PC3000 TASK -- Imaging or cloning

[higgsboson]

This question might have been appeared previously but I could not find it.
I would like to know what is the best way to store tasks -1) as image 2) as a clone on other disk in PC3000
Disadvantage of imaging is large no. of files which took time in creation .In some cases like deleted recoveries we need entire disk sectors to scan , with cloned disk we can run any software and dont need to work on mounted slow disk.
I would like to know advantages as well as disadvanatages of cloning vs Imaging.

[pepe]

Hello,
I think it depends on the actual person's preference. I prefer cloning to disks that i can store offline in cabinets. As you said, this makes it easier to analyze with other sw. On the other hand, one can mount a task as a drive, so it is possible to do the same with the image files as well. Still, it needs a lot of storage space to store TBs of image files, so i think it is only good when you need to image a fraction of a disk.
I also use prefilled VHD disk images (they are stored compressed and i extract them as needed) that i attach to the system for low capacity disks (<120G).

pepe

[pcimage]

I personally prefer a clone to a physical hard drive.

As mentioned before, it’s a lot easier to move the task to another PC for extended recovery and free up a PC3K channel.

In “normal” cases (i.e. not deleted data and the file system is good) then we generally mark the important data (E.g. users folder) and leave out the non-important stuff (I.e. Windows or other system folders) and make a map of the sectors they occupy and clone those.

For external drives, we tend to map the “used sectors” and clone those.

[lcoughey]

My preference is drive-to-drive cloning, focusing on target files and/or by bitmap and occasionally image to file in lower capacity cases.

[higgsboson]

Thank you all of you for your expert opinions.
As explained by pcimage advantage of external cloned disk is we can attach is to any other pc and perform software recoveries (like carving or decryption etc) freeing up pc3k system.
Only disadvantage is we will have to stack no. of disks per case and disks will be occupied till work is over.
Attaching VHD is also very efficient option . Other than convinience efficiency is most critical (time taken by imaging VS cloning)
I will give it a try myself .
Thanks all of you. As a DR community we are committed to serve our customers. World is going through crisis , I sincerely wish this epidemic will get eradicated as early as possible and world order will get restored earliest.

[northwind]

I prefer to image to .bin files.
It gives me the advantage to image multiple cases in one destination drive. Of course we focus to image only the needed files and/or the occupied sector as per our preference.
In case we need to perform additional recovery (ie. deleted files etc) to free a PC3K port, we just mount the task as drive and work with copy only.

As pepe said, it's personal preference and I do not think it makes much of a difference.