Cloning system drive?

[looselatitude]

Hi, I just got a new computer that has a 120gig ssd with the OS on it. From my understanding cloning the ssd would allow me to have a bootable drive that I can just swap out and go if something ever happened to the original ssd. This is what I'd like to do so if this is the case I have some questions.

1. Software wise I've narrowed it down to clonezilla and FOG. Are these good choices?

2. I would be cloning the drive on a regular basis, a couple of times a month. Is using an ssd a good choice for this(limited write life issue?)?

3. Should the clone drive be the exact same make and model? Can I use a different make/model? Can I use different size capacity?

4. Anything else I should be aware of that I haven't mentioned that you think I should know about?

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More info/bigger picture... computer came with a 120g ssd and 1tb hdd. This is going to be an editing machine. I do a lot of graphics stuff for my side business. I have a working solution for storage and backups.

 

[ronbo613]

I make a couple drive images of my computer boot drive using Macrium Reflect. You can boot from a USB thumb drive and restore the drive from the image. I have an image on an internal hard drive and another on an external drive. Macrium Reflect will also clone drives.

 

[Harvey]

I've had good luck with EaseUS Todo Backup, which, as the name implies, is free. You can download it from CNET.

It's always a good idea to check your clone copy immediately after cloning a drive to make sure everything transferred correctly.

 

[ultimatebob]

A Clonezilla Device to Device copy should work fine, as long as the source drive is smaller or the same size as the target drive. You could clone it to an image as well, but then you would need to restore the image before you can use it.

You can make a bootable USB stick with Clonezilla on it, and then you just boot from that and select a few menu options. If you're handy with Linux shell scripting, you can script the process as well.

 

[corkyg]

I have done it too many times to count. My cloning rules are fairly simple. Rule 1 - use bootable cloning media - not within Windows. I can clone smaller to bigger or bigger to smaller as long as the actual data will fit. I use Acronis TI on a thumb Drive and Proportional cloning. Rule 2 is always remove the source drive to boot to the target drive. My old laptop is now all SSD, and I have two SSDs with Win 7 and two with Win 10. Another SSD is the data drive that serves both OS's.

 

[cbn]

I use Clonezilla myself.

Here is video tutorial on how to do it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=12&v=gr4T47_rkLw