Effective Ways to Clone Mac Hard Drive

Data is the root of any business, which anyhow has to be protected. With evolving technology, various techniques have been coming up for safe data storage, out of which data backup is the nicest strategy to prevent you from becoming crippled due to data loss. Today, SMBs as well as large businesses are using advanced mechanisms to save their data. Well, when it comes to Mac computers, fear of data loss reduces to some degree, but it does not mean that you should become inattentive and leave your data without backing it up.

There are various methods to back up the data, one such popular and effective method is cloning, i.e. creating an exact copy of your entire Mac hard drive or replicating the hard drive. A clone offers various advantages in addition to providing a functional backup of the entire system, such as you can use the clone DVD as a bootable drive that helps you in the event of system crash. Moreover, if there are problems with primary hard drive, you can easily replace it with your clone and get access to the whole data of your system. Besides, clone Mac hard drive is also useful while you upgrade your system, as the process requires you to have a full backup of the system. You can also use the clone, if your system has been controlled by virus infections and you need to bring the system to its original state.

So, the next concern is how to perform cloning? As you know that there is an inbuilt tool in Mac known as 'Disk Utility', it facilitates you to carry out the task. However, prior to beginning the process, make sure that you have an external drive with free space equal to or larger than the source drive that has to be cloned. Also, note if there is any data stored on external drive; it will be erased, as cloning will start. Therefore, make sure to back up this data.

Plug in external hard drive, press and hold down 'Command+R' keys to turn on your system; the command will start your computer in Recovery Mode. It is obvious that you do not want any changes to the hard drive data during the cloning process; booting in recovery mode will maintain the data integrity. After the system boots in recovery mode, perform the following:

Step 1: On your Mac, click 'User', 'Applications' -> 'Utilities' -> 'Disk Utility.app' to launch the Disk Utility or you can also use 'command+space' on the keyboard to search Disk Utility.

• If you have created a desktop shortcut, double-click the Stellar Drive Clone on desktop.

Step 2: A window will pop up, select the drive that you want to copy and click it in the right column.

Step 3: You will see some more options, navigate to the 'Restore' tab located on the top.

Step 4: In the next window, the drive that has to be cloned will appear in 'Source' box. Select the drive where you want to place the clone and drag it into 'Destination' box.

Step 5: Click on the 'Restore' button located at the bottom-right corner.

If you have performed everything as instructed, you will have a clone of your system on the external drive.

Therefore, the process is simple. Admittedly, Disk Utility creates a successful clone of the entire system, however, does not include cloning everything on the system, such as Recovery HD partition, which is an inaccessible partition that helps you recover Mac in case of logical failures. The partition is considered a separate volume on the system and is invisible to the Disk Utility; for this reason, the utility fails to clone it. Recovery HD can be used when your system encounters serious issues and does not boot up from startup volume. It is also helpful when you need to repair or reinstall Mac OS X.

Since the partition is immensely helpful and important, it is essential to clone it, which is not done by any inbuilt method. That means, you need to look for a solution that could clone your entire system along with Recovery HD. Yes, there are various solutions in market; Stellar Drive Clone is the most effective out of them. The software possesses meritorious features and offers an interactive and easy-to-understand user interface.

The software is developed to provide you an exact copy or replica of your Mac hard drive and logical volumes; it also creates a mirror image of drive/volume. The clone drive is a ready-to-use copy; while with the help of image file, you can restore the data. Well, for now, we are concerned with cloning. The next section will describe the required steps for cloning the drive through Stellar Drive Clone.

Run the Stellar Drive Clone application by any of the following method to copy Mac drive:

• Click the 'Stellar Drive Clone icon in the dock.

• Go to the 'Applications' folder and double-click 'Stellar Drive Clone'.

Step 1: When you open the application, you will see the main user interface as shown in the following snapshot. Click on 'Clone & Imaging' option, and then click 'Clone'.

Step 2: The cloning is divided into two options: 'Disk Clone' and 'Volume Clone'. Both the options are described in separate sections:

 

Disk Clone

When you choose 'disk clone', it is further categorized into the following options:

• 'Clone without resizing'
• 'Clone with resizing'
  
  

Choosing 'Clone without resizing'

The software allows you to clone without resizing when the destination drive has equal or larger space than the source drive and the left out space is not needed to store the data. With choosing this option, you need to perform the following steps:

• Select 'Clone without resizing' option.
• From the two lists: 'Select Source' and 'Select Destination', select the respective drives
• Click on 'Continue' button. The software will now start the cloning operation.
  
  

Choosing 'Clone with resizing'

With this feature, you can make full use of the extra space, if destination drive space is larger than the source drive and the space is required for data storage. To use the option, carry out the following procedure:

• Select 'Clone with resizing' option.
• For the 'Select Source' and 'Select Destination' lists, select respective drive from each list.
• Click 'Continue', you will be directed to a resizing window, as shown in the below given snapshot.
• From the appeared list, select the volume that you want to resize.
• In the 'Enter New Size' box, enter the size for the volume or you can also slide the bar to specify the size.
• Click 'Accept Size' button each time the changes are made.
• Click 'Continue' button to allow the application to initiate the process.

Volume Clone

From the main user interface, select 'Clone', and then click the radio button associated with 'Volume Clone', which is further divided in the following options:

• Clone to Volume
• Clone to Network
• Clone to Folder

Let us cover them one by one:

Choosing 'Clone to Volume

 

The 'Clone to Volume' feature allows you to clone a volume to another volume either of the same drive or any other drive. The clone consists of all the data of source volume and can be used as backup or a bootable volume. Note that the cloning process overwrites the existing data. Perform the following steps to clone a volume to another volume:

• Choose 'clone to volume' option.
• In the same window, select source and select destination in the respective lists. The software will warn you through a message that the process will overwrite existing data.
• Click on 'Continue' to begin the cloning process.

Note that the process will erase the volume you have chosen as destination or if you select free space as destination, the software will first create partition with the space, and then initiate the cloning process.

Choosing 'Clone to Network'

With this feature, you can successfully create a clone of the source volume on a drive that is located on the network. This clone can only be used as a backup. Begin with the below given steps:

• Select 'Clone to Network' option from the same window that you used above.
• Select the Source and Destination drives from the respective lists. Ensure that all other network drives are disconnected. The 'Select Destination' list shows all the connected network drives.
• Click on 'Continue' button for starting the cloning process.

On completion, the source drive will be cloned on the network drive. Similarly, you can choose the 'Clone to Folder' option and perform the same steps for cloning a source drive to a folder.

As explained above, the Mac cloning software also clones Recovery HD partition when you perform cloning of the drive and that is how you can save all yourself from coming across any kind of data loss. In order to get the application, you need to place an order online.