Be sure to properly dispose of your old device! After you’re done, you can remove your original drive and mount it in an external enclosure to keep as a backup. Migrating to a new drive: Getting a new computer? If you clone your old drive, you don’t have to reinstall everything on the new machine. But if you haven’t cloned your drive before you get malware on your system, it’s already too late - so clone your drive now to be prepared.

If you already have a cloned hard drive before you get infected, you can simply wipe your system clean and start from scratch with the clone.

Ransomware encrypts your files and renders them useless, while demanding a ransom to decrypt them. Many types of malware can damage your files, data, or even the entire OS. In general, most people clone their drives for one of the following reasons:Ĭreating a full backup: A backup is invaluable in the event of a malware infection. It’s never a bad idea to protect yourself with an extra copy of your hard drive. Why you should consider cloning your hard drive If you put a cloned drive into a computer, you’ll be able to start it up and use it normally. A cloned drive is exactly the same as its original. Mac users can perform backups with Time Machine, and Windows also offers its own built-in backup utilities.Ĭloning copies everything. When you back up to an external hard drive or to the cloud, you’re creating duplicates of your files, but that backup cannot function as an independent drive on its own.

Just remember that cloning a drive and backing up your files are different:īackups copy only your files. A cloned hard drive is an exact copy of the original, including the operating system and all the files it needs to boot up and run.

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