Image size doing a backup of Linux, larger than data

I've been using Acronis in Windows 8 to backup my Linux Partition. Seems to work fine. I have about 9 GB in the partition, and the image comes out about 5-6 GB. Sounds about right.
2 days ago I upgraded the OS to the newer version. I deleted the 2 partitions for linux and then reloaded the OS and made all my updates etc. The new system is about the same thing, 9GB. I tossed the backup job, and made a new partition backup job. Same procedure I've done before. However my images are now 11 GB. I've look at the image and there is nothing out of the ordinary. I can see the right folder structure for Linux and just 2 partitions, one is empty.

I'm lost. I deleted the job and recreated it just in case. I did not check sector by sector, I saw that on another thread as a possible issue. Any ideas? Is there a way to see if the image is a sector by sector image? I can't see any diff.