Creating a system image
I created a system image backing up to another internal drive of same capacity and model. Why is my main system 125GB free and the system image 129GB free? Since both are SSD and 160GB capacity, shouldn't they both have the same amount of space free when doing a system image?
November 15th, 2009 4:32am

No, they should not show the same amount of space free. A system image is a backup sufficient to recreate the original drive. It is not a duplicate of the original drive. In storing an image it is possible to save space. In my opinion, it is a stone waste of SSD to use it as a backup drive. But, that's why they call them "personal computers."
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November 15th, 2009 6:38am

No, they should not show the same amount of space free. A system image is a backup sufficient to recreate the original drive. It is not a duplicate of the original drive. In storing an image it is possible to save space. In my opinion, it is a stone waste of SSD to use it as a backup drive. But, that's why they call them "personal computers." What is missing doing it this way in Windows 7 versus say using Arcronis to Clone a disk?
November 15th, 2009 4:37pm

It's werid, generally,a system image is an exact copy of a drive. By default, a system image includes the drives required for Windows to run. It also includes Windows and your system settings, programs, and files. So, i doubt if you have make some changes after you made the image.
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November 16th, 2009 9:10am

It's werid, generally,a system image is an exact copy of a drive. By default, a system image includes the drives required for Windows to run. It also includes Windows and your system settings, programs, and files. So, i doubt if you have make some changes after you made the image. I don't know for sure, but maybe there is a difference between doing a system image and cloning a disk?
November 16th, 2009 5:03pm

Can you tell me if you enable the Hibernation feature? and how much space have you made for the virtual memory? The 4 GB memory may be took by thetwo files. the hiberfil.sys would take about 75% the size of physical RAM. In addition, the virtual memory would take about as much as the memory.
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November 17th, 2009 4:42am

No, they should not show the same amount of space free. A system image is a backup sufficient to recreate the original drive. It is not a duplicate of the original drive. In storing an image it is possible to save space.In my opinion, it is a stone waste of SSD to use it as a backup drive. But, that's why they call them "personal computers." Actually, a system image in not just "a backup sufficient to recreate the original drive." A system image is a vhd image of the drive. Its virtual size is the size of the drive and and its actual size size reflects the exact contents at the time created. The difference in size is probably just that one of the unmovable files (hiberfil.sys or pagefile.sys) is not included. Of the two, I would bet pagefile.sys since it is a swapfile and will be recreated anyway after restoring the image. Stephen
November 17th, 2009 8:26am

Can you tell me if you enable the Hibernation feature? and how much space have you made for the virtual memory? The 4 GB memory may be took by thetwo files. the hiberfil.sys would take about 75% the size of physical RAM. In addition, the virtual memory would take about as much as the memory. I have hibernation disabled. As swyost says below, it could be the pagefile.
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November 18th, 2009 12:09am

No, they should not show the same amount of space free. A system image is a backup sufficient to recreate the original drive. It is not a duplicate of the original drive. In storing an image it is possible to save space. In my opinion, it is a stone waste of SSD to use it as a backup drive. But, that's why they call them "personal computers." Actually, a system image in not just "a backup sufficient to recreate the original drive." A system image is a vhd image of the drive. Its virtual size is the size of the drive and and its actual size size reflects the exact contents at the time created. The difference in size is probably just that one of the unmovable files (hiberfil.sys or pagefile.sys) is not included. Of the two, I would bet pagefile.sys since it is a swapfile and will be recreated anyway after restoring the image. Stephen Yes, could be pagefile since I have hibernation disabled. I thought the other guy was just being sarcastic about the backing up thing. Some people do RAID for having a system image, I prefer doing it to a separate internal drive, no RAID. Of course, one could do it with DVD's, but I prefer my method.
November 18th, 2009 12:13am

You can also disable the pagefile IF you have enough memory to run the system.Renee
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November 18th, 2009 1:07am

