The biggest obsticle I have is getting access to the server as it is being managed by a third party thousands of miles away. If I could get to the LAN I would image it in less time than it took for us to build this thread.
Instead of sending someone a Laptop why not just send them a HD or two? Then you can image to the HD locally and have them ship it back. Clean and simple.
Here are some test imaging stats using a 10GB partition 95% 0's. All tests are done using FTK Imager. Will expand when I have more time.
Compression = 9, 10GB's of 0's, P4 3.0GHz/2GB RAM, Process .493 MB/SEC, total time = 5.77 hours.
Compression = 6, Virtually the same results
Compression = 3 Virtually the same results
Com = 0 Process 2.8MB/sec, ETA 1 hr 2 min.
For some reason I thought the compression would drastically increase the process transfer rate…
Anyway, Thanks for the posts!
Instead of sending someone a Laptop why not just send them a HD or two? Then you can image to the HD locally and have them ship it back. Clean and simple.
The laptop scenario accounts for the fact you may not have physical access to the server or they wont give you another client host to work from remotely. Also, I can preload with all my tools and be in my bubble with an audit trail at the end of imaging when I get the laptop back.
More and more we are going to find scenarios with virtualization and no physical box access or the ability to plug in even an external drive. If you only have network access, a box with your build, local to the server with some tool to collect physical or logical data is a nice solution. So you have think "outside the box" <-Get it! I be here all the week.
Compression and encryption require processing power therefore more time.
I ended up sending the hosting facility a USB hard drive with FTK Imager. With a remote connection to the server I imaged the local hard drive to the usb hard drive with encryption. Thanks for all your help!!
Why not mail an external drive to the location and attach to the server? Then you can perform the imaging.