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Thread ID: 139136 2015-03-16 17:17:00 HDD Cloning bk T (215) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
1396520 2015-03-16 17:17:00 How often do you clone a HDD?

I am cloning a 500GB HDD using Active@ via USB 2 and the estimated time is ~11 hours - yes, it's ~eleven hours!

Is it practical in real life to clone a HDD (>500GB) unless it's absolutely necessary?
bk T (215)
1396521 2015-03-16 18:18:00 I clone my 256GB SSD over the LAN to our NAS once a week and it takes less than an hour. pcuser42 (130)
1396522 2015-03-16 18:31:00 What software program do you use? bk T (215)
1396523 2015-03-16 18:44:00 I don't clone my HDD but I do create an image once a month of both mine and my Wife's desktops, takes about an hour and a half for each using Active@ over my lan to the server in the garage. Both images are about 70Gb as I only do the C drive. D drive is backed up with syncback free instead. gary67 (56)
1396524 2015-03-16 18:58:00 I clone my 256GB SSD over the LAN to our NAS once a week and it takes less than an hour. Bet ya dont :p I suspect you image the drive.

Theres a big difference between Cloning and Imaging a Drive.

Cloning makes an identical copy of the drive to another drive so the clone can be plugged in and it boots exactly like the original.

Imaging makes a file that can then be put onto another drive, copied to someplace else, even USB drives.

For cloning these days I use AOMEI Partition Assistant from the bootable CD you can make, it has a CLONING (or disk copy as they call it) option and that makes an exact replica of the original drive to another drive. It has the option to copy sector for sector, meaning if you have a 500GB drive with 250GB used it would copy the whole 500GB, or the option to copy only the data used:

6297

For IMAGING I use active@disk Image. With Imaging you can store several Images of different Computers on the One Drive.
Cloning is a copy of the original and can only have 1 on the drive.
wainuitech (129)
1396525 2015-03-16 19:07:00 Your speed problem is USB 2.0, it caps out at something like 40MBps to a hard drive and is usually a lot less to older flash drives.
If you can find a faster option it'll make a huge difference, eSATA, USB 3.0, GigE network, etc
dugimodo (138)
1396526 2015-03-16 19:19:00 I don't.
I have an image from when the PC was first setup, apart from that I just backup to external drives, the files I want to keep - accounts, pics, etc.

The whole idea of an image - apart from use in case of disaster and you lose the O/S altogether, is to have an clean, fresh unbloated image.
If you image on a regular basis, you're just imaging the bloat and clutter.

On occasion I have made a new image - when there have been a lot of chnages - but I image with the original first, install all the new stuff, then image again. So it remains uncluttered and clean.
pctek (84)
1396527 2015-03-16 19:36:00 What software program do you use?Reflect. I suspect wainuitech is right though :p pcuser42 (130)
1396528 2015-03-16 20:25:00 bk T, are you cloning or imaging? Did it actually take 11 hrs or did you stop it at the estimate? Sometimes the estimate gets revised down as the copy proceeds.

Yep, that USB 2 is a real bottleneck. Got a photographer's system here that has over 200GB of photos so imaging that system of 318GB total takes over 5 hrs.

Cloning that disk to a new one installed in the system box took about 1.5 hrs. BIG difference.

Big disks and USB 2 just don't go hand in hand, really, which is a worry for my photographer!
linw (53)
1396529 2015-03-16 20:49:00 USB2 is just fine
USB3 is better but may not be any faster, depending on actual HD write speed

people are confusing interface speed with actuall HD write speed. They arnt the same.
Perhaps the USB socket you are plugging into is actually USB1, now that will be slow.
1101 (13337)
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