Norton Ghost (Cloning vs Imaging)

[Merrvyn Tay]

Dear Friends,

1) My system runs on Winxp. Recently, I installed Norton Ghost 2003 on my
system.

2) I thoroughly enjoyed the friendliness of using Norton Ghost to do
"cloning" and "imaging".
However, I do not really understand the conceptual difference between the
two.

Can any kind soul please enlighten me on the differentiation between Norton
Ghost's "cloning" and "imaging"?

Thanks alot,
Merrvyn

 

[Robert Michon]

Essentially there is no difference. With the definition of imaging in this
case being to make an image(exact copy) of the drive at a certain point in
time, and the definition of cloning being to make an exact copy, I would say
they are exactly the same.

I do however think you MAY be able to use imaging when referring to imaging
a single partition on a hard drive, whereas you may use cloning when imaging
or cloning and entire hard drive, no matter how many partitions it contains.

 

[I'm Dan]

2) I thoroughly enjoyed the friendliness of using Norton Ghost
to do "cloning" and "imaging".
However, I do not really understand the conceptual difference
between the two.

Can any kind soul please enlighten me on the differentiation
between Norton Ghost's "cloning" and "imaging"?

A clone is a *partition* that is an exact copy of the source partition --
boot sector, directories, and all files -- copied sector-by-sector.

An image is a *file* containing a compressed snapshot of the source
partition, which can later be extracted to a blank area of hard disk space
to recreate a clone of the original.

Think of it like zipfiles, just on a grander scale. You probably know that
an entire directories (er, "folders") of files can be compressed into a
single zipfile, and you can later use WinZip or similar to unzip everything
to restore all the encapsulated files and even the directory structure. The
zipfile is like an image -- it's not an exact duplicate of the original
files, but it contains within it the means to restore exact duplicates.

So how do you decide which to create with Ghost? Well, you generally do not
need to create a clone/copy unless you are ready to use it now. For
example, if you're replacing your hard disk, you want a clone now, so if you
make an image you'd just have to extract it immediately anyway. In
contrast, an image is more appropriate if you are just making a backup to
store away in case you might need it later. Then when you need it, you
extract it to restore the enclosed partition on a hard disk. An image is
much smaller -- a 20GB partition that is half full might fit in a 5GB image
file, but would take up 20GB if you cloned it. An image can also be saved
on CDR or DVD-R (remember, it's a file), but a clone of the partition
cannot.

 

[Merrvyn Tay]

Perfect and easy-to-understand explanation.
Thanks Dan...!

Merrvyn



Answer:

A clone is a *partition* that is an exact copy of the source partition --
boot sector, directories, and all files -- copied sector-by-sector.

An image is a *file* containing a compressed snapshot of the source
partition, which can later be extracted to a blank area of hard disk space
to recreate a clone of the original.

Think of it like zipfiles, just on a grander scale. You probably know that
an entire directories (er, "folders") of files can be compressed into a
single zipfile, and you can later use WinZip or similar to unzip everything
to restore all the encapsulated files and even the directory structure. The
zipfile is like an image -- it's not an exact duplicate of the original
files, but it contains within it the means to restore exact duplicates.

So how do you decide which to create with Ghost? Well, you generally do not
need to create a clone/copy unless you are ready to use it now. For
example, if you're replacing your hard disk, you want a clone now, so if you
make an image you'd just have to extract it immediately anyway. In
contrast, an image is more appropriate if you are just making a backup to
store away in case you might need it later. Then when you need it, you
extract it to restore the enclosed partition on a hard disk. An image is
much smaller -- a 20GB partition that is half full might fit in a 5GB image
file, but would take up 20GB if you cloned it. An image can also be saved
on CDR or DVD-R (remember, it's a file), but a clone of the partition
cannot.