[rcthompson]

Good luck committing an image of your hard drive into git or hg.

Seriously, though, the limitations of git and mercurial with respect to large files probably prevent them from having to deal with this kind of thing.

[pclouds]

https://github.com/apenwarr/bup can help split a big image into many smaller pieces.

[Triumvark]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchive