Difference between "Replace disk in this comp" "Replace disk in another comp" in Dick Clone
What is the difference between "Replace disk in this comp" and "Replace disk in another comp" in Dick Clone app?
I am creating a disc clone (on HDD) as a backup in case of internal SSD crash. Sometimes "Replace disk in this comp" crashes. Can I use "Replace disk in another comp" and then use the disk in this comp?
Acronis True Image 2021 (Czech version). Left menu: Tools. Clone Disc.
From the ATI 2021 User Guide section on the Clone Wizard:
[This step is only available if the source disk has an OS installed]. On the Disk Usage step, select how you are going to use the clone.
- To replace a disk on this machine—the system disk data will be copied, and the clone will be bootable. Use this clone for replacing the system disk with a new one on this PC.
- To use on another machine—the system disk data will be copied, and the clone will be bootable. Use this clone to transfer all the data to another PC on a bootable disk.
- To use as a data disk—the disk data will be copied. Use this clone as a non-bootable data drive.
Not sure that the above really gives a clear explanation? Acronis has a habit of modifying device drivers according to how a drive is connected / where it is connected, which can result in a cloned drive being rendered unbootable in some circumstances!
Please see KB 56634: Acronis True Image: how to clone a disk - and review the step by step guide given there.
Note: the first section of the above KB document directs laptop users to KB 2931: How to clone a laptop hard drive - and has the following paragraph:
It is recommended to put the new drive in the laptop first, and connect the old drive via USB. Otherwise you will may not be able to boot from the new cloned drive, as Acronis True Image will apply a bootability fix to the new disk and adjust the boot settings of the target drive to boot from USB. If the new disk is inside the laptop, the boot settings will be automatically adjusted to boot from internal disk. As such, hard disk bays cannot be used for target disks. For example, if you have a target hard disk (i.e. the new disk to which you clone, and from which you intend to boot the machine) in a bay, and not physically inside the laptop, the target hard disk will be unbootable after the cloning.
Thank you, but I am still confused. I have an internal SSD 1 TB disc. I have bought external HDD 1 TB disc, inserted into an USB box. I want to clone the internal SSD to external HDD as a backup just in case the internal SSD became corrupt (which happened in the past), in that case I would simply replace the corrupted SSD by HDD (and will wait until the corrupt SSD is replaced by a merchant, they have 30 days time for this).
So, which option should I use? (Of course I do not want to swich the discs every time doing the backup).
M S wrote:Thank you, but I am still confused. I have an internal SSD 1 TB disc. I have bought external HDD 1 TB disc, inserted into an USB box. I want to clone the internal SSD to external HDD as a backup just in case the internal SSD became corrupt (which happened in the past), in that case I would simply replace the corrupted SSD by HDD (and will wait until the corrupt SSD is replaced by a merchant, they have 30 days time for this).
So, which option should I use? (Of course I do not want to swich the discs every time doing the backup).
Hi!
If you plan to use the drive on the same machine, then To replace a disk on this machine would be your choice.
Forgive me for bringing up this old thread again, but what exactly did we learn here? To trust that the designer of the software knows what he's doing? What is the difference then between "To replace a disk on this machine" and "To use on another machine"? I learned absolutely nothing new. Nothing that was not already covered (badly!) in the help file (meaning I can read it offline, even when Acronis has removed all help articles related to True Image 2021 off of its servers).
Yes, this user obviously intends to use the clone copy as a spare for the same computer. But he could have figured that out all on his own! Like myself, he so obviously wanted to know the technical difference between the two options, or even just the "implications" or "consequences" of choosing one over the other, if you want to keep the discussion abstract and theoretical without giving any real world examples; meaning you don't understand it well enough yourself if you can't explain it (if you have to rely on the intent or "Disk Usage" to know what to do next).
I have read the same "explanation" that Steve quoted. It didn't make much sense at the time, and it doesn't make much sense now, three days later. I have read it several times, just to make sure I didn't miss something.
By the way, where can this help section be found online? So we can link to it for reference?
