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#284111 02/13/15 04:31 AM
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With a dozen 1 terabyte drives laying around I am wondering this. Is it kosher to clone the audiophile dr purely for backup purposes? If so what's the easiest cloning software available, free or not?
WSS

Last edited by Westside Steve; 02/13/15 04:58 AM.
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You can just copy the contents over. Should be a very easy job.
PGMusic has stated here before that making your own backup like this is perfectly fine.


I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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If you want to make complete clones of any drive, providing it is for backup purposes even Microsoft are quite happy with that.
For information I use a program called Macrium Reflect free and have always got two spare hard drives with clones on them of my entire system, created with the cloning side of Macrium Reflect.
The beauty of a clone on a drive is that should anything go wrong with the main drive, a screwdriver is all you need to pull out the duff drive and fit the clone drive. Half an hour maximum and your back up and running again. Much quicker than messing about with images on a portable drive.

Read about and download Macrium Reflect here :-

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

Be warned that if you use the C.Net download link, be very careful to check for and remove the usual unwanted junkware. If offered a choice of advanced or custom installation, then use it, as it is in the advanced or custom install that you will find the junk, and the tick boxes to prevent the junk from installing.

I hope it is OK on here to say that if interested I wrote a full tutorial on using Macrium Reflect to create a clone on the Free PC Help website magazine page here :-

http://magazine.freepchelp.uk/making-a-cloned-hard-drive-using-macrium-reflect/

I am afraid I am more a computer geek than a musician these days laugh

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But also, if you clone on a regular basis: It also clones malware...


Desktop; i7-2600k, 8 GB mem., Win 10 Pro, BIAB 2017; RB 2017 - latest build
Laptop: i5-2410M, 4 GB mem, Win 10 Pro, BIAB 2017; RB 2017 - latest build
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Thanks! I assume that there is no malware on audiophile 15..

WSS

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Thanks for the reminder GHinCH.
I should have mentioned that it is a good idea to scan with your antivirus and other antimalware programs first before making a clone.
Also use disk clean up to delete the temporary rubbish too, no point carrying that over as well.

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That's why it is a forum, what one doesn't catch another one will. wink

Even better, scan the clone a couple of days after the cloning.

The problem with the AV software is that it cannot prevent future attack but only react after the makers have learned of a new threat.

So you might clone malware that is not yet known as malware.

Another word to mirror via RAID. RAID in this case is only helpful if your main drive quits its service. If you catch something malicious, it instantly is on the mirrored drive.


Edit: to correct one typo.

Last edited by GHinCH; 02/16/15 07:00 AM.

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related:
.. last night the RAID controller died in one of our web servers. Yes it was a mirrored RAID array AND backed up incremental to another machine.
No amount of cloning/backup would have helped bring this server back quickly. But having the back ups did help us rebuild it efficiently.

As computer users we all do what we can but sometimes it's all for naught.

If a drive had died; fine. Two (even more) drives dying would have been recoverable. When the drive 'controller' goes, it's no longer an easy fix.
It was the last web server we own that was not yet redundant (but scheduled to be virtualized and made redundant) and it died of a hardware failure two weeks before the maintenance.

Rebuilding a new VM from a separate hardware backup is no fun. Even when it works.

Good news is we get to move on to the DB servers that much sooner.
Bad new; 4 hours sleep between 2PM yesterday and 7:30 PM tonight.
But all sites are back up and running, SSL and all.
In about 45 minutes from now the sync from the salvaged drives will be complete and then everything will be just like yesterday (right now some sites reflect late last week) .. plus we'll have redundant fail overs.

Did I mention I'm tired?

Mirroring is good and has it's place, but if the RAID controller itself goes like it did on us last night, a good old fashioned disk image backup was the most important thing to have available.
From here forward it's redundant fail over for us; get on the virtual machine host and point it to the redundant copy. Dang near real time restore (for the win!).





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Make your sound your own!
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Best cloning software solution IMO is from EASUS, both their disc copy software and their partitioning software.

Free for home/private use. Ran circles around the Acronis that came with the last WD or Seagate drive that I purchased. The main thing it did was power through bad sectors on the failing HDD. Acronis just stopped and threw up it's hands left me with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

EASUS logged the bad sectors but kept moving forward with the copy. Saved my rear-end big time. Not that my rear is big.

I will forever sing it's praises because of that.

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Originally Posted By: rharv
related:
.. last night the RAID controller died in one of our web servers. Yes it was a mirrored RAID array AND backed up incremental to another machine.
No amount of cloning/backup would have helped bring this server back quickly. But having the back ups did help us rebuild it efficiently.

As computer users we all do what we can but sometimes it's all for naught.

If a drive had died; fine. Two (even more) drives dying would have been recoverable. When the drive 'controller' goes, it's no longer an easy fix.
<snip>

Hey rharv, I feel for ya...

Shame you weren't using a HP SMART array controller - beautiful things - just put in another HP SMART array controller (doesn't even have to be the same model, as long as it supports the interface - no point using a SAS controller on SCSI drives) and it will find the array - even if the drives are mixed up - and away you go - I love 'em, won't use any other array controller 'cos no other manufacturer has controllers that are near as good.


--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya laugh --=--
You're only paranoid if you're wrong!
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Originally Posted By: rockstar_not
Best cloning software solution IMO is from EASUS, both their disc copy software and their partitioning software.


+1 I've used their stuff in the past for backups.



Now I just use a home made batch script and run it once a week to an external drive.




Steve

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PC: Win11 PRO, 4 TB M2 SSD, 2 TB HD, 128 GB Memory
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Now that sounds so techie, nebulous and arcane.

What exactly is a batch script and how do you create one?

Bob


Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Hey Bob,

Here's a thread from last year I posted about it:

OLD THREAD

Our friend Mr. Matt was well versed with this in the past.




Steve

BIAB/RB 2022, Pro Tools 2020, Korg N5, JBL LSR 4328 Powered Monitors, AKG/Shure Mics.
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