Is it better to clone a failing HDD than manually backing it up via copy/paste? - eviltoast

My HDD is failing and manually copying files to an external HDD is taking forever. We’re talking about KB/s transfer speeds. I have around 1.3TB in it, but only really need around 400-500gb. I’m afraid this method is only hastening its death.

I used to use a dos program, Norton Ghost, to clone partitions. Would a similar program be better for backing up my files vs copy/pasting? I feel like the manual copying is wearing the drive out faster. On the other hand, cloning might just copy over corrupted files on bad sectors and all (I know nothing about this so I could be wrong).

Thanks in advance.

  • imanol1898@alien.topOPB
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    1 year ago

    drive is only 3Tb. They’re mostly photos, audiobooks, and docs. I’d say file size can range from a few MBs to as big as maybe 500Mb.