Solved Clone

Haydon · Mar 23, 2022

Some folks make a full backup every week. I wonder why not make a clone every week. And if in the middle of the week, the computer won't boot, use the clone instead of the recovery USB stick.

Particularly for folks that use a separate data disk so that C: only contains OS and apps, make a fresh clone of C: on a 500GB SSD every week.

I may be completely off base, but why not?

Ghot · Mar 23, 2022

Haydon said:
Some folks make a full backup every week. I wonder why not make a clone every week. And if in the middle of the week, the computer won't boot, use the clone instead of the recovery USB stick.

Particularly for folks that use a separate data disk so that C: only contains OS and apps, make a fresh clone of C: on a 500GB SSD every week.

I may be completely off base, but why not?

Making a clone is much slower than making a backup.

Fabler2 · Mar 23, 2022

For me it's because I run laptops and it would be impractical to do so, plus as @Ghot says, imaging is faster and you can keep more than one image on an external.

idgat · Mar 23, 2022

Forums on the internet are littered with the tears of users as a result of failed cloning exercises.

Imaging much more stable and reliable.

NavyLCDR · Mar 23, 2022

idgat said:
Forums on the internet are littered with the tears of users as a result of failed cloning exercises.

Imaging much more stable and reliable.

I agree.

CountMike · Mar 23, 2022

A clone takes space of whole disk including empty space, everything. A backup backs up only data from disk making it much smaller and even smaller when it uses compression (like MR does). Disk will be usable for anything else up to it's capacity.

Haydon · Mar 23, 2022

Thanks for the comments, folks, here are my thoughts.

Quoting from a parallel thread "Cloning takes more than twice the time than imaging." The time difference does not sound too outrageous.

Quoted from this thread "Imaging much more stable and reliable." That of course, is pretty serious. It would mean to test run a clone every time it is made, adding time to the clone method.

On the other hand, a clone would preserve BitLocker, whereas image+restore would not, adding time to the image+restore method for BitLocker reconfiguration.

Quoted from this thread "A clone takes space of whole disk" Yeah, that's why I was thinking of buying a dedicated SSD, a small 500GB would do, they are not really that expensive these days.

Edit: Is MR the best tool for making clones? I hope this honest question does not cause a religious warfare. Just the facts, ma'am!

Haydon · Mar 23, 2022

I got hold of an SSD, made a clone with MR, but it won't boot. I think it has to do with BitLocker rather than MR, I use a BitLocker configuration that requires a USB key and a PIN, which complicates things. I made limited attempts to make the clone boot, but then stopped, too afraid of making a mistake with BitLocker.

So, the conventional wisdom prevails, clone

and image

I will mark this thread 'Solved', thanks to all who responded!

jvickers · Mar 23, 2022

I agree that the full backup is faster. My 1TB SSD backs up in just over 8 minutes to an external SSD.

badrobot · Mar 23, 2022

Haydon said:
Thanks for the comments, folks, here are my thoughts.

Quoting from a parallel thread "Cloning takes more than twice the time than imaging." The time difference does not sound too outrageous.

Quoted from this thread "Imaging much more stable and reliable." That of course, is pretty serious. It would mean to test run a clone every time it is made, adding time to the clone method.

On the other hand, a clone would preserve BitLocker, whereas image+restore would not, adding time to the image+restore method for BitLocker reconfiguration.

Quoted from this thread "A clone takes space of whole disk" Yeah, that's why I was thinking of buying a dedicated SSD, a small 500GB would do, they are not really that expensive these days.

Edit: Is MR the best tool for making clones? I hope this honest question does not cause a religious warfare. Just the facts, ma'am!

Cloning takes more than twice the time than imaging. 5x longer from my recent test.
I just did this test last weekend on my thread here. Done on the same PC.

You can't stack up a clone backup like image back up. Unless you want to stack up partitions or physical drives.
With imaging, you have an option to keep quarterly version of your OS neatly on a folder and restore them faster.

glasskuter · Mar 23, 2022

I fail to understand why anyone would want to handle backups using the clone function. All the replies give all the positive reasons for using backup, but I fail to see one positive comment about a clone. There are proper circumstances for using a clone, backup NOT being one of them.

NavyLCDR · Mar 23, 2022

glasskuter said:
I fail to understand why anyone would want to handle backups using the clone function. All the replies give all the positive reasons for using backup, but I fail to see one positive comment about a clone. There are proper circumstances for using a clone, backup NOT being one of them.

