How to Automatically Clone Your Hard Drive as a Backup for Your PC

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Is it possible to automatically clone a hard drive?

When you clone a hard drive, you're copying everything from one drive to another. This can be useful if you want to upgrade to a larger hard drive. You can clone your current drive to the new one and then switch over to using the new drive.

Cloning can also serve as a backup strategy: if you clone a hard drive, you have an exact copy to fall back on in case the original fails or becomes corrupted.

So the question is, if most backups can be set up as unattended scheduled tasks, can hard drives be cloned automatically too?

A Reddit user once asked how to schedule a hard drive clone, and yes, it's doable. Read on to learn about a reliable disk cloning software – Todo Backup, and how to automatically clone a hard drive for computer backup.

The benefits of automatic cloning

• Saves time and effort: Once you've set up the scheduled cloning, it will automatically clone your hard drive without any manual operation needed. If your current hard drive fails, you can replace it with the cloned one without having to shut down your computer.
• User-friendly: No technical expertise is required. You can efficiently accomplish automatic disk cloning with simple operations.
• Prevents data loss: Data loss can occur due to accidental deletion, virus attacks, hard drive failure, system crashes, and more. With an automatic backup schedule in place, you won't need to worry about losing your data.
• Frees up space: As files and data accumulate, your hard drive's available space decreases. Automatic cloning addresses this issue by cloning the entire hard drive to a larger one.
• Retains your system and applications: When reinstalling Windows or upgrading to a new version, all your files, data, settings, and applications are wiped out. However, if you have a disk image file, you can restore everything.

Professionally Reliable Automated Disk Cloning Tool - Todo Backup

If you want to clone a hard drive automatically, a reliable disk cloning tool is indispensable, which can save you lots of trouble.

In fact, most cloning software out there doesn't have the scheduling feature, and only a few tools can help you clone your hard drive automatically. Luckily, we've found a reliable and secure scheduled backup software for you - AOMEI Backupper Standard.

AOMEI Backupper Professional is a professional backup and restore software, and its Business edition is specially designed for business use with schedule tasks. It is the best automatic hard drive cloning software, which can help you clone hard drive easily and quickly without losing any data.

Main features of this tool include:

• Schedule automatic disk cloning to another hard drive
• Disk cloning, migrate OS to SSD/HDD
• Provide full backup, incremental backup, and differential backup
• Centralized management
• Include disk/partition backup, file backup, and system backup
• Backup to external hard drives, USB flash drives, NAS devices, CDs/DVDs, cloud (Google Drive, OneDrive, other cloud storage tools), etc.
• Restore data with a simple click from the backup
• Backup and recovery for SQL and Exchange
• Support Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7 and Windows Server 2022/2019/SBS 2008

Top 3 Scheduled Disk Cloning Software for Windows

With a scheduled cloning software, you can easily create scheduled disk clone backups and protect your data. If there's an issue with your computer hard drive, you can immediately replace it with the cloned one, skipping the data recovery process.
In this article, we'll introduce the top 4 best scheduled disk cloning software for Windows to help you clone your hard drive and ensure data safety.

Steps to Automatically Clone a Hard Drive as a Backup for Your PC

What you need to prepare:

1. Get a new hard drive to store the cloned data, and connect it to your computer with an SATA or USB cable. If your computer has an extra slot, you can also install the new drive internally.
2. Download and install Todo Backup on your computer. This shouldn't take long or take up much storage space.

Step 1: Launch Todo Backup and click "Schedule Clone" from the left pane.

Step 2. Select the disk you want to clone on the left-hand side. (This also allows you to schedule a system clone.)

Step 3. Then, on the right, select a new disk to use as the destination for your clone.

Notice: All data on the target disk will be deleted during cloning. So, it's better to prepare a new disk as the target disk.

Step 4. Click on “Scheduled: off” at the bottom of the page to set up a scheduled disk clone.

Step 5: Tap on "New..." under Schedule.

Step 6. Set up the automated cloning schedule as needed. You can choose from "One-time", "Daily", "Weekly", "Monthly", or "On Event" options. Once done, click "Add" to proceed.

Click "Create Task" to finish the scheduled cloning setup. At the appointed time, AOMEI Backupper will automatically clone the disk for you.

Conclusions

Now you know how to automatically clone a hard drive as a backup for your PC. You need reliable disk cloning software, i.e., AOMEI Todo Backup Enterprise, to keep your data and business always protected.

In addition, we recommend that you regularly back up your files or system so that you can restore your computer to an earlier state if problems occur.

Frequently Asked Questions About Cloning Your Hard Drive for PC Backup

1. Does Windows come with a built-in cloning software?

Unfortunately, Windows doesn't have a built-in cloning feature or software to copy data. You can use third-party tools, like Todo Backup, to clone files, folders, systems, and disks, though.

2. Can you clone your hard drive to a new computer?

With Todo Backup, it's easy to clone hard drive to new computer. First, download and run the software on your computer, then select the source disk and target disk and click Next. Finally, check or edit the disk layout, and click Next. For detailed steps, refer to the article about how to clone Windows 10 hard drive to new computer for free.

Are cloning and backing up the same?

In theory, cloning is like creating an image of a disk or partition. However, they are used for different purposes. Cloning is typically used to upgrade a smaller disk to a larger one without losing data, while backup is for creating an image file for disaster recovery.

4. Will cloning a hard drive copy the operating system?

Yes, cloning will copy everything on the hard drive, including the operating system, programs, settings, and files. Just make sure the target disk is large enough to hold all the data.