Anyone use Drive Image?

[deadseasquirrel]

Just used it for the first time and set it to "High" on compression. It compressed 50megs to about 42megs. I was hoping for a little better. Anyone have different results? The log showed it only took about 2 hours to run and send the image to another hdd. Not bad. I'm impressed. Just wish I had a larger capacity backup drive now since it doesn't compress as much as I was hoping.

deadseasquirrel

 

[Doh!]

Compression will depend on the type of files. If you're imaging a partition w/ lots of compressed files to begin with, the compression ratio will be low. My OS + programs partition is around 4 gig but comes out to be about half (around 2 gig) and the imaging process is around 15 min (can't remember exactly but pretty quick). Imaging 50 meg in 2 hrs. seems very slow unless you have a very slow HD or running HD in PIO 1 mode. Perhaps you're talking about 50 gigs?

 

[singh]

It does seem to use poor compression algorithms. I would definitely be willing to sacrifice some speed at the cost of smaller image sizes. I would just let the program run over night if needed.

 

[Mrburns2007]

Why bother with 50 megs ?

 

[RalfHutter]

I use Drive Image almost every day. It's a great app and I can't get along without it.

There must be something wrong with your IDE subsystem if it take 2 hrs to image 50MB. My current OS + apps partition is 2.33GB and it takes a little less than 2 minutes to image it with DI. The resulting image is 1.02GB in size after using the 50% compression setting so that works well too.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: Doh!
Perhaps you're talking about 50 gigs?

Me = dumb@$$.

Yes, I meant 50gigs. Thought I learned not to watch prOn and type at the same time.

I have it set up to run weekly, at night, starting at about 1am. So I would MUCH rather sacrifice speed to get better compression. I was hoping to be able to keep 2 images on my backup drive at all times, deleting the oldest when then 3rd is done.

But with such a low compression level, I'll either need to exclude some things from the backup (which I don't mind), or just deal with 1 archived image (or get a bigger backup hdd). I was just hoping for closer to a 50% compression that the High level claimed to produce. Heck, at this point, I'd even take 25%!

deadseasquirrel

 

[Nothinman]

Using Ghost we see an average of 2:1 compression, I've never used DriveImage before.

 

[corkyg]

I have used DriveImage for a few years. But, the new one was a non-starter for me because it required installation of the .NET from Microsoft. That darn near ruined my system and eliminated all my autologon. So, I sent the new DI back where it came from. Fortunately I had a current duplicate drive - so I just swapped and recloned. End of DI 7.

 

[Nothinman]

You'll have to install the framework eventually, a lot of things are going to start using it.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
You'll have to install the framework eventually, a lot of things are going to start using it.

Well, if you hold out till Longhorn it will just come already installed
Bill

 

[Nothinman]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was included in the next SP releases too.

 

[Mrburns2007]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Using Ghost we see an average of 2:1 compression, I've never used DriveImage before.

That's BS, if the 50 gigs are already compressed files like jpegs and mpegs there not going to compress much more. The fact that he was able to compress 50 gigs down to 42 is actually impressive.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: Mrburns2007

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Using Ghost we see an average of 2:1 compression, I've never used DriveImage before.

That's BS, if the 50 gigs are already compressed files like jpegs and mpegs there not going to compress much more. The fact that he was able to compress 50 gigs down to 42 is actually impressive.

Yeah, it's a huge hodge-podge of stuff-- I'm sure a lot of it is as compressed as it's gonna get. My 80gig hd died, so I panicked and ran out to buy a replacement when I shoulda just done the advanced RMA. I bought another 80gig, thankfully recovered all my data, and then received my replacement drive from WD. I figured I could use it to make backups, but, in retrospect, a 160gig woulda done a lot better.

 

[Nothinman]

That's BS, if the 50 gigs are already compressed files like jpegs and mpegs there not going to compress much more. The fact that he was able to compress 50 gigs down to 42 is actually impressive.

It's far from BS, when we ghost machines where I work we see an average of 2:1 compression ratio, don't tell me what we do and don't have.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
You'll have to install the framework eventually, a lot of things are going to start using it.

That will be wuite a while. Hopefully by then, M$ will improve it so that it does not totally destroy an existing autologon setup. I mean, it changed the enitre desktop - required a password and all sorts of crap. Who needs that?

 

[bsobel]

required a password and all sorts of crap. Who needs that?

Everyone connected to the internet

 

[Nothinman]

That will be wuite a while. Hopefully by then, M$ will improve it so that it does not totally destroy an existing autologon setup. I mean, it changed the enitre desktop - required a password and all sorts of crap. Who needs that?

I personally think autologin shouldn't even be an option.

 

[Mrburns2007]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

That's BS, if the 50 gigs are already compressed files like jpegs and mpegs there not going to compress much more. The fact that he was able to compress 50 gigs down to 42 is actually impressive.

It's far from BS, when we ghost machines where I work we see an average of 2:1 compression ratio, don't tell me what we do and don't have.

Zips, rars, jpegs, mpegs, mp3's and other compressed files won't compress much farther. Logs, text, and docs will compress great but that may be the main OS partition and not the media partition. Also I have used Ghost 2003 and Ghost enterprise and never compressed 2:1 on media files.

 

[Nothinman]

I understand compression and I stand by my statement that on average we get 2:1 compression ratio of the machines we use ghost on.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I understand compression and I stand by my statement that on average we get 2:1 compression ratio of the machines we use ghost on.

I can't beleive this is being debated
Bill

 

[Nothinman]

I know...

 

[Mrburns2007]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I understand compression and I stand by my statement that on average we get 2:1 compression ratio of the machines we use ghost on.

I can't beleive this is being debated
Bill

eeh..wanna talk about religion or politics ?