Advice Request How regular should I perform HDD Cloning?

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How often do you clone your HDD


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_CyberGhosT_

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OK, as part of my security routine I regularly clone my HDD.
My question is, how often is a suitable pattern ?
I know that cloning is hard on a drive, repeatedly cloning a drive I imagine is hard on it.
I tend to clone mine every Sunday, weather or not I have added new software. Is this too frequent ?
Should I only clone it when I add new software, or large updates are added to the OS ?
One of my friends even suggested just putting in the other HDD and allowing it to update regularly and just install software to both when I add new software.
What is the MT communities take on cloning and it's best practices ?
Thanks for your input.
PeAcE
 

_CyberGhosT_

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Twice a week ?
or Bi Weekly (twice a month)
I'm confused brother :( lol
You selected Bi Weekly, is that a type error :)
you may need more coffee :)
 
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A

Alkajak

Cloning a HDD is quite taxing on the hardware, so I try to keep it at a minimum, especially with SSDs. In my opinion, as long as you're backing up your files regularly and you've already cloned a baseline of your system with the software you use product keys for, you don't need to clone again. A clone/snapshot is only very useful for not losing licensed products.
 

_CyberGhosT_

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Thanks, I will try only Cloning if I add new licensed software then.
Thanks for your input.
PeAcE
 
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A

Alkajak

A system image is less taxing on a drive than a clone since it only targets some part of your OS, but still taxing. I am currently doing system images of my SSD on a HDD. 1 system image for clean install and 1 system image for baseline software install.
 

shmu26

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A system image is less taxing on a drive than a clone since it only targets some part of your OS, but still taxing. I am currently doing system images of my SSD on a HDD. 1 system image for clean install and 1 system image for baseline software install.
I do an incremental backup of my system partition every day.
Is that a bad idea?
It has 70 gb free, out of 110 gb
 
A

Alkajak

Lifespan of your disk is in the usage. When a disk read/writes data, the disk usage is usually close to 100%. Any time you make a backup, you are using your disk for the duration of your backup at 100%. The less time you spend doing that, the longer your disk will last.

System images are important, but not if you haven't done any significant changes. Backing up your files is a more efficient solution.
 

juhful

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I use to clone quite often, at least once a week. Then one day I decided to just start totally fresh and reinstall everything from scratch. It didn't take nearly as long as I thought, did it all in just several hours. Now I just backup my data and do not worry about cloning my entire drive. Plus a freshly installed OS always seems to run just a little better than after you use it for awhile with all your software installed. I'm running Windows 10 and the reset option works great.
 

shmu26

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Lifespan of your disk is in the usage. When a disk read/writes data, the disk usage is usually close to 100%. Any time you make a backup, you are using your disk for the duration of your backup at 100%. The less time you spend doing that, the longer your disk will last.

System images are important, but not if you haven't done any significant changes. Backing up your files is a more efficient solution.
okay, so a few minutes a day of high disk usage is probably not going to kill a modern SSD, right?
I don't run other apps with high disk usage, besides that.
 
A

Alkajak

Right. The point I was trying to make is that if you're trying to make your SSD last as long as it possibly can, there are measures for it. System image/clone where you need to and just back up your files on a timely basis. If you ever feel like your last clone/system image is not adequate, replace it. If you feel like you don't need a new image/clone, just back up your files manually instead. This will minimize disk usage in comparison to imaging/cloning often.
 

shmu26

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Right. The point I was trying to make is that if you're trying to make your SSD last as long as it possibly can, there are measures for it. System image/clone where you need to and just back up your files on a timely basis. If you ever feel like your last clone/system image is not adequate, replace it. If you feel like you don't need a new image/clone, just back up your files manually instead. This will minimize disk usage in comparison to imaging/cloning often.
thanks.
I noticed that restoring a system image also increases disk usage, because besides the actual restore itself, Windows always reindexes everything all over again, and that takes a long time.
 

jamescv7

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Cloning is indeed the best way however the process could take longer so sometimes having a system image still a way to go.

Remember that always check your time availability because its definitely a time consuming.
 

shmu26

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Cloning is indeed the best way however the process could take longer so sometimes having a system image still a way to go.

Remember that always check your time availability because its definitely a time consuming.
why is cloning better?
 

jamescv7

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@shmu26

Benefits of cloning hard drive:
  • Creates an accurate replica of the source HDD making it a ready-to-use copy.
  • If a virus/malware corrupts Mac then simply delete the corrupted system and use its clone to replace it.
  • If somehow the system gets damaged then, cloned copy of the system will help to restore everything back.
  • In the event of purchase of the new hard drive, you just need to have a clone of the previous Mac hard drive and use it to move all the previous data onto the new hard drive.
Negative aspects of cloning hard drive:
  • Cloning is a time-consuming process. May take hours to copy the content of a large hard drive.
  • To make a clone there must be an alternative hard drive available with you. So, it is very costly.

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