You can also disable the pagefile IF you have enough memory to run the system. Renee I have 8GB of memory, but I read it is better to leave pagefile alone.
November 18th, 2009 3:12am

You can also disable the pagefile IF you have enough memory to run the system. Renee Regarding pagefile: Should the pagefile be placed on SSDs? Yes. Most pagefile operations are small random reads or larger sequential writes, both of which are types of operations that SSDs handle well. In looking at telemetry data from thousands of traces and focusing on pagefile reads and writes, we find that * Pagefile.sys reads outnumber pagefile.sys writes by about 40 to 1, * Pagefile.sys read sizes are typically quite small, with 67% less than or equal to 4 KB, and 88% less than 16 KB. * Pagefile.sys writes are relatively large, with 62% greater than or equal to 128 KB and 45% being exactly 1 MB in size. In fact, given typical pagefile reference patterns and the favorable performance characteristics SSDs have on those patterns, there are few files better than the pagefile to place on an SSD. Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx
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November 18th, 2009 3:18am

After my further test, I found the pagefile.sysand hiberfil.sys are backed up too. We have no need to focus on the two files. The storage spcace reduced in the Backup may be caused by some other technology, such as the cluster tech.John
November 20th, 2009 5:30am

After my further test, I found the pagefile.sysand hiberfil.sys are backed up too. We have no need to focus on the two files. The storage spcace reduced in the Backup may be caused by some other technology, such as the cluster tech. John Hmm...that is interesting, so no reason has as yet been identified.
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November 20th, 2009 9:18pm

After further research, I found this issue is the common phenomenon. In my opinion, as the backup file vhdis stored in one file, it would save space base on the clustertechnology, or the vhd file can comprose the original files. At this point, you can feel free to use the computer.John
November 27th, 2009 1:33pm

I can tell you at least one thing is not included in the system image on my machine - the Search index. I did a system restore over the weekend and immediately found the Search index reset to 0 - since it included 300,000+ items, it then took a couple hours to rebuild....Stephen
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December 7th, 2009 10:03pm

I'm a system engineer in what used to be a major computer company and we declared firing or not hiring someone who backed up a hibernation or a paging file. Also a system image is not a vhd file because we hadsystem imagesdecades beforeVHD filesexisted.Renee
December 8th, 2009 5:02am

Is a system image any different than cloning a disk? What I am getting at is any difference doing a system image with Windows 7 versus cloning with Acronis True Image? If so, what would be the difference?
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December 10th, 2009 10:16pm

Thats an interesting question. Actually a lot of the answer depends on how dynamic the system is. In totally dynamic systems there is little difference between the clone and the backed up system. In less dynamic systems there would be more difference between the systems.Renee
December 10th, 2009 10:51pm

And licensing is a different issue entirely.Renee
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December 10th, 2009 11:36pm

Thats an interesting question. Actually a lot of the answer depends on how dynamic the system is. In totally dynamic systems there is little difference between the clone and the backed up system. In less dynamic systems there would be more difference between the systems. Renee Renee, What do you mean by more or less dynamic?
December 11th, 2009 5:05pm

I am referring to the the ability of the system and it's components to autosize themselves and their buffers in memory.Renee
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December 11th, 2009 5:30pm

Is cloning more accurate than a system image? Does it matter which way, system image or cloning, when you use that copied Windows 7 disk?
December 12th, 2009 4:57pm

They are two different things. A new system is largely a bunch of object code that is assembled or built as well as built utilities. A clone is copied, built system with parameters such as a network name and an administrator added.If no corruption occurs the copy is as good as the original although they are different.Renee
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December 12th, 2009 6:14pm

