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#1
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What exactly is copied when cloning?
Been cloning my 2 drives to have backway copies at least every 3 weeks for years and it occured to me that I really don't know what the cloning does. Does it actully copy every single thing on the source disk including deleted files and fragments of other files? Thanks for any response. |
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#2
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What exactly is copied when cloning?
On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 17:27:09 -0600, swalker wrote:
Been cloning my 2 drives to have backway copies at least every 3 weeks for years and it occured to me that I really don't know what the cloning does. Does it actully copy every single thing on the source disk including deleted files and fragments of other files? Thanks for any response. I think it depends on the software and the settings. Clonezilla (by default) only copies referenced clusters, so the clone image is much smaller than the original partition. (it goes on to compress the image, but that is not what you want to know). AOMEI gives you a choice, copy bit by bit or only files. DD (Linux) copies every single byte, so is more suitable for forensics. IOW, the copy will have every file fragment of the original, which can be recovered for malware research. If you are just making a backup, go with Clonezilla or AOMEI. I'm sure Paul will step in with a more correct description. And descriptions of what Macrium, Acronis and Ghost do (I've never used them) []'s -- Don't be evil - Google 2004 We have a new policy - Google 2012 |
#3
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What exactly is copied when cloning?
swalker wrote:
Been cloning my 2 drives to have backway copies at least every 3 weeks for years and it occured to me that I really don't know what the cloning does. Does it actully copy every single thing on the source disk including deleted files and fragments of other files? Thanks for any response. Cloning makes a copy of your drive, warts and all (although there are some options). (You can get more details via a Google search, but that's the essence of it). |
#4
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What exactly is copied when cloning?
Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-12-07 18:27, swalker wrote: Been cloning my 2 drives to have backway copies at least every 3 weeks for years and it occured to me that I really don't know what the cloning does. Does it actully copy every single thing on the source disk including deleted files and fragments of other files? Thanks for any response. That depends on the software and the method you've selected. There are two general methods: a) sector by sector copy of the partition, including empty sectors and those that store data not read and/or displayed by the file manager. Good for transfer of an existing partition to new hardware, hence the term "cloning". b) file-by-file copy, ignoring empty sectors. Good for repair of a corrupted system, or for restoration to a prior state; and for data archiving. Best, I think your (b) is a fair definition. The "smart copy" option used in cloning, makes a map of all used clusters and copies those. (Since "everything is a file", there's a direct relationship between measuring in files and measuring in clusters. Even directories are files.) In addition, it would copy track0 and the MBR (because you ticked the MBR box maybe). What's important to know about (b), is "deleted" files are not captured. If you run a tool over the smart-cloned device, undelete won't find the candidates you thought were there. Only the source disk has the undelete candidates. The sector by sector copy gets everything, and does too good of a job. You need to modify the diskID, the BCD, the details of booting a tiny bit, for the disk to be in tip-top shape. Doing "dd.exe" for this, is not the end of the story. If you do the sector by sector by hand, you'd better be a "Rocket Scientist", as getting the details right will take a minute or two. You could do sector by sector, then boot a Macrium Emergency Boot CD and do "boot repair" from there, to modify the identifiers and clean things up. If you do it with just the single target disk plugged in during the repair (to its SATA port), it makes it easier in the menu to conclude you've selected the correct disk for repair. If you leave the two *identical* clones connected, there will be hell to pay. Paul |
#5
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What exactly is copied when cloning?
