Disaster Recovery Tactic – Hard Drive Cloning

Cloud Based Hard Disk Cloning

“Clone” or cloning refers to exact duplication of something or even someone! The concept and real-time technology have been around for many years, take for instance “Dolly the Sheep”, first cloned sheep. Likewise, disk emulation executed through hard drive cloning software is critical for protection and management of digital data. Let’s have a closer look at how hard drive cloning software can be helpful starting from the basics and its effectiveness in disaster recovery.

A word on disk cloning software

Disk cloning is exact and flawless copying of data from its entirety, every bit of information from a computer hard drive to another disk is copied. Usually, the content of primary disk is imaged as an intermediary step followed by the creation of secondary disk by copying all files or data.

A disk cloning software replicates computer drives, software, operating system, and patches. It’s a convenient solution as compared to time-consuming manual installation and configuration of a system so you can perform either one or all of the following;

• Reboot and restore a computer to its earliest version
• Set up duplicate configuration and multiple computers
• Upgrade a hard drive(s) to large capacity or simply replace hard drive
• Complete recovery of a system in case software or computer malfunctions

Backup & disk cloning – The difference

Everyone wants to protect their essential digital data and this is what backup software does right? Well, not entirely! Full image backup software, file, and folder backup software aren’t similar to disk cloning software whereas reasons for using them may correspond to each other. Here’re a few things worth noting on when to use each;

Backup software

• Backup individual folders or files to the cloud for convenient remote access and offsite protection crucial for disaster recovery and a popular cog in cloud-based disaster recovery
• Backing up a computer from its entirety periodically. Disk imaging may include all backup such as applications, boot information, settings, and data files while storing it to either cloud server or a local, external hard drive.
• When applications and data are altered, backup provides a safe support for these incremental changes. Incremental backups take less time than new or (disk image) of entire source drive that allows you to recover almost everything from the time of initial hard disk setup.

Disk cloning software

• Easy duplication of multiple computers and configurations so each machine cane be set up identically.
• Set up a computer the way you want, clone hard drive and install cloned data on each consequent computer.

If someone’s need upgrading the existing computer hardware, simply inserting the cloned disk in the drive won’t work. You need an operating system setup features ensuring hardware actually supports the backup and recovery tool.

Advantages of cloning software

As compared to the conventional backup software, the biggest benefit of software cloning is for home computer users, providing them a complete mirror image of the computer at a single interval. You may want a perfect setup for both home and office with all settings and applications that can be exploited at any time.

Data files that can be images, videos or any other multimedia, MS-Word documents can be easily duplicated on separate hard drive or volume. All the systems in this way are synched with similar programs providing seamless user experience regardless of the machine being used.

Features of cloning software

Data recovery concept implies that the best cloning software is that which;

• Is simple: Transfers data through utilization of data migrating tools. It’s typically the easiest way to backup and restores a system but you should make sure data cloning software is intuitive and intelligible.
• Is efficient: Allow restoring multiple computers concurrently instead of the individual configuration of each system.
• Is secure: Offers 100 percent data protection and safety especially when linked to the World Wide Web.

Conclusion

The above details provide in-depth analysis of data cloning software as a disaster recovery solution in comparison to traditional backup methods.