Backup size estimate

[Danja]

I'm about to get a 2TB hard drive for backup and I'm planning to do a system image via Windows backup software. Right now I only have a single 1TB in my system but I'm thinking that I may add another TB soon. How is the compression for a system image? Will an image of 2 1TB disks take up the entire 2TB drive or will I have room for a movie partition?

Thanks.

 

[Digital Cro-Magnon]

I don't think that two 1TB drives will fill one 2TB drive for backup unless the whole of both 1TB drives are full and no compression is used. But if you are worried, you can always get an inexpensive NAS with three 2TB drives in a RAID 5 setup, thereby giving you 4TB of usable and redundant space.

 

[Demon10000]

Compression is never cut and dry. It depends on what type of files you are compressing. The only thing that you can be guaranteed is that the 2 1TB images should fit on your 2 TB drive (assuming they're not full).