Windows Vista Complete Back up

The back up utility estimated that I would use between 21 and 37 DVD-R discs
to back up my 160gb hard drive. I am currently on disc 39! I am concerned
that if I continue, I will be just wasting more and more DVD-R discs!

I can answer your specific question but I am beginning to believe that Vista
has a counting error. It seems strange that, on occasions, I have seen
errors where, when dealing in percentages, Vista has indicated that 120% has
been recorded. How to you get 120% when to complete the procedure it should
read 120%. In Windows Mail I have also had a total of 52 emails recorded
when only 40 were actually available. It simply registered 52 of 40. I think
Vista needs to go back to school!

Windows complete backup is one application I will 'not' use. There is no
form of compression with this utility so, as you have found out, if you have
a 160gb drive you must either have enough DVDs to span it or a partition
that too is 160gb in size. in my opinion Complete backup is a useless waste
of space.

I would much prefer to use third party imaging software such as Acronis True
Image. As an example: My Vista partition is 60GB, if I use Windows Complete
Backup I need 60gb of space. If I use acronis on 'normal' compression I need
around 10gb of space. The comparisons speak for themselves. Acronis is only
copying the data on the drive, Windows Complete backup is copy the data plus
every megabyte of empty space. The space empty space is not being used, so
why copy it? It is total lunacy. If your system went down and you had to
re-install using the complete backup DVDs it would take hours. I dare say
you could completely re-install your system from the Vista DVD along with
all your programs in less time than it would take to re-install from
Complete Backup.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows - Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

"DanRoyal" <DanRoyal@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C737A666-B9E8-4A0E-8249-91B397712FBD@microsoft.com...
> The back up utility estimated that I would use between 21 and 37 DVD-R
> discs
> to back up my 160gb hard drive. I am currently on disc 39! I am concerned
> that if I continue, I will be just wasting more and more DVD-R discs!

Some confusion here! Complete PC Backup is an image backup as is Acronis
and Ghost and does compress the image - it's lowest compression ratio is 3
to 1 - actual depends of type of data.

I think DanRoyal is indicating a 160 GB HD and not the actual space "in
use".

You can "rougly" estimate the compression ratio by noting the size of the
backup indicated by Complete PC Backup and divide by number of required
disks.

Keep in mind that by default the entire PC is included (All drives) unless
there are manual exclusions. I personally have not seen documentation that
the bakup includes "free space". As an example backup states the backup size
for a 250 GB will be 35 gb (actual in use) - if "free space" were included
backup size would be 250 GB





"DanRoyal" <DanRoyal@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C737A666-B9E8-4A0E-8249-91B397712FBD@microsoft.com...
> The back up utility estimated that I would use between 21 and 37 DVD-R
> discs
> to back up my 160gb hard drive. I am currently on disc 39! I am concerned
> that if I continue, I will be just wasting more and more DVD-R discs!

From the Vista Resource Kit: "....Complete PC - Backs up an entire volume to
a vhd disk-image file (compacted to remove empty space),...."

"AJR" <ajrjdr@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:uemayP8nHHA.4872@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Some confusion here! Complete PC Backup is an image backup as is Acronis
> and Ghost and does compress the image - it's lowest compression ratio is 3
> to 1 - actual depends of type of data.
>
> I think DanRoyal is indicating a 160 GB HD and not the actual space "in
> use".
>
> You can "rougly" estimate the compression ratio by noting the size of the
> backup indicated by Complete PC Backup and divide by number of required
> disks.
>
> Keep in mind that by default the entire PC is included (All drives) unless
> there are manual exclusions. I personally have not seen documentation
> that the bakup includes "free space". As an example backup states the
> backup size for a 250 GB will be 35 gb (actual in use) - if "free space"
> were included backup size would be 250 GB
>
>
>
>
>
> "DanRoyal" <DanRoyal@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:C737A666-B9E8-4A0E-8249-91B397712FBD@microsoft.com...
>> The back up utility estimated that I would use between 21 and 37 DVD-R
>> discs
>> to back up my 160gb hard drive. I am currently on disc 39! I am concerned
>> that if I continue, I will be just wasting more and more DVD-R discs!
>
>

On Sat, 26 May 2007 03:36:02 -0700, DanRoyal
<DanRoyal@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>The back up utility estimated that I would use between 21 and 37 DVD-R discs
>to back up my 160gb hard drive. I am currently on disc 39! I am concerned
>that if I continue, I will be just wasting more and more DVD-R discs!


As far as I'm concerned, CDs, or even DVDs, are completely unsuitable
for complete backups of large hard drives. Dealing with so many disks
is not only a pain, but an error-prone process. Moreover, after only a
few iterations of backup, you will have spent as much on the DVDs as
you would have if you had bought an external hard drive instead.

My view is that external hard drives are far and away the best backup
media these days.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

Amen to that!!

"Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@this.is.am.invalid.domain> wrote in message
news:5m8h5358jbotj67m7m3kq87b0cs66b444d@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 26 May 2007 03:36:02 -0700, DanRoyal
> <DanRoyal@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
>>The back up utility estimated that I would use between 21 and 37 DVD-R
>>discs
>>to back up my 160gb hard drive. I am currently on disc 39! I am concerned
>>that if I continue, I will be just wasting more and more DVD-R discs!
>
>
> As far as I'm concerned, CDs, or even DVDs, are completely unsuitable
> for complete backups of large hard drives. Dealing with so many disks
> is not only a pain, but an error-prone process. Moreover, after only a
> few iterations of backup, you will have spent as much on the DVDs as
> you would have if you had bought an external hard drive instead.
>
> My view is that external hard drives are far and away the best backup
> media these days.
>
> --
> Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
> Please Reply to the Newsgroup

"John Barnett MVP" wrote

<snip>

> I would much prefer to use third party imaging software such as Acronis
> True Image. As an example: My Vista partition is 60GB, if I use Windows
> Complete Backup I need 60gb of space.

John, I use Complete PC Backup to backup to an external drive. It only uses
the amount of space corresponding to the data used, not the full amount
allocated to the partition. In one system the Vista partition, for example,
is 150GB, with used space at 16GB. The Complete PC Backup size for that
partition is 12GB.

> If I use acronis on 'normal' compression I need around 10gb of space. The
> comparisons speak for themselves. Acronis is only copying the data on the
> drive, Windows Complete backup is copy the data plus every megabyte of
> empty space. The space empty space is not being used, so why copy it? It
> is total lunacy. If your system went down and you had to re-install using
> the complete backup DVDs it would take hours. I dare say you could
> completely re-install your system from the Vista DVD along with all your
> programs in less time than it would take to re-install from Complete
> Backup.

<snip>


--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

"DanRoyal" wrote
> The back up utility estimated that I would use between 21 and 37 DVD-R
> discs
> to back up my 160gb hard drive. I am currently on disc 39! I am concerned
> that if I continue, I will be just wasting more and more DVD-R discs!

Wow, you get the award for patience and willingness to spend the money to
backup to that many write once DVDs. Why aren't you using an external hard
drive connected by USB, Firewire or eSata?

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

Hi Rock,

The copy of complete PC backup on my system can't be working correctly then
because I tried to backup my 60GB hard drive with Vista on and it requested
14 DVDs to do the job. My whole Vista installation with applications is only
16GB so why ask for 14 DVDs? The same happened when I tried to copy to my
second partition it wiped everything and copied the full 60GB was drive 1 to
drive 2.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows - Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

"Rock" <Rock@nospam.net> wrote in message
news:OiIBj$AoHHA.208@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> "John Barnett MVP" wrote
>
> <snip>
>
>> I would much prefer to use third party imaging software such as Acronis
>> True Image. As an example: My Vista partition is 60GB, if I use Windows
>> Complete Backup I need 60gb of space.
>
> John, I use Complete PC Backup to backup to an external drive. It only
> uses the amount of space corresponding to the data used, not the full
> amount allocated to the partition. In one system the Vista partition, for
> example, is 150GB, with used space at 16GB. The Complete PC Backup size
> for that partition is 12GB.
>
>> If I use acronis on 'normal' compression I need around 10gb of space. The
>> comparisons speak for themselves. Acronis is only copying the data on the
>> drive, Windows Complete backup is copy the data plus every megabyte of
>> empty space. The space empty space is not being used, so why copy it? It
>> is total lunacy. If your system went down and you had to re-install using
>> the complete backup DVDs it would take hours. I dare say you could
>> completely re-install your system from the Vista DVD along with all your
>> programs in less time than it would take to re-install from Complete
>> Backup.
>
> <snip>
>
>
> --
> Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

"John Barnett MVP" wrote
> Hi Rock,
>
> The copy of complete PC backup on my system can't be working correctly
> then because I tried to backup my 60GB hard drive with Vista on and it
> requested 14 DVDs to do the job. My whole Vista installation with
> applications is only 16GB so why ask for 14 DVDs? The same happened when I
> tried to copy to my second partition it wiped everything and copied the
> full 60GB was drive 1 to drive 2.

> "Rock" wrote
>> "John Barnett MVP" wrote
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> I would much prefer to use third party imaging software such as Acronis
>>> True Image. As an example: My Vista partition is 60GB, if I use Windows
>>> Complete Backup I need 60gb of space.
>>
>> John, I use Complete PC Backup to backup to an external drive. It only
>> uses the amount of space corresponding to the data used, not the full
>> amount allocated to the partition. In one system the Vista partition,
>> for example, is 150GB, with used space at 16GB. The Complete PC Backup
>> size for that partition is 12GB.
>>
>>> If I use acronis on 'normal' compression I need around 10gb of space.
>>> The comparisons speak for themselves. Acronis is only copying the data
>>> on the drive, Windows Complete backup is copy the data plus every
>>> megabyte of empty space. The space empty space is not being used, so why
>>> copy it? It is total lunacy. If your system went down and you had to
>>> re-install using the complete backup DVDs it would take hours. I dare
>>> say you could completely re-install your system from the Vista DVD along
>>> with all your programs in less time than it would take to re-install
>>> from Complete Backup.
>>
>> <snip>

That is strange, John. I haven't tried backing up to DVD or another
internal drive. I do image this system on a weekly basis with Complete PC
Backup to an external drive. As I said, the size of the backup for each
partition is based on the amount of used space.

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]