Cloning to HDD as backup strategy?

[Spotmatic]

I've just upgraded to an SDD, following the good advice on this forum. The cloning process was very painless - so much so, I am contemplating whether it might be an idea to periodically back my SSD up by cloning it to the old HDD I removed.

As my files are backed up online, retrieving my old files after some sort of hard drive failure isn't as big an issue for me as getting my system - and software - up and running again swiftly. Cloning would definitely seem to offer me this. Just bung in the cloned HDD and I'd be up and running, albeit with slower HDD performance.

Are there any issues cloning from SSD to HDD to be aware of?

 

[IisGamer]

The only issue with cloning to a HDD from a SSD is that SSD's do not like being written to. If you constantly write to a SSD by taking stuff off and putting stuff on it, it will fail a lot faster than normal. What I suggest is DO NOT do that. I suggest that you use the SSD as a boot drive (ie. where you install Windows 10) and use your HDD as a storage drive (ie. where you install all of your programs). I also recommend geting an external HDD as a backup drive. (This is assuming you are using a desktop)

 

[RARRAF]

Macrium Reflect is the best cloning software I know of but what IisGamer said is true

 

[ArtPog]

Your consideration of using a disk-cloning program to routinely clone the contents of your SSD boot drive to a internally or externally connected HDD for comprehensive backup purposes is an excellent idea.

We have been doing just that with our systems over a nearly 20-year period and heartily endorse that backup strategy. It's hard to measure the peace of mind you gain from knowing that you have at hand a perfectly good copy of your day-to-day working drive that you can use to completely restore your system to a bootable, functional one in the event of a defective drive or a corrupted system. And be able to do so with a minimum of time, fuss, & bother.

For the last five years or so we've been working with a fairly wide variety of SSDs (in many different types of systems) which, of course, perform as the source drive in our disk-cloning operations. We clone our systems quite frequently - many on a daily basis - since it's important to us that we maintain reasonably up-to-date comprehensive backups of our systems within our own private environment.

In so doing, we have encountered no frequency-of-use issues that we could attribute to causing problems affecting our SSDs. As far as we're concerned these dire warnings we continually read and hear about supposedly involving problems affecting SSDs because of "overuse" are not borne out in our experience.

BTW, the d-c program we exclusively use is the Casper program. It's a commercial program costing $49.99. We use this program because we've never found a program its equal in ease-of-use, general effectiveness, and perhaps most importantly, speed of cloning when the program is used routinely/frequently. Of course you may be completely satisfied with the program you're using or plan to use.

 

[Spotmatic]

Thanks! I'm thinking of cloning TO a cheap HDD, FROM my new 500GB SSD, so hopefully continuous overwriting won't be an issue. Hopefully the tweaks Samsung Magician has made to my system now it's on an SSD won't cause too much of a problem if I ever do have to boot from the backed-up HDD. For now I can use my previous 250GB HDD but could pick up a cheap 500GB drive at some point. It seems like a very simple solution and I'm a very simple person, so it appeals. I wouldn't even have to do it that often, as my working files are backed up online anyway. Perhaps every few months and each time I install major new software would suffice.