First Acronis backup

[metallicafan]

Well I bought Acronis True Image 9.0. I did a fresh reformat of my computer and created a full HD image after installing Windows and SP2 and all Microsoft patches. There was 9.5GB of space used on my HD after that. The image was compressed by deafult to 6.xGB. Then a few days later I restored the image to the HD. After windows rebooted everything seems fine but only 7.5GB of HD space is used. Why? I lost 2 GB somewhere. Should I be worried? Thanks.

 

[Stellar]

Interesting. I use TrueImage and am curious about this myself.

Shoot an email to their support team and let us know what they reply.

I would say as long as you put your machine through its daily paces and everything functions correctly software-wise then you should be OK. 9.5GB seems like an awful lot of space for a typical XP SP2 install to be using.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Maybe it removes the pagefile and hibernation file before it takes the image? That sounds like a good idea, from a programming standpoint.

 

[metallicafan]

yeah i thought 9.5GB for Windows, SP2, and all the patches seemed like a lot as well. But it was a fresh reformat and reinstall of windows. I'll send them an email and ask them about it. I'll let you know what they say.

 

[metallicafan]

Please note that Acronis True Image 9.0 does not back up swap file information
(win386.swp under Windows 98/Me and pagefile.sys under Windows NT/2000/XP) and
hiberfil.sys (a file that keeps RAM contents when the computer goes into
hibernation). This reduces image size and speeds up image creation and
restoration.
So after restoration the size of data is reduced.

If you have any questions concerning our software, please feel free to contact
us at your earliest convenience with the details and we will do our best to help
you as soon as possible.

Thank you.
--
Best regards,
Alexey Yakasov

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well that is what Acronis replyed to me. I decided to recover the image again to see if it was consistant. This time after the image was restored i had 8.8GB worth of HD space used. WTF!! So I tried it again. This resulted in 9.7GB of space being used but then after a few seconds in Windows to suddenly jumped to 8.8GB just like the second restore.

How reliable is compressing a bunch of information and then uncompressing it. Does it always work? Note that Windows has worked flawless everytime I have restored but the HD space flutuations just worry me thats all. Anyone think I would be better off doing a 1:1 backup? Thanks.

 

[Stellar]

Good call Mage

 

[drizzt81]

I would have agreed with UM as well.

How reliable is compressing a bunch of information and then uncompressing it. Does it always work? Note that Windows has worked flawless everytime I have restored but the HD space flutuations just worry me thats all. Anyone think I would be better off doing a 1:1 backup? Thanks.

Well, I would assume that they are performing lossless compression of the data (think RAR or ZIP), since it would be rather amusing otherwise.

Them not copying swap/ hibernation file is also a good idea, since those two are concerned with current running state of the PC moreso than with the computer's 'saved state'. The swapfile is just like memory, from a cold reboot, there should be no information stored in it. The hibernation file is used to store the RAM information to the HDD in order to 'quickly' resume the opteration of the PC. However, it should be written fresh every time your PC goes into hibernation mode, since it will be an image of the memory contents.

Now for the reliability of backup-restore. Depending on the bit-error-rate (BER) of the backup device as well as the channel that you are copying it across and the error detection and recovery mechanism employed, the restored image of the drive will be more or less likely to be an exact replica of the original.
With this in mind, let's think of the "impact" of a single-bit error on a 1:1 copy vs. compressed image. With the 1:1 copy, the program would also replicate bits that carry "no information" (i.e. they are compressable), so that it is possible that an undetected and uncorrected bit error (UUBE) occurs in such a spot. If the compression is perfect, i.e. every bit carries information, then every UUBE will destroy some information which may or may not be critical to your computer's operation: A changed bit in the MBR may render it unbootable, a changed bit in a driver file that windows does not use will never affect you.

NOTE: I am using "information" here in information-theoretic sense.

I hope this post confused you, if not let me know and I shall try again

 

[metallicafan]

Thanks for the info. I can understand that easy enough. Im still really not sure why the flucutaions in HD usage occur though. I never set my PC to "sleep" or turn off the hard disks in the Power Management properites or anything like that, plus I created the image right after a reboot. There shouldnt have been a hibernation file. How big does a swap file get? Do you other True Image users experience any or this? Do you guys use the built in compression? Thanks.

 

[drizzt81]

Thanks for the info. I can understand that easy enough. Im still really not sure why the flucutaions in HD usage occur though. I never set my PC to "sleep" or turn off the hard disks in the Power Management properites or anything like that, plus I created the image right after a reboot. There shouldnt have been a hibernation file. How big does a swap file get? Do you other True Image users experience any or this? Do you guys use the built in compression? Thanks.

