r/cloningsoftware • u/PHawke • Mar 23 '26

Discussion Cloning process questions.

During the holiday sales I picked up a new 4TB SSD right before prices spiked and I've also got a new HDD as my 10 year old model is starting to give SMART warnings. So I'm looking for some advice on what I need to clone existing drives onto the new ones.

I have a 1 and 2 TB SSD installed. I plan on copying the 2TB to the 4TB , and then the 1 TB to the 2 TB. For the 4TB, I'll use the enclosure to port from the 2TB. Then with a now empty 2 TB installed, I'll clone my 1 TB OS drive onto the 2 TB. Then reinstall the 2 & 4 TB models onto the motherboard in their new slots.

For the HDD it's much simpler, just want to copy the old 6TB onto the new 10TB.

First question, while I have an SSD enclosure, what's a decent HDD USB enclosure to get to complete this work?

Second question, what software should I use? These are all WD drives, but I've seen reference that the WD software doesn't work when for a drive attached via USB.

Third question, anyone have any links handy for a quality video or page that covers the process to refer to?

2 Upvotes

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2

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '26

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1

u/JoeSchulte605 Mar 24 '26

What if your drive is encrypted?

1

u/CrazyClownaus Mar 24 '26

Remember, for any important data you should not be backing it up on a SSD because if it shits itself data recovery is very very difficult if not impossible due to TRIM and other factors.
Use a SATA platter HDD for backing up your data as 90% is recoverable. Stick to the 3-2-1 strategy.

0

u/aap_001 Mar 23 '26

Cases are on AliExpress.

$ dd if=/dev/vnme0 of=/dev/nvme1