2009-09-23 06:16:40 UTC
That's an interesting question. I thought about offering this option but came to the conclusion that it doesn't make much sense. The VSS option internally uses the unused area of the partition for updates/writes during the backup operation. So backing up this area with VSS in my opinion does not make much sense as you do not have control what data are contained on the backup in the unused blocks. I think the only use case for a "raw backup" is to make a snapshot before you try to repair an inconsistent file system or recover lost/accidently deleted data. Making a VSS however prevents you doing this because your data might be overridden. Perhaps you can explain a bit more why you want do a raw copy in your case.
