This also includes your operating system, meaning that in theory, you could use a clone drive to boot your computer up with. However, when backing up a drive, most users tend to keep files they want like documents, photos, videos, music, and so on.Ĭloning a hard drive, as its name implies, basically makes a complete clone of your current drive onto another drive. Both processes involve the copying of data from one drive to another.

Right off the bat, cloning a hard drive and backing up a hard drive feel almost identical. Note that unlike more traditional backup methods where you copy the content of one drive to another, cloning will essentially erase all the contents on your secondary hard drive, so make sure that it’s empty or you’ll have to format it first.Ĭloning A Hard Drive VS Backing Up A Hard Drive In order to clone your hard drive, you’ll need to make sure that you have a second hard drive (internal or external) that has enough storage space to match that of the contents you own. This means that eventually you will run out of space, and if those files are important to you, you’ll definitely want to make sure that you’ve got a backup in the event your computer fails on you or your hard drive gets ruined.Ĭloning a hard drive is a pretty easy way to go about mirroring the contents of your current hard drive with that of another one, and if you are using either Windows or Mac, we’ve got you covered with this guide. Over time, our hard drives get filled with all kinds of data like image files, videos, and so on.

Clone a mac drive in windows