Drive Cloning - A backup option and its Types

We can say cloning can be a better backup option in order to protect our data from any loss. So, one must take cloning as a serious task to be done without any failure. Cloning creates a mirror image or copy of one drive or partition from one machine to another, so that the two drives are exactly the same in both content and functions. Today we have all our imperative data stored in hard drives, so it is very essential to take some measures towards its protection from failure or any data loss.

However, Time Machine can create backups of your Mac drive efficiently and that backup is restorable but not bootable. But, you must restore them to a partition in order to use them as such, and it takes several hours to complete. On the other hand, cloning allows you to create immediate bootable backup, and therefore are quite preferred as an effective option. Sometimes, even Mac experts who are well aware of cloning process, can get confused about the difference between these types. These are Block level and file level cloning.

So, here, types of cloning are the ways of making clone of hard drive, either entirely or portion of hard drive (volume, partition).

Here I am going to explain you difference between these cloning types and their pros and cons over each other.

Click to create clone of your Mac- how to clone mac drive

 

1.File-level cloning(cloning file-by-file):

In File-level cloning, only one file is copied at one time from one drive to another, regardless of data location on the drive. Mechanism behind this is that file level reads and learn the logical file system of your source drive and then create a new drive's data structure so that they have the exact same properties(permissions etc.) like the current source drive or volume.

2.Block-level cloning(cloning data from destination drive to clone disk block-wise):

In Block-level cloning, as the name suggests here same that it copies the whole block not file wise, but entire block at one time. In Hard-drive our data is organized in a large number of "block" or we can say sector. Blocks that are copied are also having the same properties like data as the original one,format, partition scheme and so on.

Now when it comes to using these schemes of cloning, there are some practical differences you will get to know in terms of speed and use.

File-level cloning Pros:

1. It Defrag files automatically while cloning, means save files in organized manner or in contiguous memory location.
2. It is useful because it allows you to update your cloned copy of volume/drive within few minutes and hence synchronize source volume to clone volume.

Disadvantage of file level cloning:

3. Its drawback is that you can clone one volume at a time, means if your Mac has two or more partitions, you can't clone two portions at the same time by this file level. And it also cannot partitions boot camp and secondary drive.
4. File level cloning is relatively slow than block level, especially for drives that are full. Because file access needs processor to read the file system, and fetch the location of file, then fetch the particular file. So all of these steps increase copying time of file level cloning.

Block level cloning Pros:

5. It has fast cloning speed then file- level because it takes block-by-block, irrespective of the data it contains. And it copy the whole data of block at the maximum speed possible.
6. It has very beneficial feature of recovering lost files,deleted, corrupted files using data recovery software.

Disadvantage of Block level cloning:

7. It doesn't perform any defragmentation while cloning through block-by-block.  

There are number of cloning utilities that perform both type of cloning. Block-level cloning is better than file level in many aspects.