Solved Clone or image second drive

Bikeit · Feb 7, 2024

Im going to replace a second internal SSD a 1TB M.2 drive to a larger 2 TB M.2 drive, The drive is used to keep all my work items on and doesnt hold windows. im going to use Macrium Reflect, am i better to choose the clone option or image?

AndreTen · Feb 7, 2024

Image, definitely. Should be a part of your regular backup. Just restore it to the new drive.

Flashorn · Feb 7, 2024

If it's simply storage, just copy what's on the initial drive to the new drive and keep the
original drive intact. You now have a clone without having to clone. This way, you can
keep copying new articles on the "clone" drive and have your backup at the same time.

If it were the Windows drive then, I would image or clone but again, even on the Windows
drive , if you were to go to a bigger drive, you would simply clone the Windows drive and keep
the original Windows drive as a cloned drive for emergencies.

I have a 8TB external drive to backup what is on the storage drive so that, if anything is lost
on the storage drive, I can copy back to the storage drive from the external.

BamaInArk · Feb 7, 2024

I copy the files using an external method, power down, install the replacement drive and carry on. I guess Cloning would work as well. Although I wonder if imaging then restoring that image might actually be quicker. Copying multi GBs or even TBs of data between drives can take a while.

Flashorn · Feb 7, 2024

BamaInArk said:
Copying multi GBs or even TBs of data between drives can take a while

It would depend on the drive(s) and format. The CPU might have something to say about it as well.

starchase · Feb 9, 2024

The only real reason to use Clone is if you are going to use that drive to boot, as it is just like a regular disk that has had the operating system installed and set up and includes all the programs and settings you were using. You can't do that with an image unless you temporarily mount it. So cloning and imaging are there for different needs. That's the simplified difference in the 2 options. There are no doubt some special considerations, but normally this is the deal. In my opinion.

Ghot · Feb 9, 2024

Bikeit said:
Im going to replace a second internal SSD a 1TB M.2 drive to a larger 2 TB M.2 drive, The drive is used to keep all my work items on and doesnt hold windows. im going to use Macrium Reflect, am i better to choose the clone option or image?

The very top backup option in Macrium will image the entire disk.

glasskuter · Feb 10, 2024

Image...Quick, easy, dependable. No need to initialize or format new drive. Macrium does everything in the restore process to a new, bare drive.You can extend the partition to use all the space within the Macrium restore or once restored, use disk management to extend the partition into the unallocated space.

Scott · Feb 11, 2024

glasskuter said:
Image...Quick, easy, dependable. No need to initialize or format new drive. Macrium does everything in the restore process to a new, bare drive.You can extend the partition to use all the space within the Macrium restore or once restored, use disk management to extend the partition into the unallocated space.

Macrium's clone feature will do the exact same thing with a bare drive.

I recently replaced all my old storage drives with gen4 NVMe drives. Creating and restoring 500+GB images files was out of the question so I cloned instead. Worked perfect.