image GBs

Hello My desktop and laptop have just about the same properties in that the hard drives are both 80 GB, the make is the same and they both use Win xp,sp3. The content on the hard drive is the same and there is only one partiton. When I image my desktop system to my usb drive, I see in My Comp, 6 GB. That is with Acronis. When I do a system image of my laptop , I see 28 Gb -that is with Macrium. Does the difference sound right when both C: drives have the same amount of material on them? Could the different imaging programs account for such a difference or am I doing something wrong? Thank you

Acronis does compression, I don't believe Macrium does though I'm not sure. If true then that could definitely cause the difference you see. Is the free space on both drives the same? Have you ever cleaned up the accumulated junk on your hard drives, like temp files, IE Temporary Internet Files (can be several Gbs), etc? That can also make a big difference in the backup size.

I routinely cleanup the areas you mention and free space is the same. I believe I can use compression with Macrium using the advanced feature. Would you recommend it, that is, is it as safe?

Yes, it's safe. Try it and see if that reduces the backup size.