Assistance in True Image 2013 Backup Procedure
Hi there everyone. I just recently joined Acronics. I have a few questions in regards to True Image 2013 that I have installed. I have just recently made a FULL backup of my HDD. The total HDD capacity is 500GB I believe but my hdd is showing 465GB. I'm certain rest were used by system (reserved) for OS installation files. Attached is image that I have compiled together so you get the idea of what I am trying to explain. It's showing used space is 42.4GB and 423GB of free space.
When I performed a FULL backup, the back image came up to 110.81GB on my external usb hdd. My question is did True Image made an entire FULL Image (ISO) of my hdd including the reserved OS? What I initially want to do is that, I want to be able to in future just do a recovery by just loading my current backup image and have it to current state, without reinstalling OS, programs etc. My used space is 42.4GB and from the backup I got 110 GB. Just curious could the other 60Gb be from System Reserved files or OS files? I am just wondering if anyone can confirm or assist me in this by any chance or point me into right directions whether to if I have performed a proper FULL HDD Image (ISO) backup.
Thank you in advance.
A disk labelled as 500GB will have an effective size of 468GB. This is normal.
When TrueImage performs a full backup, it uses some form of compression and the resulting backup size can be expected to be about 65-70% of used space. Document files compress much more than avi or picture files which are already compressed so the actual final size will vary with the combination of file types.
Only you can tell whether the backup was all inclusive. Re-opening (editing backup settings) an existing task will give you visual assurance of what was checked to be included within the backup. Based on your reported 110GB file size, I am not sure of what all was included within your bacup. You checkboxes as to what was included may include other disks or flash drives, etc.
My suggestion would be to review link #2 below and note the first few pictures which illustrate disk mode backups. A "disk mode" backup will provide what you need to create a replacement disk of your system--should that be the goal. Create a new task and choose the disk mode for your backup style. Backup of unused sectors is usually left un-checked.