AJ2008 wrote:Source of the post There is the possibility to safely extract data without cloning, the RAID edition of DE can be used with data copy option enabled - it is possibly the safest way to work on this case without cloning, however I agree with the comments above, since the client is trusting you with this job then it is ultimately your responsibility to ensure it is dealt with in the safest and most professional manner which would be to clone each disk and work off the clones.
If the drive is being accessed through DE with data copy enabled, it is being cloned, but only as you need it. I agree that it is probably the safest way to handle it, without reading the entire drive(s). However, in cases where the file system is EXT or a damaged FAT, it is likely to cause a lot of stress on the drives to bounce around trying to read sectors all over the place, rather than image larger chains in a linear fashion.
That said, I think it we agree to never assume that a drive is healthy and to never read a sector from the source twice.