On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 20:35:27 -0500, Paul
wrote: Wolf K wrote: On 2018-12-07 18:27, swalker wrote: Been cloning my 2 drives to have backway copies at least every 3 weeks for years and it occured to me that I really don't know what the cloning does. Does it actully copy every single thing on the source disk including deleted files and fragments of other files? Thanks for any response. That depends on the software and the method you've selected. There are two general methods: a) sector by sector copy of the partition, including empty sectors and those that store data not read and/or displayed by the file manager. Good for transfer of an existing partition to new hardware, hence the term "cloning". b) file-by-file copy, ignoring empty sectors. Good for repair of a corrupted system, or for restoration to a prior state; and for data archiving. Best, I think your (b) is a fair definition. The "smart copy" option used in cloning, makes a map of all used clusters and copies those. (Since "everything is a file", there's a direct relationship between measuring in files and measuring in clusters. Even directories are files.) In addition, it would copy track0 and the MBR (because you ticked the MBR box maybe). What's important to know about (b), is "deleted" files are not captured. If you run a tool over the smart-cloned device, undelete won't find the candidates you thought were there. Only the source disk has the undelete candidates. The sector by sector copy gets everything, and does too good of a job. You need to modify the diskID, the BCD, the details of booting a tiny bit, for the disk to be in tip-top shape. Doing "dd.exe" for this, is not the end of the story. If you do the sector by sector by hand, you'd better be a "Rocket Scientist", as getting the details right will take a minute or two. You could do sector by sector, then boot a Macrium Emergency Boot CD and do "boot repair" from there, to modify the identifiers and clean things up. If you do it with just the single target disk plugged in during the repair (to its SATA port), it makes it easier in the menu to conclude you've selected the correct disk for repair. If you leave the two *identical* clones connected, there will be hell to pay. Paul I had not thought about different cloning programs doing different things. In my case it is Acronis True Image. Anybody know what it does? Yes I could ask Acronis but based on past experience I might or might not get the correct answer even if I could understand what the "help" person on the phone was saying. |
#6
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What exactly is copied when cloning?
swalker wrote:
On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 20:35:27 -0500, Paul wrote: Wolf K wrote: On 2018-12-07 18:27, swalker wrote: Been cloning my 2 drives to have backway copies at least every 3 weeks for years and it occured to me that I really don't know what the cloning does. Does it actully copy every single thing on the source disk including deleted files and fragments of other files? Thanks for any response. That depends on the software and the method you've selected. There are two general methods: a) sector by sector copy of the partition, including empty sectors and those that store data not read and/or displayed by the file manager. Good for transfer of an existing partition to new hardware, hence the term "cloning". b) file-by-file copy, ignoring empty sectors. Good for repair of a corrupted system, or for restoration to a prior state; and for data archiving. Best, I think your (b) is a fair definition. The "smart copy" option used in cloning, makes a map of all used clusters and copies those. (Since "everything is a file", there's a direct relationship between measuring in files and measuring in clusters. Even directories are files.) In addition, it would copy track0 and the MBR (because you ticked the MBR box maybe). What's important to know about (b), is "deleted" files are not captured. If you run a tool over the smart-cloned device, undelete won't find the candidates you thought were there. Only the source disk has the undelete candidates. The sector by sector copy gets everything, and does too good of a job. You need to modify the diskID, the BCD, the details of booting a tiny bit, for the disk to be in tip-top shape. Doing "dd.exe" for this, is not the end of the story. If you do the sector by sector by hand, you'd better be a "Rocket Scientist", as getting the details right will take a minute or two. You could do sector by sector, then boot a Macrium Emergency Boot CD and do "boot repair" from there, to modify the identifiers and clean things up. If you do it with just the single target disk plugged in during the repair (to its SATA port), it makes it easier in the menu to conclude you've selected the correct disk for repair. If you leave the two *identical* clones connected, there will be hell to pay. Paul I had not thought about different cloning programs doing different things. In my case it is Acronis True Image. Anybody know what it does? Sure, since I use it. In a nutshell, Acronis True Image allows you to either make an image backup of a disk partition OR lets you make a clone backup of one disk drive to another (basically a copy of your source drive), which is what you are apparently doing, and with a few other options, as mentioned in the program's help file (such as resizing the destination partition, etc). So when you get done, you would have a replacement drive in case your source drive ever failed (IF you successfully cloned your source drive). I don't believe it does a sector to sector copy unless a) it can't manage a smart copy, or b) you deliberately select that specific option, but it's been awhile since I've looked. |
#7
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What exactly is copied when cloning?
