mmmmm...not there yet...

mmmmm...no help... I have searched far and wide; there does not seem to be any info on the net that even hints at the answer to this question. They all want to sell you a cloner, but if one ends up with the same or near-same sized image as the data being saved, then one may as well just copy the entire data field to another part of the drive or into another partition.

A cloner clones every byte, but if it is an image, and not actual data bits, AND it can be compressed, how does this translate re: size, at the cache level though?

"A disk image file contains the exact, byte-by-byte copy of a hard drive, partition or logical disk and can be created with various compression levels on the fly without stopping Windows OS and therefore without interrupting your business."

I am using RestoreIT by Farstone...by far the best bit of software I've found for keeping my system on the go. It is a bit tedious on the startup and the shutdown, but I've programmed it that way...to make a restore point in each instance. If it detects something is amiss, it restores the system on the spot upon startup...no more crashes and no more false starts and no more problems. If the system is fine on the shutdown, it will be fine on the startup...just as you left it. And it is integrated with other software that make restore points as well.

So, I'm all set to make an image, and then it struck me, where to put it. I wanted it on a CD, but if I have to use 117+ CD's (less if compressed...but how much less?), that makes no sense at all. Or am I out to lunch on that score. A 117+Gb hard drive, should produce a 117+ drive image. And since a CD only holds 650+Mb, thus the 117+ CD's. Totally unreasonable. I could put it on my slave drive, there is room, but If the computer fails, I'd prefer something that I can get at more easily, namely the CD/DVD drive off a reboot. D-drive would be inaccessible. Nor would putting it into another partition be possible...as it would be on the same drive as the OS...

I've checked out what appear to be the top 5-6 cloners and not one provides more than the guidance of hyping the product as the "best" at what it does, but what does it really do? --offer false hope?