TI image restore of whole disk appends unallocated space to OS (C:) partition that I use for SSD overprovisioning
Both initial and new TI2014 release "properly" create a whole disk image of my Win7,64 drive and I only do full disk image backups to an external HD. Since I upgraded to an SSD, my disk contains all original partitions, including a hidden 24g Recovery partition at the end of the disk; but an [99.7g] unallocated portion of my disk between my initial partitions and the Recovery partition that is used by my Samsung Evo 840 SSD for over-provisioning is always appended to the end of my OS(C:) partition when I do a whole disk restore. I then have to use DD12 to resize/move to correct this. I strongly suspect that using the sector by sector backup option would resolve this, but I suspect that it would also increase the size of my image from 80g to almost 700g? I believe that if the backup or restore is performed using [manual] settings for which partitions to backup and restore, it should correct this but after having read the revised Acronis manual thoroughly and a number of articles on the site I am just not sure how to properly do this. My disk layout is 201mb unal, 200mb system, 350.6gb OS(C:), 223.4gb DATA(D:), 99.7gb unal. [for overprovisioning] and 24.42gb Recovery. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Respectfully, Joseph Williams.
No Sir. The restore does leave the initial 201mb unal space at the beginning of the drive, but it appends the full, contiguous 99.7gb unal space just after the Data(D:) partition to the OS(C:) partition [increasing it's NTFS formatted size accordingly] so that I no longer have the unallocated space after the Data(D:) partition that was initially just before the Recovery/hidden partition. I don't know of any constraint by the Samsung SSD firmware/hardware to have the UNAL space for over-provisioning in any specific location; or for that matter, to be a contiguous space.
OK, so TI IS formatting the unallocated space. In that case would advise a manual partition restore. This should insure your unallocated space remains untouched. O
From my limited knowledge I'm sure you are correct, but the docs I have read talk about a number of manipulations in doing that;and in handling that, the notes seem to indicate that it make require several restores to properly do that? Would you possibly be able to give me some direction on which partitions have to be recovered and in what order/run so as to end up with everything like it was originally? The disk is GPT where the the initial system partition is a 200mb FAT32 partition while the rest of the partions [including the 24.42gb Reserve that has to be at the end of the disk] are NTFS. Again, any suggestions you have to accomplish this would be greatly appreciated as I believe while the notes I saw may have only applied to MBR disks I'm not clear on that? In any case, Thank You.
Joseph,
After giving this some careful thought I think it might be best just to leave things as ATI creates them. Now you must understand that I usually just answer user questions and do not express my opinions on these pages. I am going to do so in this case however as I think it might just be possible that there is some misunderstanding here about over provisioning. Some if not all of what I am about to write here you might already know and if so then that is fine.
First, the Samsung EVO 840 series drives except for the PRO series drives already have a mandatory over provisioning space reserved on the disk by the controller that is not accessible nor configurable by the user. I think that this OP reserved space is typically 10% of total drive capacity which in your case would be 100GB. If your drives are PRO series drives however then this mandatory OP is not built in and is user configurable by using the software provided by Samsung. If the later is your case then you have I suspect used the Samsung software to unallocate the free space you have indicated above and there is nothing wrong with that in fact there is a lot right with that.
Use of over provisioned space, when needed, occurs when disk space must be reclaimed by the controller or changed by the drive controller and the controller will use any free available space, including free formatted space, on the disk for its cleanup and maintenance tasks. Additionally, it makes absolutely no difference where this space is on the physical disk. Access times are unaffected by data location when it comes to SSD's
So I think your concern here is that because ATI formats this unallocated space on your disk, that in turn renders the space usable by the OS and the user and therefore unusable by the drive controller for maintenance purposes. This is not the case however so I see no harm in simply leaving thins as they are and not worrying about how the layout of the disk may appear in Windows disk management for example. If you were to really see how your data is laid out on an SSD you would probably think there was something bad wrong with the disk anyway.
Each time you go about changing a disk layout with software tools you are at risk of loosing data. It is my opinion in this case it simply is not necessary or wise to do so.
Thank you for educating me. I understand what you are saying and advising and it makes sense to me. I had been under the false impression that I needed to reserve/keep unallocated/not formatted space available for over-provisioning. Respectfully, Joseph Williams.