swalker wrote:
On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 20:35:27 -0500, Paul wrote: Wolf K wrote: On 2018-12-07 18:27, swalker wrote: Been cloning my 2 drives to have backway copies at least every 3 weeks for years and it occured to me that I really don't know what the cloning does. Does it actully copy every single thing on the source disk including deleted files and fragments of other files? Thanks for any response. That depends on the software and the method you've selected. There are two general methods: a) sector by sector copy of the partition, including empty sectors and those that store data not read and/or displayed by the file manager. Good for transfer of an existing partition to new hardware, hence the term "cloning". b) file-by-file copy, ignoring empty sectors. Good for repair of a corrupted system, or for restoration to a prior state; and for data archiving. Best, I think your (b) is a fair definition. The "smart copy" option used in cloning, makes a map of all used clusters and copies those. (Since "everything is a file", there's a direct relationship between measuring in files and measuring in clusters. Even directories are files.) In addition, it would copy track0 and the MBR (because you ticked the MBR box maybe). What's important to know about (b), is "deleted" files are not captured. If you run a tool over the smart-cloned device, undelete won't find the candidates you thought were there. Only the source disk has the undelete candidates. The sector by sector copy gets everything, and does too good of a job. You need to modify the diskID, the BCD, the details of booting a tiny bit, for the disk to be in tip-top shape. Doing "dd.exe" for this, is not the end of the story. If you do the sector by sector by hand, you'd better be a "Rocket Scientist", as getting the details right will take a minute or two. You could do sector by sector, then boot a Macrium Emergency Boot CD and do "boot repair" from there, to modify the identifiers and clean things up. If you do it with just the single target disk plugged in during the repair (to its SATA port), it makes it easier in the menu to conclude you've selected the correct disk for repair. If you leave the two *identical* clones connected, there will be hell to pay. Paul I had not thought about different cloning programs doing different things. In my case it is Acronis True Image. Anybody know what it does? Yes I could ask Acronis but based on past experience I might or might not get the correct answer even if I could understand what the "help" person on the phone was saying. It likely offers both options. The problem with that, is some of this software, doesn't actually do what it says it does. You have to apply your forensic talents to tell what it's doing. For example, I enabled the sector-by-sector option on a tool once, and the backup took ten minutes instead of two hours. Without doing any work at all, I "know" the tool has done the wrong thing, and was still doing "smart copies". It copied 20GB of stuff, and not the entire 500GB hard drive. If you turn on that option, and it takes a lot longer to do the transfer, that's your first hint you're in the right ballpark. "Creating a Sector-By-Sector Backup with Acronis Products" https://kb.acronis.com/content/1543 I can't guess what each product does, or can do, neither can I give assurance that any particular version of the product I use... works properly. I'm constantly surprised by stuff that no longer works (like the on-again, off-again saga of my webcam in Windows 10). ******* When you decide a particular backup program is for you, it's a lot of work to test it properly. There are more than 20 backup programs out there, and 20 times a lot of work, is too much work. I call this process "dialing in" a backup program, because it takes multiple days, multiple tests, before I feel confident it isn't a total dud. It requires testing both backups and restores, looking in the backup image with the mounter tool, and so on. Just to be sure it's doing what it says on the tin. One day here, I was bored and screwing around, and I tried to "Verify" a backup image, and the verify "failed". That woke me up fast! It turns out the computer had bad RAM, and two rather large backups were ruined (and not worth keeping). After replacing the RAM, the backups were uneventful after that. I still run Verifies though, occasionally. Paul |
#8
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What exactly is copied when cloning?
