backup size missmatch?
Hello,
A couple of things I'm not getting. I did an entire image of my pc, first time, when I first selected " backup the entire PC" I got a size of 940GB on the backup splash screen.
I started the backup, but at the end the entire .tib file was just 580GB.... how is this possible?
Also, now in the splash screen it gives me a size of 554GB if I was to do again the backup...
so I'm confused...
I actually got a 2TB external HHD because I thought that 1TB wasn't going to be enough for a 940GB image... but with 580GB it surely would have been fine..
anyone know the reason why of these sizes?
thanks!


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You will need a minimum of a 2TB drive anyway and price-wise they shouldn't be very different. Ideally, you want about 3 x as much backup space as the orginal size so you can have space for 2 fulls, pluse the incrementals or differentials inbetween. When using automatic cleanup rules, no cleanup will occur until at least the next full completes so you'll need that space.
I would not use "entire pc". Instead, use "disks and partions' and specifically pick the disk(s) you want to backup and all paritions on them if you want the backup to be bootable. "entire pc" may include other disks by default and can change as disks are added or remvoed. Backup size will vary based upon how much can be compressed. If your data includes movies, photos and other already compressed files, they will still be roughly the same size in the backup as the original. Any exclusions will be taken into effect as well. By default, pagefile and hibernation file are excluded - which they should be and if you have 16Gb or more memory, that can be 2-3 times that in the pagefile that won't be included in the backup. Compression is set on all backups by default and seeing about 30% smaller size than the original data is OK - perhaps more if the pagefile and hibernation files live on the drive as well but are in the default exclusions. I would suggest removing the exclusions for your web browsers if you like your favorites and browser settings to be reocoverable as well.
Personally, if you want an acccurate backup size, do an offline backup of the entire disk and that will be the best representation of all data on the drive. Then do a second one and compare the file size of the two - should be nearly identical.
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