Slow Windows 7 system image backup

[idata]

Installed an 520 180GB SSD as c: boot disk, used the Intel provided clone tool to move previoius boot disk from a 320GB HD with about 90GB used. Everything worked great and my system is a lot faster.

Now attempting to perform a Windows 7 system image backup, and it has been runnning for about two hours. This took about 15 minues with the HD. Copying image to an external eSATA Seagate.

I have run the SSD Toolbox optimizer. All diagnostics, health, etc. are OK.

Is this normal? Any suggestions?

[idata]

The Win7 backup finally finished after three hours.

I downloaded the Macrium Reflect Professional Edition trial, and the same backup took 15 minutes.

[idata]

I've seen slow performance with Windows Backup as well. I think it has something to do with the way they use the shadow copy functionality to manage space on the target drive. Having enough space for the backup may not be good enough - you may need way more space to get normal performance.