On Sat, 08 Dec 2018 01:20:05 -0500, Paul
wrote: swalker wrote: On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 20:35:27 -0500, Paul wrote: Wolf K wrote: On 2018-12-07 18:27, swalker wrote: Been cloning my 2 drives to have backway copies at least every 3 weeks for years and it occured to me that I really don't know what the cloning does. Does it actully copy every single thing on the source disk including deleted files and fragments of other files? Thanks for any response. That depends on the software and the method you've selected. There are two general methods: a) sector by sector copy of the partition, including empty sectors and those that store data not read and/or displayed by the file manager. Good for transfer of an existing partition to new hardware, hence the term "cloning". b) file-by-file copy, ignoring empty sectors. Good for repair of a corrupted system, or for restoration to a prior state; and for data archiving. Best, I think your (b) is a fair definition. The "smart copy" option used in cloning, makes a map of all used clusters and copies those. (Since "everything is a file", there's a direct relationship between measuring in files and measuring in clusters. Even directories are files.) In addition, it would copy track0 and the MBR (because you ticked the MBR box maybe). What's important to know about (b), is "deleted" files are not captured. If you run a tool over the smart-cloned device, undelete won't find the candidates you thought were there. Only the source disk has the undelete candidates. The sector by sector copy gets everything, and does too good of a job. You need to modify the diskID, the BCD, the details of booting a tiny bit, for the disk to be in tip-top shape. Doing "dd.exe" for this, is not the end of the story. If you do the sector by sector by hand, you'd better be a "Rocket Scientist", as getting the details right will take a minute or two. You could do sector by sector, then boot a Macrium Emergency Boot CD and do "boot repair" from there, to modify the identifiers and clean things up. If you do it with just the single target disk plugged in during the repair (to its SATA port), it makes it easier in the menu to conclude you've selected the correct disk for repair. If you leave the two *identical* clones connected, there will be hell to pay. Paul I had not thought about different cloning programs doing different things. In my case it is Acronis True Image. Anybody know what it does? Yes I could ask Acronis but based on past experience I might or might not get the correct answer even if I could understand what the "help" person on the phone was saying. It likely offers both options. The problem with that, is some of this software, doesn't actually do what it says it does. You have to apply your forensic talents to tell what it's doing. For example, I enabled the sector-by-sector option on a tool once, and the backup took ten minutes instead of two hours. Without doing any work at all, I "know" the tool has done the wrong thing, and was still doing "smart copies". It copied 20GB of stuff, and not the entire 500GB hard drive. If you turn on that option, and it takes a lot longer to do the transfer, that's your first hint you're in the right ballpark. "Creating a Sector-By-Sector Backup with Acronis Products" https://kb.acronis.com/content/1543 I can't guess what each product does, or can do, neither can I give assurance that any particular version of the product I use... works properly. I'm constantly surprised by stuff that no longer works (like the on-again, off-again saga of my webcam in Windows 10). ******* When you decide a particular backup program is for you, it's a lot of work to test it properly. There are more than 20 backup programs out there, and 20 times a lot of work, is too much work. I call this process "dialing in" a backup program, because it takes multiple days, multiple tests, before I feel confident it isn't a total dud. It requires testing both backups and restores, looking in the backup image with the mounter tool, and so on. Just to be sure it's doing what it says on the tin. One day here, I was bored and screwing around, and I tried to "Verify" a backup image, and the verify "failed". That woke me up fast! It turns out the computer had bad RAM, and two rather large backups were ruined (and not worth keeping). After replacing the RAM, the backups were uneventful after that. I still run Verifies though, occasionally. Paul After opening Acronis True Image I select tools/cloning and then Manual and allow the program to adjust partitions if needed which it normally is not needed as the 250GB, 2.5 inch SSD drives are nearly identical in size. Both the source and destination disk are in the computer as I have spare bays. According to the Acronis explanation for cloning both drives wind up identical. The Crucial drives have read/write speeds in excess of 500Mbs sequentially which I assume cloning would be. Cloning time is in the neighborhood of 15 minutes so it looks like cloning is actually being done as opposed to partial backup. As to the original question, I still don't know for sure what Acronis does. Time to move on. Not that I didn't learn something, just not what I expected and that is OK. Thanks to all for the responses. |
#9
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What exactly is copied when cloning?
