Using dd(1) could be a viable solution, gzip/bzip2 would likely be capable of compressing the file considerably.. but it would take time.
If you have a 30GB partition, with 5GB used.. the compressed image would likely be smaller then 5GB, because most of it would be 0's.
If you do plan to use dd(1), make sure you use a larger block size.. and raw device nodes.. otherwise it'll be unbelievably slow.
Good luck.
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