Hard drive failure is a serious problem because you can permanently lose your data, and this is why many choose to mirror a hard drive in Windows 10 as a way to back up their data.
Mirroring a hard drive isn’t as complicated as you think, and in today’s guide, we’re going to show you a couple of ways you can do that on your PC.
Benefits of hard drive mirroring
- All your data is written to the backup drive in real time, and the mirroring process doesn’t require scheduling, unlike the cloning process.
- In case of sudden disk failure, you can continue using the backup drive without any disruption.
- Drastically reduces the downtime of any system which can be important if you maintain a local server.
- Disk mirroring is scalable, and you can seamlessly add more drives for additional recovery partitions.
How do I clone a hard drive on Windows 10?
1. Use Disk Management
- Press the Windows key + X and choose Disk Management.
- Select the primary drive that you want to use as the source, right-click it, and choose Add Mirror.
- Select the drive letter of the secondary drive that you want to use for mirroring and choose Add Mirror.
- You’ll be asked to convert the basic disk to a dynamic disk. Click Yes to proceed.
- Wait for a few moments for the process to finish.
2. Use Storage Spaces
- Press the Windows key + S and type storage spaces. Select Manage Storage Spaces.
- Navigate to Create a new pool and storage space.
- Select the drives you want to use.
- Next, configure the size of the mirror drive and set the Resiliency type to a Two-way mirror.
- Click on Create Storage Space and wait for the process to finish.
3. Use diskpart
- Press the Windows key + X and choose PowerShell (Admin).
- Once it starts, enter diskpart and press Enter.
- Enter the list disk to show all drives on your PC.
- Locate the drive that you want to use as the source disk. We used disk 1 in this example:
select disk 1
- Next, run the following command:
convert dynamic
- Now repeat the previous two steps for a disk that you want to use as the destination disk.
- Run the following command to create a mirror volume:
create volume mirror disk=1
- Finally, you need to add the other disk with this command:
add disk=0
Troubleshooting common issues with mirroring a hard drive on Windows 10
1. Use chkdsk to fix drive cloning errors and corrupt files
- Press the Windows key + X and choose PowerShell (Admin).
- Run the following command
chkdsk c: /r
- If the drive is damaged, the damaged sectors can cause issues with cloning.
2. Use Disk Management to fix unallocated space after cloning
- Open Disk Management.
- Individua il disco con spazio non allocato, fai clic con il pulsante destro del mouse e scegli Estendi.
- Configura la quantità di spazio che desideri aggiungere all’unità e fai clic su Avanti. Segui le istruzioni sullo schermo per completare il processo.
Ulteriori suggerimenti per ottimizzare le unità con mirroring su Windows 10
- Affinché il mirroring funzioni, il disco secondario deve avere le stesse dimensioni o essere più grande dell’unità di origine.
- Se hai bisogno di maggiore affidabilità, considera l’utilizzo di tre unità invece di due per il mirroring e crea due copie.
- Utilizza driver di alta qualità di produttori affidabili per aumentare la durata della tua unità.
- Se possibile, utilizza il RAID hardware poiché offre prestazioni migliori e non dipende dal tuo sistema operativo, a differenza delle opzioni software.
Il mirroring è un ottimo modo per proteggersi da improvvisi guasti hardware e, poiché è una funzionalità integrata di Windows, non richiede software di clonazione.
Hai mai utilizzato il mirroring del disco sul tuo PC? Se è così, condividi la tua esperienza con noi nei commenti qui sotto.
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