On 12/8/18 11:17 AM, swalker wrote:
On Sat, 08 Dec 2018 01:20:05 -0500, Paul wrote: swalker wrote: On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 20:35:27 -0500, Paul wrote: Wolf K wrote: On 2018-12-07 18:27, swalker wrote: Been cloning my 2 drives to have backway copies at least every 3 weeks for years and it occured to me that I really don't know what the cloning does. Does it actully copy every single thing on the source disk including deleted files and fragments of other files? Thanks for any response. That depends on the software and the method you've selected. There are two general methods: a) sector by sector copy of the partition, including empty sectors and those that store data not read and/or displayed by the file manager. Good for transfer of an existing partition to new hardware, hence the term "cloning". b) file-by-file copy, ignoring empty sectors. Good for repair of a corrupted system, or for restoration to a prior state; and for data archiving. Best, I think your (b) is a fair definition. The "smart copy" option used in cloning, makes a map of all used clusters and copies those. (Since "everything is a file", there's a direct relationship between measuring in files and measuring in clusters. Even directories are files.) In addition, it would copy track0 and the MBR (because you ticked the MBR box maybe). What's important to know about (b), is "deleted" files are not captured. If you run a tool over the smart-cloned device, undelete won't find the candidates you thought were there. Only the source disk has the undelete candidates. The sector by sector copy gets everything, and does too good of a job. You need to modify the diskID, the BCD, the details of booting a tiny bit, for the disk to be in tip-top shape. Doing "dd.exe" for this, is not the end of the story. If you do the sector by sector by hand, you'd better be a "Rocket Scientist", as getting the details right will take a minute or two. You could do sector by sector, then boot a Macrium Emergency Boot CD and do "boot repair" from there, to modify the identifiers and clean things up. If you do it with just the single target disk plugged in during the repair (to its SATA port), it makes it easier in the menu to conclude you've selected the correct disk for repair. If you leave the two *identical* clones connected, there will be hell to pay. Paul I had not thought about different cloning programs doing different things. In my case it is Acronis True Image. Anybody know what it does? Yes I could ask Acronis but based on past experience I might or might not get the correct answer even if I could understand what the "help" person on the phone was saying. It likely offers both options. The problem with that, is some of this software, doesn't actually do what it says it does. You have to apply your forensic talents to tell what it's doing. For example, I enabled the sector-by-sector option on a tool once, and the backup took ten minutes instead of two hours. Without doing any work at all, I "know" the tool has done the wrong thing, and was still doing "smart copies". It copied 20GB of stuff, and not the entire 500GB hard drive. If you turn on that option, and it takes a lot longer to do the transfer, that's your first hint you're in the right ballpark. "Creating a Sector-By-Sector Backup with Acronis Products" https://kb.acronis.com/content/1543 I can't guess what each product does, or can do, neither can I give assurance that any particular version of the product I use... works properly. I'm constantly surprised by stuff that no longer works (like the on-again, off-again saga of my webcam in Windows 10). ******* When you decide a particular backup program is for you, it's a lot of work to test it properly. There are more than 20 backup programs out there, and 20 times a lot of work, is too much work. I call this process "dialing in" a backup program, because it takes multiple days, multiple tests, before I feel confident it isn't a total dud. It requires testing both backups and restores, looking in the backup image with the mounter tool, and so on. Just to be sure it's doing what it says on the tin. One day here, I was bored and screwing around, and I tried to "Verify" a backup image, and the verify "failed". That woke me up fast! It turns out the computer had bad RAM, and two rather large backups were ruined (and not worth keeping). After replacing the RAM, the backups were uneventful after that. I still run Verifies though, occasionally. Paul After opening Acronis True Image I select tools/cloning and then Manual and allow the program to adjust partitions if needed which it normally is not needed as the 250GB, 2.5 inch SSD drives are nearly identical in size. Both the source and destination disk are in the computer as I have spare bays. According to the Acronis explanation for cloning both drives wind up identical. The Crucial drives have read/write speeds in excess of 500Mbs sequentially which I assume cloning would be. Cloning time is in the neighborhood of 15 minutes so it looks like cloning is actually being done as opposed to partial backup. As to the original question, I still don't know for sure what Acronis does. Time to move on. Not that I didn't learn something, just not what I expected and that is OK. Thanks to all for the responses. Acronis does also have incremental and differential and full backups. I always use a full backup. Disk space is cheap and I do images not clones, that way I can keep 5 copies a month apart each. Clones are great for replacement and yes they are fast to get back working, but if all I have to do is just boot a usb or dvd Acronis and restore for 15 minutes, that's not a long time to return the system to use. |
#10
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What exactly is copied when cloning?
