Solved Macrium Full image size is much larger than space used?


wiganken

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Dell laptop - Windows 11 Home 24H2, Build 26100.3775
Macrium Reflect Home v8.1.8325

It has 3 partitions and all are selected for backup but only the C: drive has significant data on it. The other two partitions are the EFI and Recovery (about 1 GB total space) but these are basically empty and so they are not significant as regards the image size.
The C: drive shows 75.9 GB ‘Used’ with 160.0 GB ‘Free’.
When I run a FULL MR backup the uncompressed image size is 84.9 GB.

Question - Bearing in mind the EFI and Recovery partitions can only account for 1 GB, is it normal for the image to be 9 GB larger than the ‘Used’ data? Maybe it is how the MR algorithm works?

Just wondering.

Thanks in advance.
 

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No, it is not normal! Have you changed any default settings in MR? Maybe you disk is corrupted. Can you run Disk Cleanup as admin and see if there is a previous Windows install?
 

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    Windows 11 Pro 25H2 26200.8524
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    Acemagic LX15PRO
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    System 3

    Acer Swift SF114-34 laptop
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    SSD Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD 2TB (an upgrade)
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro 23H2 22631.2506
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    HP Mini 210-1090NR PC (bought in late 2009!)
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Thank you but I think I caused the issue. See: -
I was in error when I wrote “When I run a FULL MR backup the uncompressed image size is 84.9 GB”.
Reasoning: -
When creating the image I used the default ‘Medium’ compression level so the image was smaller than the data selected. I believe the final image finishes up at 67% of the ‘Selected’ data size. This means that I should have been multiplying the image size by 1.4925 to arrive at the original ‘Selected’ data size, but mistakenly I had been using a larger scaling factor.
I have now corrected this and the difference is not as large but there is still a difference: -
Full backup ‘Selected’ data = 76.44 GB (including all Partitions).
Compressed image = 48.67 GB
48.67 x 1.4925 = 72.63 GB – This is 3.81 GB less than the data selected so the problem remains but see answer below.

Answer - I created the problem by using a multiplying factor at all. There was no need to do so. I will stop doing this and just accept the ‘Selected’ data size is what it is and the compressed image size is what it is. By not doing the multiplying the ’problem’ disappears.
 
Last edited:

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    GMKtec K11
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS
    Memory
    32GB DDR5 SO-DIMM
    Graphics Card(s)
    Integrated AMD Radeon 780M (4.00 GHz)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Benq 2250HM
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    1 TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Home
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED 14" Laptop - UX3405CA-QL192W
    CPU
    Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 - 255H processor
    Memory
    16 GB LPDDR5 SDRAM
    Graphics card(s)
    Intel Arc 140T onboard graphics
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1200 (16:10 WUXGA resolution) OLED Touchscreen
    Hard Drives
    1TB SSD

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