Why would there be corruption?
December 13th, 2009 5:18pm

And I have to answer that question which is the same - "Why would there be corruption?" Window as a system is much better than it used to be. I can't never say that I have not had it because I can't prove a negative. I've copied a lot of systems, especially in the pre-NT days. I used to copy a lot of systems and at the same time I used a run a lot of non-Microsoft application or system software. These days, I think the system is close to corruption proof. But since I can never prove a negative, I can never know the cause of corruption. I do make some pofessional moves to minimize damage. The most powerful of which seems to be the use of additional partitions (diskpar) or the disk manager.Renee
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December 13th, 2009 8:36pm

To answer your question a little further - the trouble can either be hardware/firmware related, Operating System or user software related. The chances largest for the the latter to be in the user software meaning that the user software has lost track of something.Another source of filesytem errors are where there is a timing error or a context error. These are the most frequent and they just aren't seen.Renee
December 13th, 2009 9:54pm

To answer your question a little further - the trouble can either be hardware/firmware related, Operating System or user software related. The chances largest for the the latter to be in the user software meaning that the user software has lost track of something. Another source of filesytem errors are where there is a timing error or a context error. These are the most frequent and they just aren't seen. Renee I am at a loss here. I have two identical Intel SSD drives with same capacity and same model and both formatted in Windows 7. Why should there be any issue making a system image from one disk to the other using system image in Windows 7?
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December 14th, 2009 5:47pm

The first thing you have to answer is does the development corp want that capability? If yes, that possibilty has been available on several systems literally for decades. Do you have any specific questions?Renee
December 15th, 2009 2:59am

The first thing you have to answer is does the development corp want that capability? If yes, that possibilty has been available on several systems literally for decades. Do you have any specific questions? Renee I already asked what I thought was a specific question regarding two identical SSD's used to make a system image using Windows 7.
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December 15th, 2009 3:27am

"I have two identical Intel SSD drives with same capacity and same model and both formatted in Windows 7. Why should there be any issue making a system image from one disk to the other using system image in Windows 7?"Well dang it, you did ask a specifc question. The amount of difficulty is the same onWindows7. I do not know whether the disk provides part of the serial number or not. You can makea certain number or hardware changes beforethe OS will not run. That number used to be five. I don't know what the value is now. If the disk change is not fatal and I don't think it should be, this should fly.Renee
December 15th, 2009 4:04am

"I have two identical Intel SSD drives with same capacity and same model and both formatted in Windows 7. Why should there be any issue making a system image from one disk to the other using system image in Windows 7?" Well dang it, you did ask a specifc question. The amount of difficulty is the same onWindows7. I do not know whether the disk provides part of the serial number or not. You can makea certain number or hardware changes beforethe OS will not run. That number used to be five. I don't know what the value is now. If the disk change is not fatal and I don't think it should be, this should fly. Renee Sounds good, thanks! What I was also wondering about is if cloning via say Acronis was a better way to backup a disk?
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December 15th, 2009 9:50pm

Well, personally speaking I favor the universality and availabilityof the backup application itself so my choice is for the Microsoft software. My experience is professional and when backup is part of the OS, you always know it's there which adds value. However on the current RTM system, it doesn't work as well as I like it. It seems to loop forever on formatting the the first DVD.When rejected,all backups are done to the system SSD. I wish I could really use it.Renee
December 16th, 2009 12:46am

Well, personally speaking I favor the universality and availabilityof the backup application itself so my choice is for the Microsoft software. My experience is professional and when backup is part of the OS, you always know it's there which adds value. However on the current RTM system, it doesn't work as well as I like it. It seems to loop forever on formatting the the first DVD.When rejected,all backups are done to the system SSD. I wish I could really use it. Renee I have two SSD of same model and capacity and did the system image using Windows 7 without a problem. However, I have not tried to use the backed-up disk to see if it works. I will do that one of these days.
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December 16th, 2009 3:22am

Hi,There is a known issue with DVD - R media for certain vendors. While the DVD team is working on the resolution, we suggest you to use DVD -RW media.Thanks,S.Soudamini.This posting is provided "AS IS" without warranties and confers no rights.
December 18th, 2009 9:30pm

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