swalker wrote:
As to the original question, I still don't know for sure what Acronis does. Time to move on. Not that I didn't learn something, just not what I expected and that is OK. Thanks to all for the responses. With either of the two disks as the boot device, try cmd # open an administrator command prompt window diskpart list disk select disk 1 # salt to taste detail disk # look for DiskID exit Compare the two DiskIDs and see that they're different. That would be an example, of the "not-exact" nature of a good clone. If the DiskID is different, and the drive still boots, it means the BCD file on each drive is now subtly different. And that's a good thing, as these changes are intended to allow the two disks to be inside the computer at the same time, without causing problems (offline disk in Disk Management). Seeing a different DiskID is proof of good workmanship. You can do bcdedit and see that the dump on the two different disks, is also different (modified). The long-string-identifiers in there will be different. Paul |
#11
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What exactly is copied when cloning?
Big Al wrote:
On 12/8/18 11:17 AM, swalker wrote: On Sat, 08 Dec 2018 01:20:05 -0500, Paul wrote: swalker wrote: On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 20:35:27 -0500, Paul wrote: Wolf K wrote: On 2018-12-07 18:27, swalker wrote: Been cloning my 2 drives to have backway copies at least every 3 weeks for years and it occured to me that I really don't know what the cloning does. Does it actully copy every single thing on the source disk including deleted files and fragments of other files? Thanks for any response. That depends on the software and the method you've selected. There are two general methods: a) sector by sector copy of the partition, including empty sectors and those that store data not read and/or displayed by the file manager. Good for transfer of an existing partition to new hardware, hence the term "cloning". b) file-by-file copy, ignoring empty sectors. Good for repair of a corrupted system, or for restoration to a prior state; and for data archiving. Best, I think your (b) is a fair definition. The "smart copy" option used in cloning, makes a map of all used clusters and copies those. (Since "everything is a file", there's a direct relationship between measuring in files and measuring in clusters. Even directories are files.) In addition, it would copy track0 and the MBR (because you ticked the MBR box maybe). What's important to know about (b), is "deleted" files are not captured. If you run a tool over the smart-cloned device, undelete won't find the candidates you thought were there. Only the source disk has the undelete candidates. The sector by sector copy gets everything, and does too good of a job. You need to modify the diskID, the BCD, the details of booting a tiny bit, for the disk to be in tip-top shape. Doing "dd.exe" for this, is not the end of the story. If you do the sector by sector by hand, you'd better be a "Rocket Scientist", as getting the details right will take a minute or two. You could do sector by sector, then boot a Macrium Emergency Boot CD and do "boot repair" from there, to modify the identifiers and clean things up. If you do it with just the single target disk plugged in during the repair (to its SATA port), it makes it easier in the menu to conclude you've selected the correct disk for repair. If you leave the two *identical* clones connected, there will be hell to pay. Paul I had not thought about different cloning programs doing different things. In my case it is Acronis True Image. Anybody know what it does? Yes I could ask Acronis but based on past experience I might or might not get the correct answer even if I could understand what the "help" person on the phone was saying. It likely offers both options. The problem with that, is some of this software, doesn't actually do what it says it does. You have to apply your forensic talents to tell what it's doing. For example, I enabled the sector-by-sector option on a tool once, and the backup took ten minutes instead of two hours. Without doing any work at all, I "know" the tool has done the wrong thing, and was still doing "smart copies". It copied 20GB of stuff, and not the entire 500GB hard drive. If you turn on that option, and it takes a lot longer