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What is the difference between the Hard Drive Upgrader and the Clone-n-Recover?

April 26, 2017clone-n-recover difference upgrader

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What is the difference between the Hard Drive Upgrader and the Clone-n-Recover?

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The clone product is mainly for backup purpose. It duplicates the drive exactly (byte by byte, sector by sector, or an mirror image) without expanding any partition. Any extra space on the new drive will be left unused. It works on all PC-based or non-PC-based partition types. For certain hard drive usage (embedded, proprietary, certain boot management software, etc), this may be the only way to copy the disk. On the other hand, the Upgrader is mostly used for one-time PC-based hard drive upgrade by utilizing the full space of the new drive. It will expand FAT16/32 type partitions but copy non-FAT partitions as is without expansion. It also allows FAT16 to FAT32 conversion. For FAT type partitions, it only copies those sectors that are actually used and is much faster than the clone product in most cases. It still can be used as a backup, especially for Microsoft/PC-based OS without separate diagnostic/boot management partition.