Quote from: larry_vw_1955 on Today at 03:44:17 AM

Quote from: DaveF on November 04, 2021, 09:20:32 PM

Or buy a hardware cloner, clone the drives and read them later.
Put client disk in slot 1 blank disk in slot 2 & push a button. Drink beer. Then put disk back in client PC.
-Dave

those little sata 2 port "docking stations" are not so good as what you might think. if there's one constant about them it is people complaining how it f***ed up their hard drives and made them "raw". doesn't matter the brand.

Looking at my work notes we have done over 170 Spinning drives to SSD since Jan 1 2020 for a client who was extending the life of some older machines so either you and the people you are talking to are using cheap cloners or we have some amazing luck.

I don't know how the $80 generic ones work, but the 'real' ones are just running an embedded linux controller and dd 'ing (more or less) the entire drive.
The source is only ever mounted in read only so having it come back as 'raw' is just about impossible.

This: https://www.amazon.com/SATA-Hard-Drive-Duplicator-Eraser/dp/B00G6TG5YE
is not the same as this: https://www.mediaduplicationsystems.com/fx2125-sata-sas-usb3.0-hard-drive-duplicator

If you walk into a shop or your tech is using something like the StarTech one. Run away as fast as you can.

The point is the professional ones can do 30+GB a minute if the drives can keep up so yes, you can pull and clone and replace a filled 1TB drive in about an hour.

-Dave