Vista backup and recovery - full drive backup question

I am using Vista Business x64 on my Lenovo notebook. After getting everything how I want it, I used the full drive (partition) backup option with Windows full drive backup and recovery.

I did it once to a separate partition, and file size was about 18GB. I then did it to DVD, and total files fit on only two single layer DVD's (less than 9.4GB). Did I miss something? Do they use much higher compression for optical disks than for a hard drive?

I also didn't see a way to change the compression level either.

 

I assume so, the process is pretty automated. It used 2 DVD's to make a backup of my entire drive.

 

Most Likely Yes. At least I would think so. Things are usually comressed more when they are ut onto disks, and then need to be extracted when you want to use or see them.

 

So does anyone know if there is a way to increase the compression when saving to hard drive? I don't see the need to waste an extra 9GB+ if I don't need to.

 

I dunno but Windows has volume & file compression ( NTFS compression)... you can try compressing the backed-up file or folder using right-click > Properties > Advanced > Compress contents to save disk space.

Or to compress a whole volume it's right-click the drive > Compress this drive...

So... maybe it just does that automatically for the DVDs... I don't know but that's just my guess.

How much space is used in the source volume(s)?

EDIT: btw I'm not sure if Windows' file/volume compression works for FAT32 volumes... I think probably it doesn't.

 

Original Size was like 35GB, Hard Drive backup size was 18GB, and DVD drive is like 8GB.