What about partitions and unused space on a hard drive?

My internal HD has partitions. When I make an image of it on an external USB HD are the partitions also imaged? My internal HD has 140 GB capacity so is there any point in using an external memory that's bigger than this? If I got say a 500GB USB connected external HD and imaged my 140GB internal HD on it how would the extra 360GB be used assuming I didn't move any of the partitions?

The imaging software will show all the partitions on the drive you wish to image. When you do an image you will then have a choice to image them all or select which partitions you wish to image. As pointed out previously only the used data will be imaged and that also will have some amount of compression to it.

If you imaged your 140Gb drive to a 500Gb drive then the 500Gb drive will not change but you will then have an image file stored on it giving the drive less available space.

I see. Yes I've got it. If the image is made with the same partitions as my internal HD has, what could I use the remaining space for in the external USB-connected HD?

The mind boggles..

No, come on apelike. What I meant was what's the point of getting a USB pluggable external HD that's a lot bigger than my internal HD if I don't move the partitions when I make an image of the HD? Presumably that would leave a lot of space on the external HD that's outside all the partitions. What would someone typically use it for?

You know people use external drives to store data on it if there's no space on internal memory or because of mobility. Sometimes people use it also as administrative tool (f.e. you can load OS image and work on it at someones PC). You can also organise your personal stuff on external drive and plug it to computer if needed (matter of security?) - you got many purposes of using that memory. Not sure if i understood question right (my english isn't so good )

OK Raf 199. Say the size of my HD is 150GB for example. I was thinking of getting a much bigger, say 500GB USB-connected HD for backing up my data when I do anything that might otherwise damage the data on the internal HD. Things such as I just used with chumpy's "plugable" post. Are you telling me that if I make an image of my internal HD using the USB-pluggable HD and if I don't move the partitions then I can use the rest of the external HD for anything such as you refer to in addition to having the image on it? If so then I can understand that. But my question was this:- if I only want the USB-HD for making the image, shouldn't I save money and buy a 150GB one? In theory. In practice I might well buy a HD that's much bigger than 150GB but is it essential in this case? In theory. I just want to learn about this subject and make sure I know the reason for everything.

Are you telling me that if I make an image of my internal HD using the USB-pluggable HD and if I don't move the partitions then I can use the rest of the external HD for anything such as you refer to in addition to having the image on it?

If u make image of partition (f.e. to backup system) then yes ... like @apelike wrote - u got FILE instead of blocked whole drive like you got in RAID case.

If so then I can understand that. But my question was this:- if I only want the USB-HD for making the image, shouldn't I save money and buy a 150GB one? In theory. In practice I might well buy a HD that's much bigger than 150GB but is it essential in this case? In theory. I just want to learn about this subject and make sure I know the reason for everything.

Not sure if that the right place for such question (ask yourself?) ... everything depends what u need. I metioned examples of options u got already .

btw. Read about back-uping system and mirroring HDD if u want to learn something more. I think it's better to have extra free space just in case than looking for files to delete

I would always buy a larger drive than you need. You might decided to become an avid photographer, download films or copy films/music you have on CD/DVD to your PC. Maybe you will decided to help a friend/family member who has a failing PC and offer to copy their data.

Not only that you probably wont save much money buying a smaller drive. Its not double the size double the price.

I would always buy a larger drive than you need. You might decided to become an avid photographer, download films or copy films/music you have on CD/DVD to your PC. Maybe you will decided to help a friend/family member who has a failing PC and offer to copy their data.

 

Not only that you probably wont save much money buying a smaller drive. Its not double the size double the price.

I think that answer should be enough for you wollyhead . About prices i think for smaller memory u'll pay more per gigabyte than for bigger one. 500 GB external drive is minimum available (if u want to buy new one) or extra large USB sticks (but more expensive).

OK guys. Yes I agree. That's enough understanding even for me. The reason I asked what now seem like stupid questions is that at first I was thinking of getting a flash memory stick for holding the image and their price does go up with size. So I only wanted one big enough for the image. I didn't even consider using the stick for anything in addition. Then I noticed the USB-connected HDs were better value. But my thinking was stuck in the groove where the memory media was only just big enough for the image. Your explanations dragged me into reality. Thanks everyone.

Flash isn't a great medium for backup anyway, if you plan to stick it on a shelf for 12 months you might find that the image has become corrupt in that time. It wouldn't matter so much if one point of data changes in a jpeg, but in a compressed HD image, 1 bit changing would render the entire thing invalid.