I wonder ; why (?) should you clone , while just using an image will be enough ?
And ; no need for initialising when replacing old SSD by new ( bigger) one ?
My Samsung SSD 850 Pro (256GB) is 5 years old ............I want to replace it by Samsung 860 EVO ( 500GB) , when its under 80% health ...........
You can absolutely do anything with the computer that you want while it's being imaged by Macrium Reflect, except for restart it, and it has no effect on imaging process. The first thing that happens during imaging is that a shadow starts being stored of everything you do (changes made to the disk you are imaging) while the image is running. Once the imaging is complete, the shadow is released and applied to your disk so that it is caught up, so that the disk reflects all changes you made while imaging.
I wonder ; why (?) should you clone , while just using an image will be enough ?
And ; no need for initialising when replacing old SSD by new ( bigger) one ?
Anyone has a clear advice to my questions , I want to be well prepared , before starting the operation ( replacing SSD to bigger SSD , with the OS on it )
The whole purpose of maintaining a bootable rescue drive and backup image is that in the event of a drive failure, the old drive can be removed, a new replacement drive is installed, the computer is booted from the rescue drive, image is restored, and the computer works again.
The bootable rescue drive contains Windows PE. Anything that needs to be done to the new drive before the image is restored can be done from the rescue drive.
" The bootable rescue drive contains Windows PE ".............so , this will be on the Macrium boot-CD , which can take me to images, I made from the SSD I want to replace ?
Why cloning if an image will do the job..............??
Aside from SSD fragmentation not being a concern, as voiced by NavyLCDR and affirmed by Paul Black, I don't think it's a concern even for an HDD. Whether the shadow writer writes in a highly fragmented fashion or not, it then writes its update at the end all in one go - although yes, it may just release the shadow to "production" in which case, you get what you get. If it's re-writing all in one go, it would seem to me the least problematic insofar as fragmentation is concerned. At least, it should be of no more concern than something else writing a bunch of information at any other time. But, as other members stated above, it's really moot in your case.
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