To replace a disk on this machine—the system disk data will be copied, and the clone will be bootable. Use this clone for replacing the system disk with a new one on this PC.
What is "system disk data"? Why you does author emphasize "data"? Is "system disk data" not the same as "system disk"? We know that a system disk contains data, that's not news to anyone that frequents a web forum for a backup software. Or is there another meaning to this? Like in case of a system disk with more than one partition, where "C:\" is the system partition, and "D:\" is purely a data or storage partition? What is "system disk data"? You have to be more precise than that when you add two options to your cloning utility and then give them both a very similar explanation in the help file.
To use on another machine—the system disk data will be copied, and the clone will be bootable. Use this clone to transfer all the data to another PC on a bootable disk.
Am I seeing double or is this exactly the same explanation echoed?
The second line doesn't add much in order to understand the difference. Besides, it's up to me what I do with the cloned copy. It's not for Acronis to decide what I do with it. Just tell me straight up what the difference is, and what you are in fact doing with it behind the scenes, so I can better understand how I can use it. I hate software that assumes that the user is a common idiot who needs to be held by the hand to get around safely in the world. One button society. Why think when someone else can do the thinking for you?... Acronis, you might as well remove these options and decide for us (idiots). Oh wait... that's right... you already did exactly that. The clone utility of the "Cyber Protect" mumbo jumbo (what followed after True Image 2021) is missing these options, something that's already evident from Ian's statement above. But it's also missing from instructions in the article that Steve linked to.
To use as a data disk—the disk data will be copied. Use this clone as a non-bootable data drive.
Notice, it's "data disk". Previously it was "disk data". Whatever happened to "system disk data"? Where did "system" go? What does this mean for the Windows folder? Is it excluded? Or it's just a plain copy without boot sector? What does it mean for security descriptors, file and folder permissions and ownership?
There is a lot of useful information that can be added to this help file. Just in case someone comes along and actually reads the manual! Instead of doing this blatant copy and paste, and then change it up a bit to make it look like you made some effort to type it out. I find the Acronis True Image documentation is often lacking and disappointing in some regard. There is often a lot of text, but it often so happens that it's not saying much, it's just wide-spread fluff.
At the end of the day, the True Image cloning tool did get the job done. I used the option "to replace a disk on this machine", as I was cloning my old NVMe system disk to a new and bigger NVMe disk (for the same computer). The process was extremely fast too, taking no more than 10 minutes to clone 350 GB. Probably thanks to running the process within Windows. Compared to 4 hours and 35 minutes it takes to "recover" the same data using Acronis bootbale USB flash drive (it has to pass through the USB 3.0 flash drive which is a bottleneck). But it felt like I had to make a choice blind-folded. I wish I could have made a better informed decision. I did consult the manual for this, but it was not useful at all, as it was just repeating itself and not telling me the difference. Which is how I ended up on this thread to begin with, seeing that others had asked the same question before (and received no explanation as to what the difference is).
Samir, the ACPHO user guide ref cloning still has the same statements ref the two options.
In terms of practical knowledge of these options, then the simple answer from myself is that I have never used them as I very rarely, if ever, use cloning! I prefer using Backup & Recovery for such tasks!
In terms of my understanding of the differences, then if you select to use the cloned disk in the same system (aka this machine - where the operation is being performed), then I assume that it means it will keep all specific device drivers and boot configuration settings etc.
If you select to use it in another machine, then I suspect that there is some 'cleaning' of device drivers to inject more generic ones in place of specific drivers, akin to what Universal Restore is intended to do when migrating a system to new hardware. There will still be a big assumption here that the other machine will use the same Boot scheme as the machine performing the clone, i.e. that both are either legacy boot, or both are UEFI, and this will not be changed nor any option offered to do so.
True Image is the only backup software that I've ever used over the years that continues to misleading people by claiming to "clone" disks etc but it doesn't actually "clone" disks at all unless messing with GPT and MBR and modifying the file system on the "clone" is considered to be "cloning".
The competition (I personally moved to Terabyte - Image for Windows) doesn't have these issues with cloning as they clone disks not pretend to clone disks.
Steve Smith wrote:Samir, the ACPHO user guide ref cloning still has the same statements ref the two options.
In terms of practical knowledge of these options, then the simple answer from myself is that I have never used them as I very rarely, if ever, use cloning! I prefer using Backup & Recovery for such tasks!
In terms of my understanding of the differences, then if you select to use the cloned disk in the same system (aka this machine - where the operation is being performed), then I assume that it means it will keep all specific device drivers and boot configuration settings etc.
If you select to use it in another machine, then I suspect that there is some 'cleaning' of device drivers to inject more generic ones in place of specific drivers, akin to what Universal Restore is intended to do when migrating a system to new hardware. There will still be a big assumption here that the other machine will use the same Boot scheme as the machine performing the clone, i.e. that both are either legacy boot, or both are UEFI, and this will not be changed nor any option offered to do so.
I guess they "forgot" to update the documentation that goes along with the software. Because, if I understood previous statements correctly, they have removed these options starting with ACPHO (what would have been True Image 2022).
Steve, I would also normally use the "Recovery" option to restore a full disk image of an old system disk to a new disk, rather than cloning it. I have always had good results with this. I would create my True Image 2021 bootable recovery media, select my source disk, target disk and go. In fact, I don't think I have ever used the clone utility of Acronis True Image before. But in this instance, I wanted to try cloning the disk, because I had experienced extremely slow restoration process. I still have the Post-It note here on my disk, and it says "Start: 18:23" and "Stop: 22:58". So it took 4 hours and 35 minutes.
This was a restoration of about 370 GB worth of data, in a backup scheme consisting of a full system disk backup followed by endless incremental backups (3 months worth of backups). I selected to restore the last version. Source disk was a WD My Password, external USB 3.0 HDD (120 MB/s read/write). Target disk was a Samsung 970 EVO Plus (3500 MB/s read, 3000 MB/s write). Operation was executed from a SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 flash drive (100 MB/s read, 60 MB/s write) with Linux based Acronis recovery media. You may remember I had issues with Windows based variant of Acronis recovery media before, I have written about it on the forum. As I recall it, it was giving me errors and I was unable to use certain disks, possibly because of lack of drivers. Ever since then, I have used Linux based Acronis recovery media. Also, for example, the Windows (WinRE) media will not display disk labels so I can more easily identify source and target disk (and avoid making a costly mistake by formatting the wrong disk).
Given the numbers here, I think it's reasonable to assume that the reason for the slow restoration process is the USB flash drive. It's a bottleneck. Despite being one of the best performing and most affordable USB flash drives you can buy. Kingston DataTraveler and SanDisk Ultra series are overall the best USB flash drives in my experience. This 16 GB Ultra is one of my best companions. In fact, I had to move some files off of it, just so I can prepare the Acronis recovery media on it. But in spite of my best efforts, I still had to wait 4 hours and 35 minutes for Acronis to restore 370 GB. This should be going much faster, even at 120 MB/s from a HDD, but I know it's quite normal for Acronis. I have seen these very long restoration operations before, this is not news to me. It's as if all the read and write operations are done through the USB flash drive. As if not using RAM or creating a RAM-disk for the same purpose.
So it is with this background that I decided to try cloning, rather than restoring from backup. I did that from within the normal Windows instance, using the clone utility in True Image 2021. The operation completed in less than 10 minutes! It was so fast that I doubted it was successfully done. I had to compare and verify the contents of my Users folder, but sure enough, it all checked out. But what I did here is quite different. There was no HDD and no USB flash drive involved! I simply cloned my old Samsung 970 EVO Plus to my new Samsung 980 PRO. These are both extremely fast NVMe disks, even though the 980 PRO operates in compatibility mode as my motherboard only supports PCIe 3.0 and not the latest 4.0. However, I hypothesize that had I done the same using the Acronis recovery media, doing a clone that way rather than from within my normal Windows installation, I would have seen a significant increase in time it takes to do the same operation. This has to be tested and confirmed, something I am not ready to do right now, but I have a sense for this type of thing (experience) and I'm fairly confident that my assumptions are accurate.
