Dumb Question (possibly) about Cloning and Imaging Disks

SIW2 · 31 Jul 2020

Casper is pretty good for cloning, from what I have heard.

OldNavyGuy · 31 Jul 2020

Pacman23 said:

I backup my laptop by incremental clones

There is no such thing as an incremental "clone".

Clone and image often are incorrectly interchanged.

A "clone" is an exact copy of a hard drive that is bootable.

Only one clone can exist on a drive.

You would have to have multiple drives to store multiple clones.

An "image" is an exact copy of a hard drive that is stored in a file.

It is not bootable, and multiple images can be stored on a drive.

Macrium Reflect Free has both functions.

SIW2 · 31 Jul 2020

If I remember correctly, Casper can clone only the changes, various scientific/radiology labs, etc use it, I believe.

Pacman23 · 31 Jul 2020

Perhaps the terminology is wrong but Casper will allow you to update your bootable clone with only changes since you last performed it. Works a treat and very quickly.

OldNavyGuy · 31 Jul 2020

Regardless what Casper calls it, this is not incremental "cloning" -

SmartClone™ Technology Brief | Tehnology Innovations | Future Systems Solutions (spelling is theirs).

It's simply doing a diff of two drives and updating Drive B with the changes in Drive A.

An "incremental" backup only backs up changes since the previous backup.

It makes backup times faster, but restores more complex.

If you need to restore your entire hard drive, you start with the full image, and then each incremental backup, in order, to be current...or until you reach a point you want to return to.

It would also be a security disaster to keep a clone, or external backup, connected at all times.

If ransomware infects your system, it eats your hard drive, clone, and external backups.

Pacman23 · 01 Aug 2020

Yes, I totally understand the dangers of having a USB backup permanently connected, that's why I was at pains to say that I don't do it. I've a couple of friends with Macs who can't be dissuaded from leaving their Time Machine drives permanently connected to their computers.

OldNavyGuy · 01 Aug 2020

Pacman23 said:

Yes, I totally understand the dangers of having a USB backup permanently connected, that's why I was at pains to say that I don't do it.

Unfortunately, many do.

I've seen some backup to a different partition...on the same drive.

Sometimes, it's just as important for users to know what not to do, as it is what to do.

cereberus · 01 Aug 2020

OldNavyGuy said:

There is no such thing as an incremental "clone".

This not true.

Macrium Reflect paid versions have a feature called Rapid Delta Clone which does an incremental clone i.e. it compares the target installation with the source installation and only clones the differences.

It is awesomely fast if the target drive is only slightly different to the source.

OldNavyGuy · 01 Aug 2020

cereberus said:

This not true.

Macrium Reflect paid versions have a feature called Rapid Delta Clone which does an incremental clone i.e. it compares the target installation with the source installation and only clones the differences.

It is awesomely fast if the target drive is only slightly different to the source.

Which is not "cloning".

It's the same thing that Casper does, which is a diff of the drives and updating Drive B with the changes in Drive A

cereberus · 01 Aug 2020

OldNavyGuy said:

Which is not "cloning".

It's the same thing that Casper does, which is a diff of the drives and updating Drive B with the changes in Drive A

Of course it is cloning. RDC is the default cloning mechanism. If the target is empty, everything is cloned. If not empty, it does it by difference.