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bbarry
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 8:44 pm |
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welcoming committee |
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Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2012 12:47 am Posts: 2431 Location: North Central Arkansas
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Just thinking out loud.......
I create system images of my C: drive onto several external hard drives, using both Macrium Reflect and Acronis True Image. I know that both of these programs also allow me to create a clone of my C: drive, but I have never done this. I always thought cloning was used primarily when moving to a new drive, versus restoring my current drive.
So should I also be cloning my C: drive even though I don't plan on replacing it? Or if/when I decide to replace it with a newer drive, is that the time to clone?
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jaylach
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 8:58 pm |
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Resident Geekazoid Administrator |
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:09 am Posts: 9482 Location: The state of confusion; I just use Wyoming for mail.
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Don't bother cloning unless you are replacing a drive.
Actually it may even be quicker to not bother cloning even if replacing a drive. You could basically do the same thing by just creating an image before replacing the drive and then restoring the image.
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bbarry
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 9:01 pm |
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welcoming committee |
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Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2012 12:47 am Posts: 2431 Location: North Central Arkansas
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What you say makes sense. So why do they talk up cloning?
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jaylach
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 9:22 pm |
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Resident Geekazoid Administrator |
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:09 am Posts: 9482 Location: The state of confusion; I just use Wyoming for mail.
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Goods question!
To be honest I may have been off base saying that just creating a new image and restoring to the new drive might be faster since I didn't really think it through.
Making an image and restoring to the new drive has more steps. Make the image, boot to restore media then restore the image to the new drive. With cloning it does the same thing in one step instead of three. Of course, in both cases, there is the added step of swapping the drives.
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bbarry
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 8:39 am |
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welcoming committee |
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Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2012 12:47 am Posts: 2431 Location: North Central Arkansas
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@ Pete and Acadia - What about you? Do you ever have reason to clone a drive? If so, under what situation do you find cloning better than imaging?
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Acadia
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 10:25 am |
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welcoming committee |
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Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2012 6:45 am Posts: 1073
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bbarry wrote: @ Pete and Acadia - What about you? Do you ever have reason to clone a drive? If so, under what situation do you find cloning better than imaging? Hi, bbarry. No, I have never cloned anything, never had to. Must confess my ignorance on that one, don't know anything about cloning. Acadia
_________________ The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution. -- Emerson
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dvair
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 11:08 am |
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welcoming committee |
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Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2012 2:39 am Posts: 680 Location: Johnstown, NY
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I only time I use cloning is when I buy a new bigger drive to use in a system. Then I clone the old drive onto the new one so all may data is on the new one. Swap out the two drives and I am ready to go.
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bbarry
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 2:24 pm |
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welcoming committee |
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Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2012 12:47 am Posts: 2431 Location: North Central Arkansas
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dvair wrote: I only time I use cloning is when I buy a new bigger drive to use in a system. Then I clone the old drive onto the new one so all may data is on the new one. Swap out the two drives and I am ready to go. That's good to know. Now if you have partitions on the old drive, is this configuration carried over to the new drive? And then what happens to the extra unallocated space on the new bigger drive? Does it remain just that.....unallocated?
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Doddie
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 2:36 pm |
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welcoming committee |
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Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2013 4:13 pm Posts: 1740 Location: Dunedin, Alba.
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Not entirely sure about this, Jay will likely remember better?
If memory serves me right imaging software wasn't always all that great at doing a true image of the boot partition containing the Operating System, back then to get the right 1's and 0's in place for the operating system to boot after a catastrophic failure the only way to have a bootable system following a 'restore' was if you had a 'clone' of the boot drive.
I'm thinking back to the days on 95/XP, imaging software has come a long way since then, i suspect 'cloning' is no longer as relevant as it once was in that imaging now does the same thing.
Jay, thoughts?
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jaylach
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 2:56 pm |
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Resident Geekazoid Administrator |
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:09 am Posts: 9482 Location: The state of confusion; I just use Wyoming for mail.
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Not really any thoughts other than today's imaging software should handle everything fine.
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dvair
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 5:37 pm |
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welcoming committee |
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Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2012 2:39 am Posts: 680 Location: Johnstown, NY
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bbarry wrote: That's good to know. Now if you have partitions on the old drive, is this configuration carried over to the new drive? And then what happens to the extra unallocated space on the new bigger drive? Does it remain just that.....unallocated? Most of the software has different settings you can use for partition sizing. Some settings are to keep partitions as is and you free space at the end to do with what you want(unallocated). Some resize the partition in proportion of the space available on the new drive, say you have a 200 gig drive with 2-100 partitions. You clone to a 500 drive using proprtional sizing, you will end up with 2-250's. Most also have a manual settings where you can choose the sizes, I could take the above senario and create a 200 and a 300 and have no unallocated free space on the new drive. A lot of the hard drive(SSD) manufactures use a version of Acronis as their software so if you have used this in the past it is really easy to do. The other nice thing about cloning is that should something happen to you new drive while you are setting up, you haven't lost any data as the original drive remains unchanged by the process and you can just reclone the new drive and try again.
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bbarry
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 7:57 pm |
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welcoming committee |
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Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2012 12:47 am Posts: 2431 Location: North Central Arkansas
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Thank, David. You just gave me a good education on cloning and some good reasons for doing such. I never cloned before, so I didn't know about such settings as proportional sizing vs keeping partitions as is.
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dvair
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 8:13 pm |
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welcoming committee |
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Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2012 2:39 am Posts: 680 Location: Johnstown, NY
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Today's software make it pretty easy. Most walk you through step by step and nothing is done until the end and you confirm that is what you want.
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bbarry
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 8:27 pm |
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welcoming committee |
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Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2012 12:47 am Posts: 2431 Location: North Central Arkansas
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Yea, I agree on today's software being pretty helpful. I already use both Macrium Reflect and Acronis True Image for my system imaging, and I notice both of them provide cloning capability. I think EaseUS also provides a free imaging & cloning program....I already use and like their Partition Master.
So I may just have to try cloning.....thanks again.
Edit: I forgot to ask.....what program do you use for cloning?
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dvair
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 10:11 pm |
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welcoming committee |
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Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2012 2:39 am Posts: 680 Location: Johnstown, NY
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I use the stuff provided with my SSDs, it is a version of Acronis.
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jaylach
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2018 10:21 pm |
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Resident Geekazoid Administrator |
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:09 am Posts: 9482 Location: The state of confusion; I just use Wyoming for mail.
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dvair wrote: I use the stuff provided with my SSDs, it is a version of Acronis. I can't remember what I used when I got my M.2 drive but it was either what was included or Acronis.
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Peter2150
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2018 6:53 pm |
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welcoming committee |
Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2012 5:52 pm Posts: 970
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I have never ever cloned either. Only point of it is to have a spare bootable drive.
i do everything with images. That is how the master taught me.
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