If I just do the numbers on my calculator...
370 GB (GiB) = 378880 MB
120 MB/s
378880 MB / 120 MB/s = 3157 s = 52 minutes + 36 s
So it should take less than an hour in best case scenario with a sustained and continuous read speed of 120 MB/s from a HDD. In a worst case scenario, with a read speed of 80 MB/s, it should take 1 hour and 18 minutes. So less than two hours, which is more than half of 4 hours and 35 minutes it actually took.
On another note, it takes about 16 minutes for Acronis recovery media to display the options, from the moment I select what backup to restore from, till the recovery wizard comes up. This is unbearably slow, obviously. I don't know what the hell it's doing all that time, but my guess is that it's scanning and analyzing (overanalyzing) the 10 disk/partition backups I have, and that's after I already told it (selected) which backup to restore from and what version to restore.
So to sum up, I did a 370 GB system disk image restoration using Acronis recovery media, and it took 4 hours and 35 minutes. From a HDD (WD My Passport, external USB 3.0), to an SSD (Samsung 970 EVO Plus, internal NVMe 3.0). I did this two times, and each time it took over four hours.
The reason why I restored my old system disk twice from backup (to itself) is because I was wiping and testing it with a fresh Windows installation, as it has started to show its age (already, in less than four years!) and while the read speed was consistently in the 3500 MB/s mark, the write speed had dropped to incredible 20 MB/s. Almost at standstill. So I learned it's because of bad wear leveling and utilizing it to almost full capacity (I didn't buy it to look at how empty it is!). It crawled back up to about 800 MB/s after two consecuitive Windows installations and backup restorations. This helps because it re-distributes the data across worn and unworn blocks, something that the controller should be doing a better job of automatically. This was a good lesson in (low) disk durability of SSD disks (specifically NVMe disks). When Windows was freshly installed however, and almost 80% of the disk was empty, the write speed was restored back to the usual 3000 MB/s.
So I can no longer use this disk to its full capacity if I want to have the usual write performance. I have to choose between low capacity and good performance, or high capacity and bad performance. Thankfully it comes with a 5 year warranty, so I might ask for a replacement (it didn't say on the box that I can't use it to its full capacity). Say what you will about the slow speed of old-fashioned HDD disks, but at least they are consistently slow, so you know what you can expect from them long term, and they are much more durable in my experience than any SSD disk I have used.
I have only had Samsung SSD disks, the supposedly best of the best. They are over-hyped and over-priced in my opinion. I was so close to buying a WD Black SN850X as my new system disk, it offers way more performance at a lower price! But I found the Samsung 980 PRO with same capacity for less on Amazon and decided to get that instead. But after reading some reviews, I can highly recommend the WD Black series. In fact, I already had purchased the WD Black SN850X, one with a heatsink and one without. Before I found the Samsung disk on sale on Amazon. I need to send back the WD disks for a refund, I will not be keeping them. I might get one in the future to put it in an external disk enclosure. But in general, Samsung disks are over-priced and over-hyped, and WD SSD disks are just as good, and on several aspects – such as number of controller channels – technologically superior. Wear leveling was most disappointing on that 970 EVO Plus. This is an area that WD excels in according to some reports.
The super fast cloning operation was done from the old (and no longer in use) Samsung 970 EVO Plus to Samsung 980 PRO (my new system disk). This took less than 10 minutes, something that I still find difficult to grasp. So while I myself prefer restoring a disk image of an old disk to a new disk using the regular "Recovery" procedure, there are times when cloning is a more favorable option. Primarily to save time. But it's also more easier for the novice user, without having to create a bootable Acronis recovery media, and possibly having to change boot order priority, and possibly avoiding the issue of driver support. There is definitely less friction this way, and it's quicker.
