Windows 10: New to disk imaging/cloning - need advices

A generic question so I don't think I need to provide any specific info. My computers are Windows 10 64-bit.


Having trouble recently with some of my computers, and usually people/diagnosis software point out the culprit is the failing hard drives.


Whether they're right or not, I have never ever look into backing my data before. Now that I think about it, there are stuff I care too much about for them to be gone from a sudden failure. I don't want this.


I've done some research myself and seem like people prefer disk imaging. So I want to ask if anyone can guide me into the right step of exploring backing up data - and not just copy and paste like I have been doing since middle school. Few topics I want to discuss:


- Is it true disk imaging require you to save the disk image of a source drive X into another drive Y, then restore it to a drive Z to have the exact same state of my system? Does drive Z has to be a fresh drive? Does it has to conform to any other requirement in order for the image to successfully copy to it like hardware specifications?


- If it were to copy the exact state of the drive over, then won't that be piracy? After all, it will be copying even the Windows software itself. From what I saw online, people describe it as easily as if I'm copying a game save file or a document over.


- Any good free options for software to handle disk imaging or cloning? I would like to keep my available options to the cheapest free if I could. On the same topic, is Macrium ReflectFree good enough for the job?


- How long would the process usually take? How large will the image file be? Same size as whatever GBs my source hard drive is holding?


- How frequent would you be doing this?


- Any risk to the process? Any complications? I would imagine restoring the image can be quite troublesome. Even installing Windows 10 gave me some hiccups back when it was out.


- I am a complete novice in building PC and touching any hardware parts inside a PC. Is it easy and risk-free to replace a hardrive in a PC bought from a store? I want to self-learn this so any good guide/video will be appreciated.


Thank you for any inputs.

:)

 

New to disk imaging/cloning - need advices

A generic question so I don't think I need to provide any specific info. My computers are Windows 10 64-bit.

Having trouble recently with some of my computers, and usually people/diagnosis software point out the culprit is the failing hard drives.

Whether they're right or not, I have never ever look into backing my data before. Now that I think about it, there are stuff I care too much about for them to be gone from a sudden failure. I don't want this.

I've done some research myself and seem like people prefer disk imaging. So I want to ask if anyone can guide me into the right step of exploring backing up data - and not just copy and paste like I have been doing since middle school.
Few topics I want to discuss:

- Is it true disk imaging require you to save the disk image of a source drive X into another drive Y, then restore it to a drive Z to have the exact same state of my system? Does drive Z has to be a fresh drive? Does it has to conform to any other
requirement in order for the image to successfully copy to it (like hardware specifications)?

- Any good free options for software to handle disk imaging or cloning? I would like to keep my available options to the cheapest (free) if I could. On the same topic, is
Macrium Reflect Free good enough for the job?

- How long would the process usually take? How large will the image file be? Same size as whatever GBs my source hard drive is holding?

- How frequent would you be doing this?

- Any risk to the process? Any complications? I would imagine restoring the image can be quite troublesome. Even installing Windows 10 gave me some hiccups back when it was out.

- I am a complete novice in building PC and touching any hardware parts inside a PC. Is it easy and risk-free to replace a hardrive in a

PC bought from a store? I want to self-learn this so any good guide/video will be appreciated.

Thank you for any inputs.

 

new pc 1tb hdd to ssd clone advice needed


Ive just bought a brand new lenovo pc which has windows 10 home 64bit and has a 1tb hard drive fitted, im looking for advice on the following.

Ive fitted the ssd into the pc but its not shown up so need step by step guide on how to make it active ?

Next I need help on how to clone the 1tb hdd to the
Ssd drive, step by step and best software to use and have the ssd as the main drive then use the the 1hdd for storage.I just dont want to break my new system
Thanks for your time.

 

cloning (not imaging) speed -- Macrium vs DD

Semantics.

A clone directly copies a disk to another one without any intermediate step involved.

That is not how FFU works as far as I can tell. You still create an image file which you deploy to a new drive.

FFU is sort of halfway between imaging and cloning as the the image is more a sector by sector copy.

However, in the end it still needs two steps to clone to new drive, and this is more like Macrium backup and restore.

Unless I am mistaken, I cannot see a way to capture data on one drive and SIMULTANEOUSLY deploy it to a new drive which is exactly what Macrium Reflect does when cloning.

In the end, it does not matter except you have to be careful about comparing oranges and apples as you need to take all steps into account when comparing speeds.

As an aside, Reflect's Rapid Delta Cloning (not free version) is awesomely fast if you have an existing clone, and you re-clone provided extent of changes do not involve a build upgrade.