Question Trying to boot from a Macrium Reflect Clone Image (Win 11) ?

[MC Freak]

As usaf wrote.

Keep in mind that if the gum stick croaks your dead unless you have a spare gum stick sitting on the shelf.

Perhaps clone to a gum stick instead of a hdd now your covered in two directions.

Thanks again, @Bob.B !

I now understand that a tiny M.2 2280 or an M.2 2230 SSD is the order of the day, but I was wondering about adapters or docks for these tiny SSDs. As I don't wish to open up our brand new Dell 7630 laptop, I'd like to find a reasonably priced "external" adapter/drive to work with. Considering that both our Macs and the new Dell 7630 have Thunderbolt ports, perhaps that would be the way to go? Anyway, if you have any experience with this kind of thing, I'd appreciate your thoughts. Thank you kindly.

By the way, I watched a YT disassembly video covering the Dell 7630. It seems to come with an M.2 "Chiclet" 2230 SSD, but it also has and additional slot for (1) M.2 Gumstick 2280 SSD. Hopefully, this information will help inform other Dell 7630 owners out there.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks again, @Bob.B !

I now understand that a tiny M.2 2280 or an M.2 2230 SSD is the order of the day, but I was wondering about adapters or docks for these tiny SSDs. As I don't wish to open up our brand new Dell 7630 laptop, I'd like to find a reasonably priced "external" adapter/drive to work with. Considering that both our Macs and the new Dell 7630 have Thunderbolt ports, perhaps that would be the way to go? Anyway, if you have any experience with this kind of thing, I'd appreciate your thoughts. Thank you kindly.

By the way, I watched a YT disassembly video covering the Dell 7630. It seems to come with an M.2 "Chiclet" 2230 SSD, but it also has and additional slot for (1) M.2 Gumstick 2280 SSD. Hopefully, this information will help inform other Dell 7630 owners out there.

Your OS needs to run on an internal drive.
No matter how it gets there. Fresh install, clone, Image recovery...

External?
You're losing most of the "speed" benefit of an NVMe drive by going through whatever adapter and interface you use.. USB, t-bolt, whatever.

 

[Lafong]

Considering that both our Macs and the new Dell 7630 have Thunderbolt ports, perhaps that would be the way to go?

The way to go for what purpose?

You certainly don't need Thunderbolt. It would still be an external. The speed advantage of Thunderbolt would be of little importance.

You're not likely to boot from an external of any type, so I assume you just want to protect yourself against a disaster if the chiclet 2230 fails.

You say you don't want to open the 7630 to make use of the other M.2 port.

Obviously, you'd have to do that if it failed.

Looks like you could just make a Macrium image of the chiclet 2230 and save it on most any external source....HDD, 2.5 inch SSD, enclosure containing M.2 2280, whatever. Restore the image to the chiclet if the chiclet is replaced or becomes corrupted, etc.

Looks like you are over-thinking this or not clear on your options.

 

[MC Freak]

The "external" adapter/dock will [hopefully] be used to make the clone/imaging possible with a tiny M.2 22XX SSD. As stated, I do not want to open up a brand new laptop while it's under warranty. The only other PC option we have is the Dell M4700 that is now broken - and won't accept an M.2 22XX NVMe PCIe SSD anyway. I simply wish to clone or image to the tiny M.2 22XX SSD and store it away for future use.

I fully understand that I'm a long way from Mac world with the new Dell 7630. In other words, I know that I can't boot from an external clone copy in the wonderful world of Micro$oft.

 

[USAFRet]

The "external" adapter/dock will [hopefully] be used to make the clone/imaging possible. As stated, I do not want to open up a brand new laptop while it's under warranty. The only other PC option we have is the broken Dell M4700 that is now broken - and won't accept an M.2 22XX NVMe PCIe SSD anyway. I simply wish to clone or image to the tiny M.2 22XX SSD and store it away for future use.

I fully understand that I'm a long way from Mac world with the new Dell 7630. In other words, I know that I can't boot from an external clone copy in the wonderful world of Micro$oft.

And as said, an Image of any drive can be written to ANY storage device of sufficient size.

The Images (Full/Differential/Incremental), of all my house systems, a dozen or so individual physical drives, going back up to 30 days, consume about 3.7TB in a single folder tree on my NAS.


For instance, a Full drive Image of the C (Win 11 Home) in my Surface Go 3 takes about 60GB. Lives in the same folder as all the other systems.
But that Image is only useful on that particular Surface laptop. I could not take that Image and apply it to the i3-8100 desktop, or the Lenovo laptop.

 

[Lafong]

I simply wish to clone or image to the tiny M.2 22XX SSD and store it away for future use.

TO the tiny M.2, as opposed to FROM it to some other drive?

Not following what you have in mind.

You can "store away" a cloned drive.

You can also "store away" an image file of an existing drive.

The first is a drive; the second is a file.

If you have a strong preference for one of those 2, state which.

 

[Bob.B]

Thanks again, @Bob.B !

