Windows 7 System Image vs Acronis for SSDs

C

ckett

n00b
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Nov 29, 2009
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Hello,

I just discovered that Windows 7 comes with a System Image restore capability. Here are my questions to those who have used this with Solid State Drives.

Is Windows 7 restoring a System Image to an SSD with the correct partition alignment?

I plan to use an SSD as my OS/programs drive with one partition. I will use an external USB Western Digital Passport as a backup drive for the SSD. If I do a system image copy to the backup drive, then restore the SSD drive will the SSD have proper partition alignment?

I mistakenly purchased Acronis True Image 2010 as I may not need if Windows 7 works for this.

Thanks!
 
The system restore is great but if you install anything to another drive, the "System Image" feature makes a backup of them as well so the backup becomes huge after installing a few games!

During the backup process you are asked which drives you want to backup, the ones you have used already for installing are already ticked and greyed out.
So the drive selection only allows you to add more drives, you cant leave out your games drive for example.

I now use Acronis again.
 
What's the problem with Acronis ?

Isn't it always preserving alligment you had on your previous drive?
 
Hmm,

A little confused yet on this. So here is a more basic explanation of what I want to do.

1) Install Windows 7 and all programs on an Intel SSD. One partition for the whole drive.

2) Create a System Image backup of the SSD to an external Western Digital USB hardrive.

3) Be able to restore the system image backup to the Intel SSD.

My questions:

1) How should I format the Western Digital drive? I think they come pre-formatted in FAT32. I would format them to NTFS, but what cluster size?

2) When I restore the system image from the Western Digital back to the Intel SSD, will the 1 partition be properly aligned without me having to do anything to align them?

Thanks!!
 
What you're trying to do should be very straight forward. The file system on the backup drive should be irrelevant, its only going to hold the backup image file, nothing more, but since FAT32 files are limited to 4GB you should just format the backup drive as NTFS.
 
Acronis True Image will allow you to backup any partition and then make incremental backups (these are stored as incremental files and are not merged with the original full backup). You can automate the incremental backup process. With the latest version you can restore individual files instead of fully restoring the last backup.

Acronis also comes with "Try and Decide" which allows you to enter a VM state where you can change system files, apply updates, or install a program and then commit the changes if everything is ok, or reject the changes. However, exiting Try and Decide requires a system restart. Try and Decide requires that you create the optional Acronis secure backup partition, but this partition can be password protected and will make it easier to find & store all of your backups. All of the backups can also be secured with encryption.

Edit: it looks like Windows System Image also has an incremental backups. I don't know if Windows System Image has any password or encryption though. But if you're only looking to do a one-time backup once in a while, Windows System Image might suite your needs.

This weekend Acronis True Image Home 2010 is on sale for $24 from amazon and newegg. link to amazon
 
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Windows System Image has an incremental backup. fyi
 
Michaelius said:
What's the problem with Acronis ?

Isn't it always preserving alligment you had on your previous drive?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if it's totally fixed in the 2010 version, but on older versions if you tried to restore a partition to an SSD, it would overwrite the partition table and create a new partition with an, I think, 63 sector offset as opposed to the SSD-friendly Win7 default of 2048.

Acronis TI Home 2010 will preserve the partition offset if you do a full disk clone (I have tried this personally) but I'm not sure if that applies if you just want to restore one partition (for example if your existing installation was on a large mechanical HD with several other data partitions, and you just wanted to move C: over to an SSD)
 
I just yesterday was testing ATI 2010, it does preserve the alignment of the partitions when restoring single partitions.
 
night_2004 said:
I just yesterday was testing ATI 2010, it does preserve the alignment of the partitions when restoring single partitions.
Click to expand...

Excellent. Could you post a screenshot of your drives info?

within windows, type msinfo32. When the info program runs, navigate to Components > Storage > DISKS

Thanks,
Jason
 
Hello.
I want to ask you some questions about ATI 2010 / SSD compatibility / Try and Decide option
My OS is Windows 7 / 32 bit. I have a new SSD, OCZ Vertex2 and 2 more HDD's
The SSD is for the C partition, and the other 2 HDD's are only for storage. When i used to have C on HDD, i never had problems with the option Try and Decide, but now, with the SSD as OS partition, almost everytime when i test a program, i enable Try and Decide and can test whatever i want, with no fear of viruses or whatever.
But after i reboot, i have there 2 options : Continue in the Mode and Stop and Discard changes ( something like that )
When i press Stop and Discard changes,Windows starts up, etc .... Mozilla Firefox 5, my default browser is messed up.
A lot of changes / options / settings from Mozilla, are up side down. I don't understand how comes, but it's true.
Every other programs / settings are okay after i use Try and Decide, except Mozilla Firefox.
I never used System Restore from Windows 7, and i don't wanna use it. I wish i could restore my backup image, often, but i heard is not recommended for SSD ( life time - shorter, etc )
I mention that i didn't created the Acronis Secure Zone. Could that be the reason ?
But when i used the HDD as C partition, some time before, i didn't have those problems, and i never created Acronis Secure Zone.
Could be, maybe, some compatibility between ATI Home 2010 and SSD ?
Please give me some tips, i really need / like / use a lot / Acronis, i don't wanna change this program.
PS : i tried today some other similar programs, like Shadow Defender, etc
But after i restart the computer / discard changes, only Mozilla Firefox is with problems.
Do you have any idea how could i fix that ? Some people adviced me to use MozBackup, and after i restart and Mozilla is " destroyed" i could use MozBackup.
But i thought i find a way to fix my problem.
Thanks in advance.
 
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