Disk fragmentation and True Image

[kelly]

If you restore a volume using True Image, do you think the restored volume will need to be defragmented? In other words, does the fragmentation carry over when a drive is imaged and restored?
- tony

[Seth]

Tony,

To the best of my knowledge, an image is a bit for bit copy. Therefore, the defragmentation would still exist.

Side Note:

This is a perfect example of the problems I'm having with new posts. Although I've logged in many times in the last day, this post didn't appear in New Posts. In fact how I end up finding some new posts, is by clicking on a user (in this case Pete) only to find that they are looking at a new post which didn't appear in my New Posts.

[kelly]

Let me share my recent experience. The machine I was working on that was taking so long to boot - I made a True Image of the drive and restored the image to a new drive. So at this point both drives should be identical.

I started to defrag the original drive as it was hanging onto my XP machine. It showed a lot of fragmentation. btw: I couldn't defrag it, after about 3% it was getting write errors, so I don't know how valid this experience was.

Now - I then defrag the new imaged drive in customer's machine. It didn't show up to be nearly as fragmented at the original.

fwiw - td

[Seth]

The long boot was likely caused by a physical problem such as the read/write head, or the platters.

As far as the fragmentation goes, someone with more experience using Acronis will have to pipe in. I would think though, that it would depend on the type of image that you created. Example: Exact bit for bit image including free space or not.

[jflan]

If you restore a volume using True Image, do you think the restored volume will need to be defragmented? In other words, does the fragmentation carry over when a drive is imaged and restored?
- tony

I usually defrag before taking an image and never really thought about checking for fragmentation in the new image.

One way to check this would be to use a 3rd party defragger such as PerfectDisk.
PD has an analyze function where you could easily analyze your image for fragmentation.
I think that PD offers a free trial period.

JF

[mommalina]

Hi, there, jflan!.... :welcome: to our forum! Glad to have you aboard. Thanks for your input on checking for fragmentation in a new image .... :clap2:

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Lina

[Pi rules]

Welcome, jflan! :welcome:

[Guest110]

Hello jflan..
when your poor brain is tired of bits and bytes ram and hard drives.. pop into the non tech section and have a breather.....

[jflan]

Thanks all for the warm welcome!

[Guest110]

Thanks all for the warm welcome!

Its what KH is famous for.;) . well it will be when word spreads:D

[mylanta]

I too always defragment before making image files and have on a few occasions checked new image file for several things and found image file is defragged although my defragging is automatic with Diskeeper or O&O.
I would bet the other drive had problmes and if it does, the defragmenting would not hold.

[kelly]

I think a back up before the defrag is the way to go. Take the situation I had recently. I didn't know for sure that the hard drive was on it's way out. If I had tried a defrag before doing an image, the drive may have failed before I was able to capture the image.

Also - when I get some time (like that's gonna happen) it would be nice to experiment to see if doing an image/restore actually helps with the fragmentation. I'm betting that a resored image is not as fragmented as the original. I don't think TI makes a bit-by-bit image. I think it simply captures the files structure and copies the files. Then when it gets restored, the file have no fragmentation. Won't know until I run an experiment.
- td