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I have workstations I deploy regularly that all have the same configuration. The problem I'm encountering is; the primary Windows 7 x64 drive is a standard 120gb SSD with a NTFS. The secondary development drive is a 4tb GPT dynamic disc.

The primary OS backup with Acronis is 9.4gb. The secondary 4tb drive consumes 3.6xTB with 60gb free. I would like to create one primary complete backup that would that would image both the OS and the development drive at once, but I'm running in to compatibility problems with the secondary disk.

What is the best and fastest way to resolve this problem? And what software would be my best solution to image both OS and Development drives in to one image? Acronis can't handle the dynamic disk even in the Premium edition, even though it says it can.

Stefan Lasiewski
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DevNULL
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    `Acronis can't handle the dynamic disk even in the Premium edition, even though it says it can` - It seems that this would be a reason to call Acronis and open a support ticket. Have you done that? – joeqwerty Mar 17 '14 at 14:14
  • Why does the 2nd drive consume anything for an image deployment? Are you preloading a ton of data/VMs/etc. on that 2nd drive? – TheCleaner Mar 17 '14 at 14:51
  • On the second drive we're loading a several Visual Studio versions, and a TON of libraries and software – DevNULL Mar 17 '14 at 14:53
  • Well, if your preferred software can't handle dynamic disks, is using basic disks a possibility? – HopelessN00b Mar 17 '14 at 15:26

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I would use something like Windows Deploymemt Services or MDT or SCCM for deploying machines. But I suppose Acronis will work.

Image only the OS drive.

For the secondary drive, copy it all to a fileserver (where disk size limits are less important since you can use RAID etc).

Write a small batch or powershell script to format the second drive and copy the content from the fileserver. Or if using MDT set it up as a step of the deployment.

With this method your images stay small, and you can update files without making a new image. And since you are doing the copying from inside windows you can use whatever partitioning and filesystem windows supports, even spanned or stripped disks if the content eventually exceeds 4TB.

Grant
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