Editing Disk cloning (section)

{{Short description|Process of duplicating all data on a digital storage drive}}
'''Disk cloning''' is the process of duplicating all data on a [[Digital Storage|digital storage]] drive, such as a [[Hard disk drive|hard disk]] or [[Solid-state drive|solid state drive]], using hardware or software techniques.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last1=Panichprecha |first1=S. |last2=Pongsawatkul |first2=N. |last3=Mitrpant |first3=C. |last4=Ketprom |first4=U. |last5=Kovintavewat |first5=P. |title=The 8th Electrical Engineering/ Electronics, Computer, Telecommunications and Information Technology (ECTI) Association of Thailand - Conference 2011 |chapter=Multi-threading in disk cloner |date=2011 |chapter-url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5947887 |pages=512–515 |doi=10.1109/ECTICON.2011.5947887|isbn=978-1-4577-0425-3 |s2cid=15754588}}</ref> Unlike file copying, disk cloning also duplicates the [[File system|filesystems]], [[Disk partitioning|partitions]], drive meta data and [[slack space]] on the drive.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Turriza |first1=José Luis Lira |last2=Huh |first2=Yaqueline Pech |last3=Lira |first3=Jose Manuel |date=2018 |title=Comparative study of restoration tools by cloning using LSP me-thod |journal=Revista Ingeniantes |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=1}}</ref> Common reasons for cloning a drive include; data backup and recovery; duplicating a computer's configuration for mass deployment and for preserving data for [[digital forensics]] purposes.<ref name=":0"/><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hayes |first=Darren R. |title=A Practical Guide to Computer Forensics Investigations |publisher=Pearson Education |year=2014 |isbn=9780132756150 |pages=86–87}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Jeanvoine |first1=Emmanuel |last2=Sarzyniec |first2=Luc |last3=Nussbaum |first3=Lucas |date=2013-02-01 |title=Kadeploy3: Efficient and Scalable Operating System Provisioning for Clusters |url=https://hal.inria.fr/hal-00909111 |journal=USENIX Association |language=en |volume=38 |issue=1 |pages=38}}</ref> Drive cloning can be used in conjunction with [[Disk imaging|drive imaging]] where the cloned data is saved to one or more files on another drive rather than copied directly to another drive.