That one, I am not 100% sure on either, however:
Unless you have manually specified a Windows Swapfile size (System Properties-> Advanced -> Performance -> Advanced -> Virtual Memory -> Change) the WinXP will manage the size for you, which means that it is dynamically allocated depending on the requirements from your system. WinXP uses a Rule-of-Thumb, which I claim is outdated by now, allocating a minimum size of (1.5 x System RAM) and a maximum size of (3 x System RAM). Due to the dynamic nature, the file's size may change during runtime as well as system lifetime. Take a look at the hidden, protected OS file c:\pagefile.sys. It's size is representative of the swapfile size.

Equivalently, the hiberfil.sys is the hibernation file, which is allocated to be (1 x System RAM). On my work desktop, which has never hibernated in its life either, I have a hibernation file. I believe that windows allocates this during the first boot, or even setup. Unless you remove the hibernation service or whatever it is called, this file is likely to be on your HDD.

While I have used trueimage (8.0) a couple of times to back up my Laptops, I have yet to restore any of the images/ pay attention to the used space on the HDD, sorry. Yes, I use the built-in compression.

 

[metallicafan]

hmmm. . . Thats interesting. Now I went to folder options and checked show hidden folders and files, but I can't find any pagefile.sys or hiberfil.sys. I even did a search and searched in hidden files and folders, but no luck. Am I forgetting something or maybe you can point out the exact path of the hibernation file. I emailed Acronis about this again but I havent heard back from them yet. I guess I am not all that worried about it, I am just more curious than anything.

 

[LhasaCM]

By default, the pagefile.sys and hiberfile.sys files are at the root level of your OS drive (i.e., C:\pagefile.sys), but they are "hidden" a little differently than most of the other system files.

Under Folder Options, did you also uncheck "Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)" ? If not, then those files wouldn't show up at all.

 

[metallicafan]

ahhh . . . Thanks. I knew I was forgetting something. I forgot to check Show protected OS files. I can now see the hiberfil.sys on my computer at work, although I dont see a pagefile.sys. I will check my personal PC when I get home. So the hiberfil.sys just takes up a GB, assuming a GB of RAM is in the machine, whether you like it or not huh? Good thing storage is cheap these days! So when you put your computer to standby, Windows just dumps everything in RAM to that hiberfil.sys and then goes to standby?

Arcronis sent me back an email telling me to upgrade to the latest build of True Image, so I will try that this weekend and do some testing. Thanks everyone for the help. I'll post back later with results.

 

[LhasaCM]

So the hiberfil.sys just takes up a GB, assuming a GB of RAM is in the machine, whether you like it or not huh?

You have the option to disable hibernation support from the Power Options control panel.

So when you put your computer to standby, Windows just dumps everything in RAM to that hiberfil.sys and then goes to standby?

It's not for standby mode but for "hibernation" mode. When hibernating, Windows saves RAM content to disk, and completely powers down. Then, when you power your PC back on, rather than going through the boot sequence it reads that information back into RAM, and you return to your desktop exactly how you left it. In standby, the monitor, hard drive(s) are powered down but not your RAM.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/evaluation/features/fastresume.mspx

 

[metallicafan]

yep got home and checked on my PC, and I have a 1.5GB pagefile and no hiberfil. I went to the control panel and it is not enabled on my PC which is fine. So I guess the hiberfil is not causeing the flucuations. When does a pagefile get created? Like after i restore an image does Windows create up upon the first boot automatically I'm assuimg?

 

[skadrum]

Is there any reason you are concerned with those 2 files? Windows will recreate them irregardless.

 

[drizzt81]

Is there any reason you are concerned with those 2 files? Windows will recreate them irregardless.

No, he is concerned with the drive space fluctuations that come up when restoring his image. We were speculating that this is due to the Page/ Hibernation file.

If that is not the case, it would be good to know where/ what is not being replicated.

On another note, maybe the prefetch directory is not being copied?

 

[metallicafan]

yeah, Im not worried about the files, Windows manages them just fine. I was just wondering when Windows creates a page file? Like when I restore the image there will be no page file since Acronis smartly doesnt include it in the hard drive image. I'm gussing that Windows recreates a page file right away during the boot?

Anyway I'm gonna try and do a fresh reformat of the HD and a clean install of Windows tonight or tommorrow. Then I will download the latest update for Acronis and make another image and try it. I'll let you know the results.

On another note, maybe the prefetch directory is not being copied?

If you could expand on this I could check. While I am familiar with page files, I dont know what the prefetch directory is, or if I did I have forgotten. What is it and where do I find it?