Using a SATA III 2.5" HDD for a clone image for recovery

My MSI GT80 SLI laptop takes 4 disks, 3 are in the 2280 format and 1 is in the 2.5" format.

I converted all to SSD, the 2.5" included but I had a 1TB HDD left over and I decided to use that for a backup solution. I used Macrium Reflect to clone the primary Windows 10-1903 to this 1TB HDD and then removed it from the laptop, putting back the Samsung 850 that replaced the HDD.

so if my primary drive went down, I could boot into Windows install media, install this HDD and copy the partitions or the entire disk onto the primary disk, or the backup disk. I would lose some files and get rolled back a few weeks. Or even months depending on when the image was made. I could use Macrium reflect or another software do this reverse clone in a case of a disaster recovery.

I am thinking about cloning the OS onto the HDD once per quarter. Install it, run the clone program such as Reflect and then remove it.

1TB HDDs are cheap, mine is not worth anything, $20 at most. To do it correctly, I would have to take it off site.

It sounds like a cumbersome and there is a risk of data loss may be.

Why not just put the 1TB HDD in a USB enclosure and save backup images to it that way most users do?

I recommend using imaging rather than cloning - you can then make full and differential backups to the external drive

NavyLCDR said:

Why not just put the 1TB HDD in a USB enclosure and save backup images to it that way most users do?

Link to such a device? "USB enclosure".

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Berton said:

Why boot to other media first? If it is a valid clone one should be able to shut down, remove the boot drive, plug in the clone and start up.

for some reason, I have never been able to boot off that drive. It's the 2.5" SATA III slot that originally came with that 1TB HDD "data disk". It must be some BIOS limitation.