When it is big files then copying is good enough. For bazillion small files cloning can be significantly faster. Assuming intelligent cloning that won't move empty space etc.

Is it false info that plain copying wears disk and is slower ? Because: *Reference from some other forum*: "Windows opens and closes files when copying" and "Heads have to move back and forth between the file locations".

Disk contains multiple files ranging from 500MB to 8GB and I want all to be transferred.
So I should choose cloning ?
"Cloning just reads and writes sectors"

https://superuser.com/questions/1098989/cloni … which-is-faster
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3218308

Heads move within a magnetic field, there is no wear.

Ok. I think I then copy the 200GB of files.
Cloning vs. copying data is confusing ?

Never seen, experienced extensive wear from copy versus cloning. If anyone say that copying are wearing more than cloning, then they must be talking about a drive loosing a few seconds of life. Just do whatever you feel is the process that works the best for you. You might get rid of fragmentation of your data, when doing a direct copy. Though I have no idea about modern operating systems, if they fragment files over time.

Copying data manually requires that the OS reads and writes the file tables for each file access and it also requires that the OS constantly
searches for free spots on the HDD, which may also result in rapid head movement (if there's existing data on disk, at least).
Cloning a HDD can be different at some point. If the image is written back 1:1, a continous stream of data is beeing written to the disk.
The heads move from the inner to the out space of the magnetic disk or vise vera (no "jumping" back and forth).
In theory, this stresses the motor or actuator way less than copying data on a per file basis.
Anyway, I'm no engineer so I'm speaking under correction. I'm thinking of old disks with CHS addressing.
No idea how the mapping of physical vs logical sectors is done nowadays.

Edit: Small edits.

If you were copying the files under DOS without any disk caching software (eg. SMARTDRV) then yeah, there'd be a lot of extra repetitive disk activity going on which would make it take longer. A modern OS with write-behind caching and modern disks with built-in buffering will eliminate almost all of that. As a bonus, the files written to the new disk will be defragmented.

I cloned the files from a 32GB partition (200GB HDD is that size due to BIOS limitations on my Socket 7 machine) to a new 60GB HDD I got last year using Norton/Symantec Ghost and it copied everything within 1 1/4 hour (400+MB/min) and Windows booted happily (thankfully, I made a new partition on the hard drive, formatted it, and copied the system boot files beforehand). This was on a Socket 754 system (IDE only). My future plan would be to get a 120GB SSD and install it on the machine (with the VIA SATA controller card installed and hook up the SSD to it).

bakemono wrote:

If you were copying the files under DOS without any disk caching software (eg. SMARTDRV) then yeah, there'd be a lot of extra repetitive disk activity going on which would make it take longer.

Alright, I thought of plain DOS, classic eihter without SmartDrive (PC-DOS 3.x) or with smartdrv /x (DOS6+, read only cache).
MS-/PC-DOS aside, the Windows 9x/XP setup was similary slow. In contrast to Windows Vista and later,
it did not yet use an image-based installation, but copied every file individually.
Even without knowing that, it was audible. Windows 9x/XP installation was causing the HDD to make a lot
of *GRR* *GRRR* *GRAARRR* *GRR* sounds, whereas the Windows Vista/7 installation was more like
*CLICK* SSSSSSHHHH *CLICK* SSSSSSSHHHHH. 😁

Good. I copied the files total was about 500GB to 2000GB disk.
Speed was 160MB\s. 1GB\6s.
500GB=3000s=50min.
Kind of fast after all. Thinking USB sticks can go only 10-15MB\s.