Question How many times can i clone over my HDDs?

[cwhite54]

During my short career, 7 years, i have heard repeatedly that you should not clone over an HDD multiple times because it will cause the drive to fail. Has anyone else heard this? Is it correct at all?

 

[Darkbreeze]

The more you use ANYTHING, the closer it gets to the end of it's useful life, but in general, no, there is no limit on how many times you can clone to a drive or how much data you can write to it. If it were an SSD it would be different. Age is generaly the bigger factor when it comes to mechanical hard drives, not amounts.

When in doubt, run something like Seatools for Windows or WD lifeguard tools to check the drive health by running the quick/ short drive self test and the long generic/extended test.

 

[USAFRet]

During my short career, 7 years, i have heard repeatedly that you should not clone over an HDD multiple times because it will cause the drive to fail. Has anyone else heard this? Is it correct at all?

Cloning imparts no greater wear than normal use.
Write is write is write.

But, like any other piece of hardware, it will die eventually.
The more you use it, the sooner it will theoretically die.
But there is nothing special about cloning.