Part of the Storage management glossary:

What is a disk image?

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A disk image is a copy of the entire contents of a storage device, such as a hard drive, DVD, or CD. The disk image represents the content exactly as it is on the original storage device, including both data and structure information. A disk image of a hard drive may be saved as a virtual hard disk (VHD).

Uses of disk images include:

  • Burning CDs and DVDs.
  • System backup.
  • Disk cloning.
  • Computer forensics.
  • Data recovery.
  • Creating a portable version of the user's home system for travel.
  • Distribution of operating systems as a LiveCD.

Learn More About IT:
> Wikipedia has an entry for disk image.
> Wise Geek answers the question 'What is a disk image?'

This was last updated in July 2009
Posted by: Margaret Rouse

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  • COLD (Computer Output to Laser Disk)

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  • Clonezilla

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Glossaries

  • Storage management

    - Terms related to data storage management, including definitions about enterprise storage and words and phrases about storage infrastructure, storage capacity and hierarchical storage management (HSM).

  • Virtualization

    - Terms related to virtualization, including definitions about virtualization technologies and words and phrases about server virtualization, desktop virtualization and storage virtualization.

  • Compliance

    - Terms related to compliance, including regulatory definitions and words and phrases about governance and mitigating IT risk.

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