How to Build a Hard Drive Duplicator

Duplicating a hard drive is used to deploy several identical computers.

A hard drive replicator copies the content of one hard drive to another one. It is mainly used in medium to large companies when they need the same software, operating system and security policies across a large number of computers. One computer is installed and configured the proper way and its hard drive is duplicated on all the other computers.

Things You'll Need

• Phillips screw driver Computer case Power supply ATOM motherboard 1Gb RAM 80Gb hard drive USB CD/DVD drive Hot swap hard drive trays

Instructions

hardware

1. Take the screws off the case and open the left panel. Insert the motherboard inside the case and secure it using the screws provided with the case.

2. Install the RAM in the dedicated ports next to the processor. Open the latches on each sides, insert the RAM and press down until the latches are back up.

3. Take two 5¼-inch front plate off and insert the two hard drive hot swap trays. Secure them in place with screws.

4. Insert the system hard drive in the 3½-inch slot and secure it with screws.

5. Connect the power cables to the hard drive trays, system hard drive and motherboard. Connect the case cable to the motherboard. Connect the SATA cable between the motherboard and the hard drive trays and system hard drives.

6. Close the case and connect the computer to the screen, mouse, keyboard and power supply. Turn the computer on and make sure everything inside is connected before closing the case.

7. Plug the USB CD/DVD reader and insert the system installation disk. Install the operating system supported by the cloning software you want to use.

Clone a drive

1. Take the two trays off the case, insert the two hard drives and put the trays back.

2. Turn the computer on. Launch the cloning software.

3. Choose the hard drive you want to clone and the recipient hard drive. Press “Clone” or “Start.”

Tips & Warnings

• You can install more than two trays if you want to clone more than one hard drive at the same time. Make sure your software can clone one hard drive to several. You can use any operating system as cloning a drive is not system dependent.

• If you clone an empty hard drive to a full one all the data will be lost. Make sure to always have the same type of setup (full hard drive on top for example) when cloning a hard drive.

References

• Tomshardware: Building Your Own PC

Resources

• Taragane: Top 10 Hard Drive Cloning & Backup Software