Clone Disk or System Image for porting an existing system to a new drive - What's your preference, and why?

[britechguy]

I think I know how this is going to play out, but thought it was worth asking anyway.

Back in "the old days" virtually everyone simply cloned the existing system disk to its replacement, then if the replacement was larger, did whatever was necessary either during the clone process (if the cloning software supported it) or after to repartition the new, larger drive as they saw fit.

It seems that it's now far more popular to take a full system image with the backup software of your choosing, and then restoring that image on to the replacement disk.

Just curious who's using which technique, and why. Particularly if you mix and match 'em based on specific circumstances.

 

[Porthos]

It seems that it's now far more popular to take a full system image with the backup software of your choosing, and then restoring that image on to the replacement disk.

That is my choice IF I can get a successful Image. Some image software will choke on failing disks, ex. Macrium.

 

[britechguy]

@Porthos,

I used the image-then-restore technique today on a machine where an old spinner was being replaced by an NVme SSD. Luckily, the old drive did not appear to be on its last legs or near to it.

 

[frase]

I generally create a system image with Macrium, then write the image never fails or it can with certain failure errors. Though this may be due to the original drives partition structure or corruption; which can be verified with CHKDSK. I make sure the original drive is fine using Crystalmethinfo

It has errored with myself sometimes, though always found a way around it particularly VSS errors.

 

[carmen617]

I buy Samsung or WD drives. If I use a Samsung drive, I use their cloning software, which will do the resizing automatically for me. The only problem is it can be balky if the drive is failing. If I use a WD drive, I use their included Acronis software, which also does the resizing for me automatically. The Acronis software has much better functionality than the Samsung software (although the Samsung software is is much simpler to use and faster), for example it can image a drive that is unable to boot into Windows, so I go that route if I think the drive is in failure.

 

[HCHTech]

If the drive is not showing any signs of failure, we take a data backup first, then clone to the new drive. We only use Samsung SSDs (well, 99% of the time) and use their cloning software. Simple, fast & predictable.

If the drive is failing, then getting the data is the most important task. We do whatever is necessary to save the data (up to and including sending the drive out for recovery). If we get the data, then we can try to clone the drive if the customer insists, but much prefer to do a fresh install with a new drive, restore the data and then get as much of the software as we can by reinstalling.

 

[Diggs]

I usually work with a backup image and if the drive won't image then I'll clone the drive with ddrescue.

 

[xrobwx71]

Doesn't cloning copy the good and the bad? I always use Image restore like with Veeam Agent for MS Windows

For instance, if Veeam comes upon a bad block, it will try to repair, if Veeam can't repair, it marks it as bad and skips it.

 

[Diggs]

Doesn't cloning copy the good and the bad?

I suppose it depends on the software. ddrescue clones a drive with heavy error correction (reads failing sectors forward then backwards making each block of bad data smaller and smaller and can be set to try as many passes as I want). I've never been able to make an image if there are drive errors.

if Veeam can't repair, it marks it as bad and skips it.

Then what? If Veeam marks it bad will it image? How much data is lost?

 

[britechguy]

Doesn't cloning copy the good and the bad?

No. Over the decades I've used a number of cloners that will not clone over anything already marked as a bad sector and you can set it to not clone anything it runs into and can't read after some set number of tries.

I have definitely had this work in the past, and as to what gets lost, that depends on whether there are any sectors not currently marked as bad that cannot get cloned over. You might loose one chunk of one file or you could have something that's virtually useless as a clone because there's just too much that "goes missing" because it could not be read during the cloning process.

I've never had any issue cloning a HDD that had a bad sector or some small number of bad sectors. But when the drive is badly compromised, I've had clones fail (which really isn't surprising, and which is why if I suspect a drive in this condition, and the data is important to the owner of said drive, I suggest data recovery services immediately).

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Prefer the hardware approach to duplicating drives...

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I did run across this drive cloning software, had to migrate a 2,5 ATA SSD to another but using a USB to SATA bridge for the destination drive, and this worked fine.

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[xrobwx71]

I suppose it depends on the software. ddrescue clones a drive with heavy error correction (reads failing sectors forward then backwards making each block of bad data smaller and smaller and can be set to try as many passes as I want). I've never been able to make an image if there are drive errors.


Then what? If Veeam marks it bad will it image? How much data is lost?

No, it will image without the bad block (if chosen). There are various settings that can be selected such as ignore/image everything.