I can think of one, but it really isn't a backup solution. For critical systems that absolutely cannot suffer downtime due to a drive failure, then use Raid 1 so that if one drive fails, you have an immediate and uninterrupted backup which also allows for hot swapping out the failed drive.

cereberus · Mar 23, 2022

CountMike said:
A clone takes space of whole disk including empty space, everything. A backup backs up only data from disk making it much smaller and even smaller when it uses compression (like MR does). Disk will be usable for anything else up to it's capacity.

This is not actually true. Clones from Reflect use smart sector backup by default. In fact you do not even have to use full capacity of target drive. You are correct inasmuch as a clone is not compressed like an image

cereberus · Mar 23, 2022

glasskuter said:
I fail to understand why anyone would want to handle backups using the clone function. All the replies give all the positive reasons for using backup, but I fail to see one positive comment about a clone. There are proper circumstances for using a clone, backup NOT being one of them.

The important point to understand the primary function of a clone versus image.

The primary function of a clone is to create a drive that can be swapped immediately if the existing drive fails.

An image's primary function is to restore a backup to the existing drive e.g. due to a bad update.

Of course, you can use an image to clone to a new drive but it needs intermediate steps.

Also, you can have multiple images on a drive but only one clone (that is not strictly true either as you can clone multiple drives to a single large drive but complicated to do and you end up with multiple efi partitions).

I use cloning to clone an existing OS to a vhd quite often as well.

So each has their use, depending on your objective.

Hollywood · Mar 23, 2022

glasskuter said:
I fail to understand why anyone would want to handle backups using the clone function. All the replies give all the positive reasons for using backup, but I fail to see one positive comment about a clone. There are proper circumstances for using a clone, backup NOT being one of them.

I think some paid software has copy protection that marks something somewhere on one of the sectors on the installed disk OR maybe reads some serial number of the disk. I don't know 100%, but some programs no longer run if restored from a regular backup, but they do when restored from and Disk Image (also called a CloneImage, or Sector By Sector) backup.

badrobot · Mar 23, 2022

During the pre-Macrium era, cloning is my best friend. That was when I first joined the Eight Forums.
And I have this Startech cloning device that does not require a PC to make clones. It makes a clone directly from one drive to another. I still have it up to now but haven't been using it for years. It can clone any OS or just make a duplicate of a data drive.

CountMike · Mar 23, 2022

badrobot said:
During the pre-Macrium era, cloning is my best friend. That was when I first joined the Eight Forums.
And I have this Startech cloning device that does not require a PC to make clones. It makes a clone directly from one drive to another. I still have it up to now but haven't been using it for years. It can clone any OS or just make a duplicate of a data drive.

View attachment 25226

But you have to pull drives out.

badrobot · Mar 23, 2022

CountMike said:
But you have to pull drives out.

That wasn't a problem for me at the time because I have pullout drive drawers on my PC which is still alive right now as my secondary machine. It is now running on my unsupported 4790K CPU (though I have W11 on it... 😁).
I also don't like to multi-boot at the time. I just pull out the rest of the drives and push in the drive that I want to boot up.

CountMike · Mar 23, 2022

badrobot said:
That wasn't a problem for me at the time because I have pullout drive drawers on my PC which is still alive right now as my secondary machine.

View attachment 25227

Still best way to keep disks in, I had a 3 bay for 3,5" but took it out to save space as now I have only one 3.5". Two 2.5" SSDs are still in removable trey which takes very little space. Now I back up to that 3.5" HDD and than copy .mrimg file to USB 3.1 dock to another HDD. nether of those jobs makes enough strain on the system so I can keep on working without interruption.

badrobot · Mar 23, 2022

CountMike said:
Still best way to keep disks in, I had a 3 bay for 3,5" but took it out to save space as now I have only one 3.5". Two 2.5" SSDs are still in removable trey which takes very little space. Now I back up to that 3.5" HDD and than copy .mrimg file to USB 3.1 dock to another HDD. nether of those jobs makes enough strain on the system so I can keep on working without interruption.

Back in the day, updating or clean installing a preview OS while my main OS drive is also plugged in gives me a lot of boot up issue. And this was the easiest solution I came up with (no need to open the case) and got used to it.

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