Windows Backup / Drive Storage Space

[remononaz]

I have a 250GB partition set up on a 1.5TBdrive where I keep my Windows backup information (using the Win 7 Backup and Restore tool).

Windows is saying that my partition is full. Yesterday I went to properties on the partition and it showed it as nearly full (3GB remaining). I added up all the folders in the partition and their total size is only about half the partition's capacity. I downloaded WinDirStat, ran the clean up tools, and it showed the total storage in the partition to be about 110GB. Windows still showed the partition nearly full.

Today, after backup ran last night but did not complete because it ran out of space, WinDirStat shows the partition as 97% full. It also shows that WindowsImageBackup is taking 93.8% of the partition's capacity.

I have two questions:

1. Why are the partition properties wildly different between WinDirStat and Windows?

2. Why would an incremental backup, with no major system changes having been made this week, require over 100GB of data?

Make it three questions: What SYSTEM back up software do you recommend if the problem is that the Win 7 Backup is just a poor tool?

 

[remononaz]

There does not seem to be a way to attach a file, but I have a screen image with Widows Explorer showing the partition to be nearly full at 240GB and WinDirStat showing the same partition having 107GB. Can anyone explain this?

 

[inzone]

You can go into disk management and right click on the drive and extend the partition.
I do think the Windows 7 backup is not very good and with my system I'm not getting any full message because I don't have a seperate partition but the last few weeks it won't complete the backup and it seems to get stuck about 3/4 of the way and I just stop it. Restarting it doesn't help either. I'm thinking of trying this;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832629007
$59.99

I think there are less expensive versions of backup software but a lot of the cheaper ones had bad feedback. Granted there are only two feedbacks but at least they were good ones.

 

[remononaz]

Yes, no sweat enlarging the partition. I have Paragon Disk Manager 11. But every time Windows runs backup it eats 100GB of space. That's insane. The whole 1.5TB drive would be filled in a couple of months. Besides, I don't understand why WinDirSys is only showing half of what Windows Explorer shows in the partition. It makes no sense.