Question : Estimating Ghost Image File size

how can i tell how large a Ghost image file will be?

will it always be smaller than the drive being imaged?
is there a way to estimate its size before imaging to file?

using ghost32 8.2 (from the legacy option when booting on Ghost 10.0)

Answer : Estimating Ghost Image File size

For normal compression (the default) it's about 1/2 of the USED space of the source partition size.  So if you have a 40gb partition, with 22 gb used, then your backup image will be approximately 11 gb.