How to mirror or clone USB backup storage.

[Bender Blues]

So I have two USB 3.0, 1tb drives with roughly 85% capacity each. I'm on Amazon to purchase a single 3tb USB to house both and keep the other two off line. 

I've researched so much that I'm lost. Thought about copy/paste but I assume thats going to be a massive burden on every drive and unreliable.

 

So do I clone, or do I mirror? And what software do you think I need to do it reliably? 

And whats the difference in mirroring and cloning? I'm honestly kinda lost on this one small aspect. 

 

Both drives have maybe 30 folders, and in them have jpgs, zips etc.  And folders in folders.

Hope this makes sense, look forward to an answer.

 

cheers

 

 

[WereCatf]

Just now, Bender Blues said:

Thought about copy/paste but I assume thats going to be a massive burden on every drive and unreliable.

You're overthinking this: copying data is copying data, it's not going to be any more or less a burden on any drive involved whether you do it per-file or as a one, large bulk-copy, really. Personally, I'd just simply copy the files over. There's a catch, though: before you start copying anything to the new drive, I recommend running a full surface-level check on it, just to make sure there's nothing wrong with the new drive.

[Bender Blues]

Just now, WereCatf said:

You're overthinking this: copying data is copying data, it's not going to be any more or less a burden on any drive involved whether you do it per-file or as a one, large bulk-copy, really. Personally, I'd just simply copy the files over. There's a catch, though: before you start copying anything to the new drive, I recommend running a full surface-level check on it, just to make sure there's nothing wrong with the new drive.

Theres a difference in it. Cut and paste vs. copy and paste for example.

Also, theres a massive risk of copy/paste if an error comes up, an unforeseen anomaly etc. In that process, if failure, you can lose that data from the source. Been there once before. Its not over thinking.

 

Thats why mirroring or cloning is preferred with large chunks of data vs copy/paste.

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, Bender Blues said:

Theres a difference in it. Cut and paste vs. copy and paste for example.

I didn't recommend cutting and pasting.

 

2 minutes ago, Bender Blues said:

Also, theres a massive risk of copy/paste if an error comes up, an unforeseen anomaly etc. In that process, if failure, you can lose that data from the source.

No, only in cut-and-paste. Copy-and-paste doesn't do anything to the source other than read from it.

 

2 minutes ago, Bender Blues said:

Thats why mirroring or cloning is preferred with large chunks of data vs copy/paste.

You're still reading from the source. If there's a failure in the source, like e.g. a bad sector, copying per-file or in large chunks won't change anything as the process will still fail.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

@Bender Blues I'm not sure if you you mean duplicating data on a drive in a computer to an external drive or making a copy of an external drive onto another external drive so I'll discribe both. both will use a program folder/file Syncing program called FreeFileSync (FFS). The program's website has a forum where you can go to get any help you may need.

 

When set to mirror mode (not the same thing as RAID 1), a folder/file syncing program will compare the source drive, partition, or folder(s) (user's choice) with the destination drive, partition, or folder(s). It will them copy any data on the source that's not on the destination to the destination. It will also delete any data on the destination that is no longer on the source. The end result on the destination is essentially a clone of of the source. The source remains untouched in the process. After each time you run it, it will pop up a report informing you if there were any problems, such as a bad copy (which I have found to be rare). Using FFS is far more reliable and easier than just Copy and Paste.

 

There is a feature on FFS called Versioning which, when enabled (which I strongly recommend), will send deleted files to a Versioning folder or drive of your choice. This protects you from losing data due to accidental deletions and deletions from the destination due to corruption on the source.

 

The first time you run the program to populate the destination, it will take quite a while. After that, updates will take very little time and effort to perform. Just connect the drive being backed up, click on the appropriate profile you set up the when you first populated the destination, then just ignore it until the job is done. Since only files that have changed, been added, or been deleted will be involved, updates will happen quickly, depneding on the number of changes made.

 

To backup a drive in the computer to an external drive, just connect the external drive to the computer, open FFS, click on the appropriate profile, then click on Synchronize. The same applies to updating the backup.

 

I do not recommend syncing between two destinations (even though it can be done with FFS) since an error, albeit unlikely one, will be replicated on the second drive. Instead, just separately sync from the computer to each external drive. It doesn't take any longer to do it this way and is less likely to have problems. This is exactly the procedure I use to backup my computer data drives to multiple backup drives.

 

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

6 hours ago, Bender Blues said:

And whats the difference in mirroring and cloning? I'm honestly kinda lost on this one small aspect.

Mirroring is basically matching the directories and files of one drive to another using normal file system operations. To the user, the end result looks the same, but the physical location of the data on the disk may be different than the original. Cloning is copying the data exactly, down to the bit level and the location of where the data is. Cloning is also typically "all or nothing" approach. Either you clone the entire drive or you don't. Mirroring allows piecemeal updates.

 

6 hours ago, Bender Blues said:

Thought about copy/paste but I assume thats going to be a massive burden on every drive and unreliable.

If reliability is paramount, then use robocopy from the command line or Teracopy if you want a GUI.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

10 hours ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Mirroring is basically matching the directories and files of one drive to another using normal file system operations. To the user, the end result looks the same, but the physical location of the data on the disk may be different than the original. Cloning is copying the data exactly, down to the bit level and the location of where the data is. Cloning is also typically "all or nothing" approach. Either you clone the entire drive or you don't. Mirroring allows piecemeal updates.

 

If reliability is paramount, then use robocopy from the command line or Teracopy if you want a GUI.

Mirroring has multiple meanings depending on the application. When used to define a form of RAID (RAID 1 to be exact), it refers to data essentially being written to two drives simultaneously.

 

Cloning can be either an exact bit by bit copy or, again depending on the software, can be just a transfer of only bits that are in use. Macrium Reflect is one software package that has two kinds of cloning. One, called Intelligent Sector Cloning, will copy over only the sectors with data and and empty sectors are ignored. The other one is called Forensic Cloning and it involves sector by sector cloning. Intelligent Sector Cloning makes it possible to clone data from one drive to a smaller one as long as the smaller drive has room for the data on the larger drive. Forensic cloning is generally used to replicate a drive that has problems so diagnostic work can be done on a fresh drive rather than risk further damage to the original drive by fooling around with it.

 

I already described what mirror mode in folder/file syncing programs is.

[Bender Blues]

On 11/11/2019 at 4:39 AM, Lady Fitzgerald said:

@Bender Blues I'm not sure if you you mean duplicating data on a drive in a computer to an external drive or making a copy of an external drive onto another external drive so I'll discribe both. both will use a program folder/file Syncing program called FreeFileSync (FFS). The program's website has a forum where you can go to get any help you may need.

 

When set to mirror mode (not the same thing as RAID 1)........................................

 

 

Thats a home run. Everything I needed to know, thank you so much for explaining both aspects. Gonna print that one out 

And thank you to Mira and WereCatf for that insight. You guys are all awesome.

 

And yes, what I was trying to say in what I want is like taking an exact snapshot with all the data and place it on the 3tb.

Like picking up a plate of data and placing it on/in a new shelf.

 

THANK YOU all And thank you @Lady Fitzgerald