to do the transfer, that's your first hint you're in the right ballpark. "Creating a Sector-By-Sector Backup with Acronis Products" https://kb.acronis.com/content/1543 I can't guess what each product does, or can do, neither can I give assurance that any particular version of the product I use... works properly. I'm constantly surprised by stuff that no longer works (like the on-again, off-again saga of my webcam in Windows 10). ******* When you decide a particular backup program is for you, it's a lot of work to test it properly. There are more than 20 backup programs out there, and 20 times a lot of work, is too much work. I call this process "dialing in" a backup program, because it takes multiple days, multiple tests, before I feel confident it isn't a total dud. It requires testing both backups and restores, looking in the backup image with the mounter tool, and so on. Just to be sure it's doing what it says on the tin. One day here, I was bored and screwing around, and I tried to "Verify" a backup image, and the verify "failed". That woke me up fast! It turns out the computer had bad RAM, and two rather large backups were ruined (and not worth keeping). After replacing the RAM, the backups were uneventful after that. I still run Verifies though, occasionally. Paul After opening Acronis True Image I select tools/cloning and then Manual and allow the program to adjust partitions if needed which it normally is not needed as the 250GB, 2.5 inch SSD drives are nearly identical in size. Both the source and destination disk are in the computer as I have spare bays. According to the Acronis explanation for cloning both drives wind up identical. The Crucial drives have read/write speeds in excess of 500Mbs sequentially which I assume cloning would be. Cloning time is in the neighborhood of 15 minutes so it looks like cloning is actually being done as opposed to partial backup. As to the original question, I still don't know for sure what Acronis does. Time to move on. Not that I didn't learn something, just not what I expected and that is OK. Thanks to all for the responses. Acronis does also have incremental and differential and full backups. I always use a full backup. Disk space is cheap and I do images not clones, that way I can keep 5 copies a month apart each. Clones are great for replacement and yes they are fast to get back working, but if all I have to do is just boot a usb or dvd Acronis and restore for 15 minutes, that's not a long time to return the system to use. Agreed, and it has come in handy on some occasions. One thing I won't do is incremental backups - I feel a lot safer doing one complete backup. And I use both imaging and cloning to get the best of both worlds. (But I don't have 5 copies a month, which is really commendable. :-) |
#12
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Clonezilla ( What exactly is copied when cloning?)
Speaking of Clonezilla, is it me or is it hard to use as a newbie? I can
handle Ghost (since early 2002), TruImage, O&O DiskImage, and Reflect with their bootable discs. Clonezilla is so technical and confusing! Shadow wrote: On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 17:27:09 -0600, swalker wrote: I think it depends on the software and the settings. Clonezilla (by default) only copies referenced clusters, so the clone image is much smaller than the original partition. (it goes on to compress the image, but that is not what you want to know). AOMEI gives you a choice, copy bit by bit or only files. DD (Linux) copies every single byte, so is more suitable for forensics. IOW, the copy will have every file fragment of the original, which can be recovered for malware research. If you are just making a backup, go with Clonezilla or AOMEI. I'm sure Paul will step in with a more correct description. And descriptions of what Macrium, Acronis and Ghost do (I've never used them) []'s -- Quote of the Week: "When the water rises the fish eat the ants, when the water falls the ants eat the fish." --Thai Proverb Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly. /\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org / / /\ /\ \ http://antfarm.ma.cx. Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail. | |o o| | \ _ / ( ) |
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Clonezilla ( What exactly is copied when cloning?)
