Disk versus file copying

[Howard Schwartz]

I have regularly been cautioned that programs that copy a partition sector
by sector, like partition-saving and Ghost, can have restore errors if you
try to restore to a disk with a few bad sectors, or a different partition
size or geometry.

In principle you are protected from this if you use file copying, like
XXclone instead which does not care much about the physical condition
and layout of a partition. I expect file by file copying or compressing
is slower in general than partition of disk copying, sector by sector.

Anyone to set me straight on these issues?

 

[Art]

I have regularly been cautioned that programs that copy a partition sector
by sector, like partition-saving and Ghost, can have restore errors if you
try to restore to a disk with a few bad sectors, or a different partition
size or geometry.

In principle you are protected from this if you use file copying, like
XXclone instead which does not care much about the physical condition
and layout of a partition. I expect file by file copying or compressing
is slower in general than partition of disk copying, sector by sector.

Anyone to set me straight on these issues?

It's true that cloners such as XXCOPY and XXCLONE which use the file
system have such advantages. I can't imagine though that they're
slower than sector cloners. For routine backup and restore, the file
system cloners are extremely fast since only files that require
updating are copied. For example, I can usually backup to a cloned
drive in just a minute or two, depending on how long it's been since
the last backup. And I can Restore my drive just about as fast. Your
mileage will vary though. I just use 3 or 4 or 5 gigs and I know that
many users with tons of multimedia files use many times that. But
relatively speaking, routine file re-cloning is quite fast. It might
even be faster when doing the initial clone.

Art

http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg

 

[Michael Salem]

I have regularly been cautioned that programs that copy a partition sector
by sector, like partition-saving and Ghost, can have restore errors if you
try to restore to a disk with a few bad sectors, or a different partition
size or geometry.

In principle you are protected from this if you use file copying, like
XXclone instead which does not care much about the physical condition
and layout of a partition. I expect file by file copying or compressing
is slower in general than partition of disk copying, sector by sector.

Anyone to set me straight on these issues?

Most partition backup programs are "intelligent" and know about file
systems, and can restore to other disc formats without problems. I don't
know about restoring to a disc showing bad sectors; nobody would
normally want to do that though. The partition backers-up I know will
allow files to be restored selectively. In general, I would expect fewer
problems booting from a cloned disc than a file-by-file backup.

The situation that you warn about does occur when you use a partition
backer to backup a file system it doesn't "understand"; for example,
Acronis True Image Server will back up a Netware partition, but may have
trouble restoring to a different drive.

HTH,