I don't understand:my HD is full for about 24GB, backup result: 68 GB

Sector-by-sector copies empty space and will give much larger images than what the data shows.

what's the utility of backup sector by sector? it's normal for a period of 7 hours to backup 24 GB?
I need to store an image of my HD to restore in case of emergency but it's unclear what is the safest method to make a full backup: can you explain me it?
thank you

Gary Darsey wrote:

Sector-by-sector copies empty space and will give much larger images than what the data shows.

Without using sector-by-sector, only the parts of the disk that actually have data are imaged. Sector-by-sector doesn't limit itself to just data - empty space is also copied. Sector-by-sector is also very slow (as you found out). Unselect the sector-by-sector box to get a disk image of sectors with data. It will go much faster and is the safest way.

Hi Andrea

You really do not need to backup using sector by sector for it to be a reliable backup. To backup 24GB (not sector by sector) would normally take an hour or so depending on various factors, mainly disk data transfer rates. I backup mostly to a second internal HDD or a usb external HDD which will be quicker than backing up to the same HDD for instance (I don't do full disk backups, just full partion backups).

A sector by sector backup approach in contrast to non sector by sector one differs in that it will not take into account individual files or folders, it will just copy the whole disk or partion no matter what. So normally you would not need to do this, you will only want to backup the folders and files you can see using explorer.

Hope that helps.

thank 's to all