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Sector by sector issues

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Hi,

My source drive is a new 1tb Cruical SSD NTFS ( OS and files 50GB)

 

Destination either a 3tb wd passport or a 6tb sata 3 drive

 

Using Sector by sector WHOLE DRIVE (not checking unused space option) my backup was successfully created.

 

 

BUT the size is almost 1tb ( the same size as the source hard drive)

In the past, the destination image was close to the source contents not the Sources Hard Drive capacity

The source is a new install so no hidden gigantic files.

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

Tried Acronis 2017 bootable disk too, same problem

 

Thanks

 

Jeff

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Jeff, welcome to these User Forums.

First question: why are you using Sector-by-Sector backup mode here?

Next question: which actual version & build of Acronis True Image are you using?

Sector-by-Sector mode should not be needed to make a successful backup image but when used will definitely result in a much larger backup image than when not used. 

Part of the reason here is because in this mode, all Exclusions set are ignored, hence the backup will include potentially large system files such as pagefile.sys, swapfile.sys, hiberfil.sys and the System Volume Information folders, all of which are normally excluded by default and get recreated on Windows boot if not found.

If your Source filesystem is from a Linux OS then often Sector-by-Sector mode is forced by ATI but you mention NTFS in your post so this shouldn't be relevant.

Hi, thank you for the reponse.

 

I am using 2019's boot disk to do the image with. I have tested with 2017s too.

 

The reason I use sector by sector is because some software licenses are put onto certain sectors on a drive and without a SBS image the license will not be restored.

 

I can understand the file being larger with SBS, but the same size as the source HD ( 1TB) even though the contents are 50GB?

 

Jeff

Jeff, there seems to be some differences in how Sector-by-Sector mode works when using the Acronis Rescue Media versus using the Windows ATI GUI application.

I booted from my ATI 2019 Rescue media and tested selecting the various options for the backup data with the results shown in the screen images below:

Disk backup 01.pngDisk backup 02.pngDisk backup 03.png

The ATIH 2019 Help text within the Rescue Media offers an explanation for why the 'Size to back up:' is so large when selecting the 'Back up sector-by-sector' option.

Disk backup 04.png

Note the sentence at the bottom of the top bullet point which states:

Please note that this mode increases processing time and usually results in a larger image file because it copies used and unused hard disk sectors.

Thank you Steve.

 

I understand bigger size. However,my entire system is only 5% of the drive size but creates an image size which is the full size of the source drive ( 1tb)

 

jeff

Jeff, my own results suggest the same as yours, that using sector-by-sector essentially makes a full disk backup of the same size as the drive itself.

I can only suggest opening a Support Ticket with Acronis and ask for their interpretation of why we are seeing these sizes? (I suspect it may relate to other users who complained that Sector-by-Sector did not capture a true sector image that could be used to recover deleted files etc).

See forum topic: Sector by sector compression of unused space - lossless or lossy? which has a lot of information on this subject.

Hi Steve,

 

The anomoly is that I just tested on another similar spec'd PC and the created SBS image  give or take a gigabyte or two was the same as the contents of the source NOT the size of the source's HD.

 

Jeff