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Full vs Sector-By-Sector

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I am trying to figure out a quick way of backing up an entire HDD without having to spend hours doing a sector-by-sector backup of the drive.
Whilst I understand that Sector-By-Sector backup does just that, what if I chose Full backup? I understand that this is much faster (I tried this) BUT the question remains this:

will it actually backup all files including any Windows bootsectors/MBR? or is that ONLY with sector-by-sector backup?

What about when restoring the full backup to an HDD - will it allow the option of NOT splitting the HDD so regardless of the full backup size, it will restore it in its entirety on the HDD so the HDD still remains as one big partition as is?

Thanks

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Hello Ahmed,

Welcome to our Forum, we're glad to greet you here! I understand your concern and will be glad to answer your question!

There's no need in Sector by Sector backup unless the drive is not damaged or the file system is not supported. The full backup will perfectly image the drive's data alongside with Windows bootsectors/MBR.

The sector-by-sector method allows you to create an image of all sectors of the selected partition. This image will contain not only sectors with data but also sectors that are empty. As a result, this image will be equal in size to the disk being imaged, as there will be no data compression. This method is useful if a partition being backed up is not supported by the Acronis product or is corrupted. In this case, all sectors of this partition are included in this image and will be restored. The full backup images just the space used - the actual data on the drive. Thus the backup is usually smaller than the HDD itself.

Should you need anything else or have any further questions - feel free to contact us at your earliest convenience, we will be happy to help you!

Thank you!

As a result, this image will be equal in size to the disk being imaged, as there will be no data compression.

It's not true for ABR at least for build 11345. Sector-by-sector backup of and empty 500 Mb vmware disk with default compression options (normal) results in 4 Mb .tib file. If compression is turned off in backup options, archive .tib file occupies 500 mb.

Backup will be faster, restore of entire HDD is also possible, including MBR

Suggest you to keep compression Normal (55%), since while Medium (60%) or High(65%), time for backup increases

Sector by sector I suggest to use only when we have bad sectors in HDD

Is sector by sector backup only works on the same size of drive?

I tried to put a 250GB image (Redhat) to a 500GB hard drive, I used both Full backup and Sector by Sector method. However, after it finished the restore, it failed to boot up and said X Server was not configured correctly.

Any suggestion would be greatly appreciate.

Thanks,

Jonathan

sector by sector is only ment for drives where the OS(file system) is not regocnized or supported.