3 Ways to Mirror a Hard Drive on Windows 10

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

1. Press the Windows key + X and choose Disk Management.
2. Select the primary drive that you want to use as the source, right-click it, and choose Add Mirror.
3. Select the drive letter of the secondary drive that you want to use for mirroring and choose Add Mirror.
4. You’ll be asked to convert the basic disk to a dynamic disk. Click Yes to proceed.
5. Wait for a few moments for the process to finish.

2. Use Storage Spaces

1. Press the Windows key + S and type storage spaces. Select Manage Storage Spaces.
2. Navigate to Create a new pool and storage space.
3. Select the drives you want to use.
4. Next, configure the size of the mirror drive and set the Resiliency type to a Two-way mirror.
5. Click on Create Storage Space and wait for the process to finish.

3. Use diskpart

1. Press the Windows key + X and choose PowerShell (Admin).
2. Once it starts, enter diskpart and press Enter.
3. Enter the list disk to show all drives on your PC.
4. Locate the drive that you want to use as the source disk. We used disk 1 in this example: select disk 1
5. Next, run the following command: convert dynamic
6. Now repeat the previous two steps for a disk that you want to use as the destination disk.
7. Run the following command to create a mirror volume: create volume mirror disk=1
8. 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

1. Press the Windows key + X and choose PowerShell (Admin).
2. Run the following command chkdsk c: /r
3. If the drive is damaged, the damaged sectors can cause issues with cloning.

2. Use Disk Management to fix unallocated space after cloning

1. Open Disk Management.
2. Individua il disco con spazio non allocato, fai clic con il pulsante destro del mouse e scegli Estendi.
3. 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.