Steve, I also suspect that these two cloning options are somehow related to Universal Restore. Perhaps exactly like you describe it. I just wish Acronis would state this clearly, and update its documentation accordingly. Otherwise we have to guess. It seems like an selection that the user needs to make (and it's mandatory, not optional), which may or may not render a system unbootable. This is kind of crucial, so it better be well documented. Beyond the user intent (do you want "to replace a disk on this machine" vs. do you want "to use on another machine").
I completely oppose this type of interface design. I rather see that they present the consequences and/or advantages vs. disadvantages of each option, and make the user do the thinking and prepare for possible future scenarios. This is akin to playing chess; it's your task as a player to think several steps ahead, if you want to win.
I like to have granular control over this type of operations, all for the purpose of reassuring myself that everything is done correctly. So for example, I went for the "Manual" option rather than "Automatic (recommended)" under the "Clone Mode" view, where automatic would probably have been sufficient. But I was dumbfounded by the two options that followed, and no proper explanation or documentation was given (none that would offer an insight into what the software actually will do).
Steve, you mention the consequence of having a mismatch between UEFI and legacy boot or BIOS. Well, this is something that Acronis could have offered options for modifying. If they so much want to do the thinking for us and hold hand. Instead, they leave this with us to figure out on our own (possibly when it's too late). As it should be, in my opinion (assuming they at least put in a tooltip that warns for this scenario). But this is in stark contrast to what they do with the two cloning options, where they are essentially trying to anticipate and get ahead of possible future drivers issue or other type of system mismatch (we don't know exactly the type or extent of issue they are trying to get ahead of as it's not documented), by asking the user how he intends to use the cloned disk. This is inconsistent design decision (design philosophy).
I don't really want to go there, as it takes a lot of time and effort, but I might do a test of each of these options, just to see what happens if I choose one vs. the other. (Reminds me of Sheldon Cooper comparing child's edition and regular edition of the same book, just to see if there are any differences.) I have four different systems that should produce some interesting results. In any case, and as always, I appreciate your input on this topic Steve.
Joseph Murphy wrote:True Image is the only backup software that I've ever used over the years that continues to misleading people by claiming to "clone" disks etc but it doesn't actually "clone" disks at all unless messing with GPT and MBR and modifying the file system on the "clone" is considered to be "cloning".
The competition (I personally moved to Terabyte - Image for Windows) doesn't have these issues with cloning as they clone disks not pretend to clone disks.
Joseph, I'm curious to know more about this. Can you give me an example? In what way is it messing with partition schemes (GPT or MBR) and file systems (like NTFS)? In your own terms, what does it mean to "clone" a disk?
As far as I can remember, I have never used the clone utility in True Image before. This was the first time. So I don't have much of a reference point to relate to. I would normally do a recovery procedure when migrating Windows and its apps and data to a new disk.
I have "cloned" my old Samsung 970 EVO Plus to a new Samsung 980 PRO using the clone utility in True Image, from within Windows (not from Acronis recovery media). The whole process went so fast I was in disbelief. I had to do a sanity check. I compare and verified the contents of my Users folder, and sure enough, it all checked out (the other system folders were pointless to compare as they are actively used and modified by Windows and programs all the time). It took no more than 10 minutes to clone about 370 GB worth of data. Something that could potentially have taken several hours to do by doing a recovery procedure with Acronis recovery media. I have since then wiped the old disk clean using Samsung Secure Erase and continued to use the new disk without any issues. It boots normally, on the same machine. I only used it once, but I am happy with the result.
Hi Samir
True Image will tamper with the partition structure to match whatever the machine was booted on (ie I wanted to clone an MBR disk but because the booted Windows / True Image boot media was booted using UEFI. True Image will automatically convert from MBR to GPT and do other things, which completely goes against what making a clone should be.............Even making full images of disks and restoring those images also gets MBR to GPT tampering.
A clone should be without question an identical copy like I've cloned MBR / GPT disks with other software and they do not care if I booted via UEFI as they'll never tamper with the partition / file structure unless I've manually adjusted settings to do so.
