brett <account@cygen.com> wrote:
>> Really no need. Plug it in, turn it on, and go. Hard drive make and
>> model is almost totally irrelevant to cloning.
>
> If you talking about using an external USB drive, that will be
> extremely slow.
>
> Although the HD is only 4200RPM. Still, I need the internal HD for
> traveling.

Two different issues are being mangled here.

Yes, a clone as opposed to an image does allow you to just plug
the spare drive in and carry on regardless on a hard drive failure.

But you do not have to clone to an identical internal hard drive,
any decent cloner can clone to a different sized internal drive
fine and all you need to do is ensure that the laptop can boot
with either of the drives installed.

You havent been clear how you plan to clone the original drive
to a new one in the laptop. That can be done with the better
cloners with the target of the clone in a USB external case that
is used for just the cloning. If the original drive fails, you can just
unplug the original drive from the laptop and plug the clone into
the laptop and boot from that there.

BUT you dont get incremental cloning with most cloners.
Most apps that do incremental only do that for imaging, not cloning.

And you dont actually need an external case for the cloning op,
there are cables around that allow you to plug the spare drive
into a connector block on a USB cable and clone to the spare
drive using that. If the original drive does fail, you can just plug
that spare into the laptop and use it at full speed in the laptop
and retain the mechanical convenience of an internal laptop drive.