Clone (image) to external 4 T hard drive

Cloning means you are going to replicate the disk on another disk. The result is a disk that behaves like the original one: all data on the target disk is lost, and all data from the source is laid out on the target disk.

Imaging is completely different. You create a TIB file on the target disk. The TIB file contains all the useful information stored on the source disk.

You should be able to create an "entire PC" backup and store this backup on your external disk.

Pat,

Hopefully, you have misspoken....or I will be getting the jitters the next time I remotely consider using the clone procedure
In my limited experience with the cloning procedure, the data from the "Source Disk" is not lost... just copied onto the destination.
Hence, the word clone... Make a duplicate but not destroy the original.

Keith
I am assuming you want to make a copy of your bootable SSD. When I wanted a copy of my working SSD, I simply made an image of the working partition, shut down the computer, removed the source disk, inserted the destination disk in EXACTLY the same port as the source, booted the computer by the recovery disk and recovered my image onto the new drive. I elected to recover to the "C" (bootable) partition but I suppose you could place the recovered image on any partition, even a non bootable one.... Recovery to a bootable partition would make your 4TB disk bootable and give you loads of room to create other very useful partitions.

Steve

Thank you Steve.

That is what I understood. After cloning one has two identical drives. No loss of any data on the source drive.

My goal is to just have a back up in case of catastrophic failure of the C drive. I would want to update that every so often to accommodate any additional programs that I have added.

Having an image or clone would be so much easier than reloading all of the programs.

I am a little confused as to which is better to have - image or clone. I guess it would not hurt to have both.

Keith

Keith,

I have personally tested with images for disaster recovery.
Actually tested many many times and even used the universal recovery to dissimilar equipment with good success.
I have not tested UR with 2016 yet.
I have heard many horror stories concerning cloning and even after several years of using TIH, I have never opted to use cloning.
All of my testing and recovery has been done using images.

The only time I had trouble recovering, was a problem similar to yours. I was trying to recover an image to an external SATA drive.
I could not select the destination drive because it was "greyed out"... It took quite a few days to resolve the issue but a couple of the MVP's here chimed in and gave me a hint that the image may be flawed because the source disk had errors. I could not imagine that my OS was corrupted because my Win8.1 was working just fine...but I followed the MVP's recommendation to run chkdks c: /f several times and see if any errors popped up.
Sure enough, first pass, errors were repaired, I created a NEW image and the restore to an external drive was accomplished without any errors. After the restore, I pulled out the source drive and inserted the test restored drive and it booted fine and everything was there...

Bottom line, when your in deep pookie, you better have tested and retested for a disaster recovery.
The volunteer MVP's here are a bunch of great folks and are always willing to stand with you and help resolve a problem.

Steve

Thank you again Steve. I really appreciate your time and expertise.

I will go with the imaging. I will run chkdks c: /f if I run into problems.

It appears that I need to create a boot-able media, I will use a flash drive.

I have actually used Acronis for many years, but I have not used imaging. I did use cloning once with a failing hard drive. That was many years (and versions) ago, and it did work. Sometimes the more we can do the more complicated it gets.

Again, thank you.

Keith

Yes, I mispoke... Corrected above.

Go with an image, not a clone.

No problem Pat. I appreciate your input. It is a complicated electronic world. Hard to keep track of everything. We are forced to learn much more than we wish to. We just want to use the durn things! Not spend days making everything work!

Thanks.

Keith