I now understand that a tiny M.2 2280 or an M.2 2230 SSD is the order of the day, but I was wondering about adapters or docks for these tiny SSDs. As I don't wish to open up our brand new Dell 7630 laptop, I'd like to find a reasonably priced "external" adapter/drive to work with. Considering that both our Macs and the new Dell 7630 have Thunderbolt ports, perhaps that would be the way to go? Anyway, if you have any experience with this kind of thing, I'd appreciate your thoughts. Thank you kindly.

By the way, I watched a YT disassembly video covering the Dell 7630. It seems to come with an M.2 "Chiclet" 2230 SSD, but it also has and additional slot for (1) M.2 Gumstick 2280 SSD. Hopefully, this information will help inform other Dell 7630 owners out there.

I was just referring to using a gum stick for the destination for the clone.

If your thinking about booting and running off the external.......no.

 

[MC Freak]

Call it over-thinking or going overboard, but the cloning that I've been doing with our Mac machines has become a habit that puts us at ease about drive failure(s).

I'm not sure how else to put it, but our goal is to have backup drive copies that can either be transferred from an external drive or installed in place of a defective system drive [whichever proves to be possible at the time]. As I will not open the new Dell 7630, there seems to be only one possibility: create a clone/image copy of the 7630's system drive using an NVMe PCIe 22XX SSD that's installed on an external adapter/dock that's made for this purpose. Please don't take this question the wrong way, but am I missing something here?

 

[MC Freak]

I was just referring to using a gum stick for the destination for the clone.

If your thinking about booting and running off the external.......no.

No, I am not thinking about that all. Although I can boot from our external dock within seconds via macOS, I realize that this is not possible with M$ products.

Thank you again for all the help, @Bob.B !

 

[USAFRet]

As I will not open the new Dell 7630, there seems to be only one possibility: create a clone/image copy of the 7630's system drive using an NVMe PCIe 22XX SSD that's installed on an external adapter/dock that's made for this purpose.

Yes.

Run Macrium, create an Image off to some other storage device. Any storage device.

In the (rare) event of a physically dead drive...
Swap in a new one.
Boot from the Macrium Rescue USB.
Tell it where the Image is, and what drive to apply this Image to.
Go.
Done.

 

[Lafong]

Call it over-thinking or going overboard, but the cloning that I've been doing with our Mac machines has become a habit that puts us at ease about drive failure(s).

I'm not sure how else to put it, but our goal is to have backup drive copies that can either be transferred from an external drive or installed in place of a defective system drive [whichever proves to be possible at the time]. As I will not open the new Dell 7630, there seems to be only one possibility: create a clone/image copy of the 7630's system drive using an NVMe PCIe 22XX SSD that's installed on an external adapter/dock that's made for this purpose. Please don't take this question the wrong way, but am I missing something here?

"...........our goal is to have backup drive copies........."

If you mean that LITERALLY, sitting in a closet and ready to go, then forget imaging.

You are in clone land. Hardware land. Drive land.

Not file land. Not image land. Not image restoration land.

That is NOT what I'd do to protect myself from disaster, but you said "backup drive", full stop.

 

[Lafong]

Suppose you make a clone.

How do you know it will boot your Dell 7630 if you won't open the case to test it?

Is hope a good strategy?

 

[MC Freak]

This thread is getting a bit silly now. Some things are self-evident and semantics are semantics.

Be it "image" or "clone," the ideal is to have the same kind of safety measures that we've enjoyed for years now. Namely, an image/copy/??? stored somewhere that can be used in case of a drive failure or simply to recover from a corrupted drive. Does it really matter when that happens? It seems sort of ridiculous to write this, but, yes, I will open up any of our machines if a drive needs to be replaced. I won't, however, open a brand new machine up to make a clone copy ... and I'm a bit confused now ... am I in Clone Land, Hardware Land or Drive Land? 🤣

Thanks for the smile, but I'll only respond to productive comments from here on out.

Have a great evening and, once again, thanks @Bob.B for the help.

 

[USAFRet]

This thread is getting a bit silly now. Some things are self-evident and semantics are semantics.

Be it "image" or "clone," the ideal is to have the same kind of safety measures that we've enjoyed for years now. Namely, an image/copy/??? stored somewhere that can be used in case of a drive failure or simply to recover from a corrupted drive. Does it really matter when that happens? It seems sort of ridiculous to write this, but, yes, I will open up any of our machines if a drive needs to be replaced. I won't, however, open a brand new machine up to make a clone copy ... and I'm a bit confused now ... am I in Clone Land, Hardware Land or Drive Land? 🤣

Thanks for the smile, but I'll only respond to productive comments from here on out.

Have a great evening and, once again, thanks @Bob.B for the help.

To create either a Clone or Image, you do not need to open the thing up.
Click click save it to wherever.

But...to test may be a different story.

An Image can be applied/resurrected to the same internal drive.
To test a Cloned drive, you may indeed need to physically swap the drives, to see if it actually works. (it probably will work, but...)

You can do it either way you choose, Clone or Image.
Me, I do Images.
A direct Clone of a dozen+ physical drives is not supportable. A dozen+ Images is easy.

All up to you.