Tech Smart: Clone home

With laptops, notebooks, and netbooks, not to mention smartphones, tablets, and cloud computing, computer portability has never been more accessible.

But just because there are many ways to make a computer portable, doesn’t mean managing this portability is simple. If, like many people, you have a powerful desktop at the heart of your computing set up, using a smaller machine while traveling can make data management a nightmare.

With files, programs, and e-mails spread across however many machines are being used, keeping everything organized can bring to mind the classic George Carlin routine “A Place for My Stuff” where the comedian describes taking a vacation and dealing with ever smaller subsets of his “stuff” spread out across the country.

Well that sort of data debris is no longer necessary with the launch of v.Clone™ software from portable hard drive maker Iomega®. The software makes a virtual copy of an entire PC, making the operating system, programs, files, and everything else on that computer usable on almost any machine where the drive is connected.

Seamless portability

Available as a download for many current Iomega drive owners and soon bundled with the company’s eGo portable hard drives, v.Clone makes it possible to create a virtual copy of a computer on the portable drive. Now, for all intents and purposes, any computer connected to the clone drive becomes the computer that was cloned.

Managing data couldn’t be simpler. When the clone is reconnected to its home computer, any files updated on the clone drive are automatically backed up to the main computer.

Security protected

Working with sensitive files on a strange computer might seem like a frightening prospect, but v.Clone doesn’t ignore the importance of data security and protects information on the clone drive and the computer to which the clone is connected.

Access to the clone is protected by a password, and for additional security several of Iomega’s hard drives include encryption that works with v.Clone. Clone users don’t need to worry about data being left behind either. Any data accessed on a clone drive stays in that virtual environment, and anything saved is saved only to that drive.

Applying the clones

Virtual clones come in handy for convenient data management between machines. They also can supercharge a netbook by essentially turning it into a fully functional PC.

But the usefulness of v.Clone drives doesn’t end there. If enough space is available, multiple computers can be stored on the same clone drive, making it possible to travel with data from several machines on a single device that can fit in a pocket.

At first, it might seem that a cloned computer is only useful to the road warriors out there, but virtual PC copies can be just as useful to people who rarely venture outside of one lab. With a virtual clone you can move files between computers with ease while keeping the software needed to work with and update the files accessible at all times. And while clones are not meant to replace proper data backup procedures, a clone drive could come in handy should a computer crash at a time when working on that machine is critical.

Portability is key in the computer age, and v.Clone software is one of the easiest ways to make that happen. With a clone drive so easy to create and fit in a brief case or pocket, there’s no reason to go anywhere without your computer.