For people working with MBR and GPT disks. This stuff is extremely annoying and Acronis is the only imaging / cloning software I've ever come across that doesn't clone disks as-is but their interpretation of cloning is different that anyone else who makes similar software.
Joseph Murphy wrote:Hi Samir
True Image will tamper with the partition structure to match whatever the machine was booted on (ie I wanted to clone an MBR disk but because the booted Windows / True Image boot media was booted using UEFI. True Image will automatically convert from MBR to GPT and do other things, which completely goes against what making a clone should be.............Even making full images of disks and restoring those images also gets MBR to GPT tampering.
A clone should be without question an identical copy like I've cloned MBR / GPT disks with other software and they do not care if I booted via UEFI as they'll never tamper with the partition / file structure unless I've manually adjusted settings to do so.
For people working with MBR and GPT disks. This stuff is extremely annoying and Acronis is the only imaging / cloning software I've ever come across that doesn't clone disks as-is but their interpretation of cloning is different that anyone else who makes similar software.
Joseph, thanks for clarifying. I understand what you mean now. So basically True Image converts between MBR and GPT where it sees fit without user consent? It sounds exactly like the type of thing I would hate in a software product, something I ridiculed and scorned in my previous post. It's True Image playing chess with itself!
This is not unique to True Image though. I mean, it may be so when it comes to backup software, but this is a trend I have seen over the years in many types of software. This is what you get when software gets too clever – or too "smart", to use the correct buzz word – for the user's own good. This is bad. Not only for a single user but for the community at large. And by community, I don't just mean a group of nerds who know how to use software, I mean entire nations.
This whole "we know what's best for you" approach to software design is presented as superior, where we can "do more in half the time", and "make life easier" by only having to click a single button. But I assure you, bit by bit, this is stealing our freedom to think freely, speak freely, and act freely. The less we think, the more they can control us, and the more we spend. A consumer that thinks and calculates is a bad consumer. I think in our time, being a "consumer" is probably the single greatest insult. It's not just about being dumb and buying things you don't need, it has a deeper meaning than that. It implies that you're not being yourself, you're following someone else's agenda, and it applies to everything, not just to stuff or goods. You can be a consumer of information and misinformation campaigns, for example.
In times like these, I think open source software is the best way forward. Open source software has never before had more relevance than it has right now, in this increasingly digital and connected world we live in. I just hope more people realize this and start to explore the alternatives to closed source and proprietary software. I think most of government administration in Germany for example has switched to Linux by now, and it all started with the city of Frankfurt in 2010.
As for cloning with True Image, I didn't run into any issue with this myself, as I was "cloning" from a GPT disk on a UEFI system to a new disk for the same system. But I can see how this could quickly turn into an issue. As I recall it, GPT is a requirement for UEFI systems. I no longer use MBR, unless I have to, for some reason. But as I remember from back in the day when UEFI boards and GPT disks became available, Linux systems worked regardless if your disk is GPT or MBR, and this was a unique advantage of Linux over Windows at the time.
At the very end of the "Clone Disk Wizard", at the "Finish" (overview) page, just before you click the "Proceed" button to begin the process, there is a warning/info message that I think relates to this partition tampering/manipulation. I have the screenshot, I might post it here later. But it says: "The selected disk will be restored as is (disk's layout will remain GPT)."
Note that this message appears before I have created a clone that I can use (to "be restored"). I am about to begin the process to create it when this message appears. So it's already telling me now, ahead of time, what will happen when I use the resulting disk clone in the future. It says "disk's layout will remain GPT". But this may only be true for when the clone is used on the same UEFI system it was created on. Using the clone to restore the operating system on a system running a classic BIOS (or UEFI in Legacy BIOS/CSM mode) may result in True Image converting the GPT table to MBR. This could be beneficial, especially in case of the Windows operating system which is very strict/limited when UEFI/BIOS/GPT compatibility is concerned, but it could also potentially result in a system that will not boot properly.