[SOLVED] Need help Cloning a partition to a drive with a different cluster size.

[Bryce Demar]

Hello, I currently have a 4TB hard drive that I am upgrading to an 18TB. After cloning the data over I realize that due to the cluster size of my 4TB drive being 4096 bytes I am now unable to expand my partition past 16TB's.

Does anybody have any guidance regarding the best way for me to complete my clone operation while retaining the 8192 cluster size on my 18TB drive?

From what I can tell easeus partition master allows you to modify cluster size without reformatting. Which should theoretically accomplish my goal. However I want to ensure there isnt a safer and smarter method to do this as I don't want to run into Data Integrity issues down the road.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Rather than cloneing drive/drive use imaging instead. Create the image file/s on an intermediate device. Then, reverse the process to place the image on the target drive. This will create the proper sector size on the target. Normally you can't do a drive/drive clone between devices of different cluster sizes as the imaging software will throw an error that the sector sizes do not match and refuse to continue. This is far safer than attempting to resize clusters after the fact.

 

[Bryce Demar]

Rather than cloneing drive/drive use imaging instead. Create the image file/s on an intermediate device. Then, reverse the process to place the image on the target drive. This will create the proper sector size on the target. Normally you can't do a drive/drive clone between devices of different cluster sizes as the imaging software will throw an error that the sector sizes do not match and refuse to continue. This is far safer than attempting to resize clusters after the fact.

Would I need another 4TB Drive as an intermediary to store the image on? If so then I unfortunately don't have one on hand. I will purchase one though if there truly isn't an alternative. Additionally due to me not being a beginner here I would need to know what software you'd recommend for accomplishing this process.

 

[USAFRet]

Would I need another 4TB Drive as an intermediary to store the image on? If so then I unfortunately don't have one on hand. I will purchase one though if there truly isn't an alternative. Additionally due to me not being a beginner here I would need to know what software you'd recommend for accomplishing this process.

How much space is consumed on the 4TB?

What data is on it?

 

[Bryce Demar]

How much space is consumed on the 4TB?

What data is on it?

99% is used atm. Mostly lossless video files.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Would I need another 4TB Drive as an intermediary to store the image on? If so then I unfortunately don't have one on hand. I will purchase one though if there truly isn't an alternative. Additionally due to me not being a beginner here I would need to know what software you'd recommend for accomplishing this process.

In order:
Yes. You'll need a storage medium with a size of no less than the utilized space on the drive being imaged. Add 20% as a fudge factor.

I and several others here use Macrium Reflect (Free works just fine for this). Though Easeus should also be able to do this (this is a very basic function).

 

[USAFRet]

99% is used atm. Mostly lossless video files.

If this is not the OS drive, no cloning/imaging really needed.

You can copy/paste across your network.

Or remove the 4TB, install it in the other system, and copy/paste from there.

 

[Bryce Demar]

If this is not the OS drive, no cloning/imaging really needed.

You can copy/paste across your network.

Or remove the 4TB, install it in the other system, and copy/paste from there.

Ah, then a direct copy>paste really is fine in this scenario. Guess I was overthinking it. I'll do that. Thanks for the guidance.

 

[USAFRet]

Ah, then a direct copy>paste really is fine in this scenario. Guess I was overthinking it. I'll do that. Thanks for the guidance.

For 4TB of data, do it in small chunks.
Not the whole thing all at once.

The copy is not linear. If you grab the whole thing all at once, and if it fails at some point, you'll not really know exactly where it left off.

 

[Bryce Demar]

For 4TB of data, do it in small chunks.
Not the whole thing all at once.

The copy is not linear. If you grab the whole thing all at once, and if it fails at some point, you'll not really know exactly where it left off.

Got it.

 

[AJAshinoff]

I've found Laplinks PCMover to be very helpful when moving between dissimilar capacity hard drives, even when there is an OS on both drives. You can choose to move just the user profiles and dwhatever data you need, leaving out what you'd rather not keep. I've upgraded 60+ systems from Win7 to Win10 a while back. Very reliable.

As for disk cloning, I've used Acronis.

Neither of these solution are expensive and since I have many systems to maintain both saved me a ton of time.

I hope it helps