Bootcamp backup: Winclone vs Disk Utility

Hi Tex,

while Disk Utility can backup and restore Windows partitions that uses the FAT32 file system, it can only backup but NOT restore partitions with NTFS file system.

Simply because OSX can only read from but NOT write to NTFS partitions without the help of third-party apps like Paragons NTFS for Mac.

Personally I use WinClone and had no problem so far.
Because my Windows is NTFS I haven't used Disk Utility.

Regards

Stefan

Tex-Twil wrote:
Hi Stefan,
ok that's good to know 🙂

I'm using the ntfs-3g driver + MacFUSE so I have a NTFS write support. Would a restore of a image created with Disk Utility work in that case ?

Since I haven't tried, I really don't know.

As far as Winclone is concerned, I canceled the clone image because it was really too slow. After around 4 hours, only 50% of a 100GB partition were made. Does your cloning also take so much time ?

I only have a 40GB partition which I backup as an image file onto my OSX partition.
Takes some time, but I haven't measured it since I usually leave my Mac alone then.
Also depending on the settings you use with WinClone the backup can take longer.

Second, Winclone doesn't seem to compress the data at all. The image was as big as the partition itself, am I right ?

Depends what settings you use:
For example: when you checked "Prepare for restoring to another partition" WinClone does not compress.

With my backup I uncheck this and the resulting image file of the 40GB is around 10GB.

You should also look at the Manual and the FAQ of WinClone.

Thanks,
regards Tex

You're welcome

Stefan

I just used WinClone on my Win7 partition and it worked well. It can be slow but monitor the log file. It all depends on how much disk space you have and how much you have on the Xp partition.