I’m getting ready to replace my 5TB external drive with a new WD 8TB drive. I’m wondering if there is a way to copy all my data from the old drive to the new that is considered “best practice”? In the past I’ve always just drag and dropped folders via the finder window, but I also know there is a way to do this via the Disk Utility app. I’m also sure there are various third party apps that will do the same. Is one way considered better, faster, and/or more reliable than the other when dealing with multiple terabytes of data?
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Replacing external HDD, best way to copy data?
- Thread starter smurray
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I have used Carbon Copy Cloner for such disk administration tasks. The developer offers a 30-day free trial.
I have not compared it with other GUI disk administration tools since it has always worked for me.
As far as I can tell, Disk Utility does not have any cloning or copying functionality available to the end user.
macOS does have the *NIX 'dd' command line utility, so it may be possible to clone disks using that. Using the parameters "clone mac disk dd" results in some online tutorials but I cannot vouch for the accuracy of such articles.
I successfully cloned UNIX drives over twenty years ago using the 'dd' utility but I do not know what command line invocations are required for a successful cloning of a contemporary Mac drive.
I have not compared it with other GUI disk administration tools since it has always worked for me.
As far as I can tell, Disk Utility does not have any cloning or copying functionality available to the end user.
macOS does have the *NIX 'dd' command line utility, so it may be possible to clone disks using that. Using the parameters "clone mac disk dd" results in some online tutorials but I cannot vouch for the accuracy of such articles.
I successfully cloned UNIX drives over twenty years ago using the 'dd' utility but I do not know what command line invocations are required for a successful cloning of a contemporary Mac drive.
I ended up downloading Carbon Copy Cleaner to make the transition. Was going to use the Disk Utility option because it supposedly goes faster due to using the "block" copy method rather than the "file" copy method. I read that an upside of using the "file" copy method was the hard drive defragmented itself as a side effect. I had the time, so figured I'd go that route.
Remember the old saying "Don't keep all your eggs in one basket".
If your 8GB drive were to die that's a lot of data to loose. Make sure you backup the data on the 8GB drive as a safety backup.
If your 8GB drive were to die that's a lot of data to loose. Make sure you backup the data on the 8GB drive as a safety backup.