# Cloning drives
**URL:** https://community.enginedj.com/t/cloning-drives/50156
**Category:** Engine DJ (Mac & PC)
**Tags:** database, external, usb-drive, internal-hd
**Created:** [August 1, 2023, 10:35am UTC](https://community.enginedj.com/t/cloning-drives/50156 "2023-08-01T10:35:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Leon\_Hartog](https://community.enginedj.com/u/Leon_Hartog)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2023, 10:35am UTC](https://community.enginedj.com/t/cloning-drives/50156/1 "2023-08-01T10:35:28Z")
Hi there,
Is there anyone who experienced how Engine handles clones of drives (created with backup software)?
I want to keep my internal and external SSD’s synchronized, so one is the backup of the other, but I don’t know if it confuses Engine DJ when it sees drive B with exactly the same database as it has seen on drive A.
Of course I can try this myself, but maybe this wheel has already been invented 🙂
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### Author:  [@djliquidice](https://community.enginedj.com/u/djliquidice)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2023, 8:14pm UTC](https://community.enginedj.com/t/cloning-drives/50156/2 "2023-08-01T20:14:51Z")
It doesn’t.
When you export to a drive; the files are copied and a database is created where the file locations are store on that drive.
I have used multiple methods to clone drives and they all work (dd, cp, rsync, export from engine DJ, copy from the host OS UI).
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### Author:  [@Leon\_Hartog](https://community.enginedj.com/u/Leon_Hartog)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2023, 1:01am UTC](https://community.enginedj.com/t/cloning-drives/50156/3 "2023-08-02T01:01:55Z")
Thank You. This will make life a lot easier!
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### Author:  [@djliquidice](https://community.enginedj.com/u/djliquidice)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2023, 11:50am UTC](https://community.enginedj.com/t/cloning-drives/50156/4 "2023-08-02T11:50:08Z")
sure thing.
One thing I would suggest is that your source drives (even your source backup drives) are formatted in more fault tolerant filesystems. Introduced in 1996 in Windows 95, FAT32 is the least fault-tolerant, though the most compatible. exFAT is a smidge better than FAT32.
If you’re on Windows, definitely format your source drives as NTFS and if on a Mac, APFS, or MacOS Extended. These filesystems have better protection for things like power loss or situations where you may have pulled the drive out without ejecting / unmounting. The act of ejecting/unmounting finalizes any buffered writes (sometimes known as ‘flushing the cache’), allowing the external drive to be disconnected from the computer without corrupting the drive.
Probably a LOT more than you expected, but I’m a tech nerd and like to teach nerdy things. 😃
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.enginedj.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2023, 11:50am UTC](https://community.enginedj.com/t/cloning-drives/50156/5 "2023-08-03T11:50:35Z")
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