a manual backup where I see the IFW graph. I find it interesting. I haven't seen a way to output the IFW progress to a Command window but I'll investigate.
I probably should try Drive Snapshot then. I prefer an output to screen in some form and fashion as to a program's progress. Especially one as important as imaging-restoring. Just plain common sense so a user can gauge where it's at and for how long it's performing settings you set for it. Thanks
If they allowed the progress via command window and lowered the price. I'd buy it right now. Simple as that. The software is expensive at £44 but Macrium really takes first place for **** taking by selling Reflect for £50 (or for you Brian - AU$123.53).
Ver2 IFW had an option to run in a command windows. Ver3 doesn't have this option. Gaddster, we know that won't happen. I have the TeraByte Bundle. $60 US. I think it's the best valued software on the internet. Licensed for 5 home computers and no upgrade fees. Upgraded every 2 months or so. BootIt is my favourite app. Edit....The Bundle is... BootIt Collection (BIBM, BIU) IFW, IFD, IFL, IFU TBOSDT Pro TBOSDT Pro for BootIt
I'm a bit skeptical. Not that the imager can't apply & overlay (or squeeze) a larger disk on a somewhat smaller one by 250Gb. My concern will be if successful that the drive performs well and not lose it's zip. Do appreciate all the opinions and suggestions so far.
EASTER, Let me give you an example. My wife had Win10 on a 1 TB HD. Used space was around 30 GB. The computer had an i3 CPU and the OS performed like a dog. I transferred her Win10 to a 100 GB SSD. So 1000 GB HD to a 100 GB SSD. Win10 performed ten times better. It was the SSD of course but if I had transferred Win10 to a 100 GB HD the performance would have been much the same as the original HD.
I see. Pretty interesting it boosted performance on cause of that procedure. I completely forgot i had a Crucial Brand SSD (insert under laptop form) of 500GB. The thing flies like a NASCAR competitor in a race. I know i need to upgrade and have been lax in doing so. Going to have to step it up and keep the spindle HDD's as some emergency backup storage. But that will come by 2023. In the meantime i was curious if we need to set adjustments in order for the larger capacity not to fill up the disk when doing a oversize restore. I appreciate all the answers which can make it more achievable without issue such as partitioning resizing. Although this can be done as well, i'm just not sure yet how well until i dive into it.
@EASTER Seriously stop overthinking this stuff and just create the images and restore them to the smaller drive.........There is no performance drop unless you're restoring images that was took for example from a faster 7200rpm drive and restoring them onto a slower 5200rpm drive (or images from a very fast SSD to a slower SSD etc).
I would think there's a little more than that involved. From the processes I'm aware of, there's no attempt to defrag the repositioned clusters when the "shrinking" process occurs... just the cluster relocation operation. This could take an already fractured disk and make it even more so as far as fragmentation is concerned. Following the restoration I would defrag any restore HDD (UltraDefrag or MyDefrag) that you restored in the way you describe above... just to be sure additional fragmentation doesn't occur during the shrinking process.
All done. Opted to go the simple route instead of chancing me fudging something this time. I'll take note of the advice here to try to attempt a squeeze play another time. In the meantime here is my routine: Restore to Disk-On first boot up HiBit Uninstaller to clean junk files/registry-Defrag with Ultra6-Privazer to wipe the Master File Table free space, Journal etc, On 8.1 i use Eraser (yes it's still quite good/reliable) to remove Custom Refresh.WIM and after fine tuning some customizations and with the newly restored backup all up and running fine, recreate via command line this-recimg /createimage C:\RefreshImage. Add new program or two, update Chrome and others if needed. Then create new backup with Backupper/DS. Been Macrium-less lately since Aomei really has caught on for me performing superbly.