I just looked at some of the screenshots of the current "live" version, and
probably agree with you, at least at first glance. It reminds me a bit of BootItNG, although I think the latter is more intuitive than this, but it isn't free. I think the ones you mentioned below are a little more intuitive, however. Ant wrote: Speaking of Clonezilla, is it me or is it hard to use as a newbie? I can handle Ghost (since early 2002), TruImage, O&O DiskImage, and Reflect with their bootable discs. Clonezilla is so technical and confusing! Shadow wrote: On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 17:27:09 -0600, swalker wrote: I think it depends on the software and the settings. Clonezilla (by default) only copies referenced clusters, so the clone image is much smaller than the original partition. (it goes on to compress the image, but that is not what you want to know). AOMEI gives you a choice, copy bit by bit or only files. DD (Linux) copies every single byte, so is more suitable for forensics. IOW, the copy will have every file fragment of the original, which can be recovered for malware research. If you are just making a backup, go with Clonezilla or AOMEI. I'm sure Paul will step in with a more correct description. And descriptions of what Macrium, Acronis and Ghost do (I've never used them) []'s -- Quote of the Week: "When the water rises the fish eat the ants, when the water falls the ants eat the fish." --Thai Proverb Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly. /\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org / / /\ /\ \ http://antfarm.ma.cx. Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail. o o| | \ _ / ( ) |
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Clonezilla ( What exactly is copied when cloning?)
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Clonezilla ( What exactly is copied when cloning?)
On Sat, 08 Dec 2018 22:39:29 -0600, (Ant) wrote:
Speaking of Clonezilla, is it me or is it hard to use as a newbie? I can handle Ghost (since early 2002), TruImage, O&O DiskImage, and Reflect with their bootable discs. Clonezilla is so technical and confusing! By default (clicking OK on every option) it will clone only the clusters in use. So it's very fast. The only thing you really need to be wary of is when it asks you which disk you are cloning, and what the target it. So write down the model/serial number of the two HDs so you don't mess up. It usually chooses the right one, but NOT always. Clonezilla can also do multiple simultaneous backups, which is useful if you are in a company that needs 10 HDs with exactly the same content. Tutorials(I always choose "advanced") : https://clonezilla.org/show-live-doc..._to_disk_clone https://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-li...nced-param.php Choose -k1 if cloning to a larger new disk - which is usually the case when upgrading. Only available in "advanced". It will make every target partition proportionately larger. Note cloning unused or deleted stuff is not the default. https://clonezilla.org/show-live-doc...multiple_disks You can "automate" the clone if you use command line parameters, but I'd rather use the graphical interface. It's safer. It will save the command line parameters used in the clone to the USB. My last clone was /usr/sbin/ocs-onthefly -g auto -e1 auto -e2 -j2 -r -sfsck -k1 -icds -pa poweroff -f sdb -t sda Notice it copied sdb to sda. I had to change the source HD as it chose the wrong one. []'s Shadow wrote: On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 17:27:09 -0600, swalker wrote: I think it depends on the software and the settings. Clonezilla (by default) only copies referenced clusters, so the clone image is much smaller than the original partition. (it goes on to compress the image, but that is not what you want to know). AOMEI gives you a choice, copy bit by bit or only files. DD (Linux) copies every single byte, so is more suitable for forensics. IOW, the copy will have every file fragment of the original, which can be recovered for malware research. If you are just making a backup, go with Clonezilla or AOMEI. I'm sure Paul will step in with a more correct description. And descriptions of what Macrium, Acronis and Ghost do (I've never used them) []'s -- Don't be evil - Google 2004 We have a new policy - Google 2012 |
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