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Cloning the full SSD partition to an image file allows me to make as many clones of the original as needed. In case of a drive failure, I can restore my OS easily.

Features:
-The 32GB in size OS is compressed and saved to a 16GB image file.
-The 16GB image file can be used to clone/restore my OS to a new drive.
-It takes only 17 minutes for me to clone the image to a new 2.5" 5400 RPM drive (Much faster for SSD)
-Compression takes longer using normal compression; it took 47 minutes, compressing 32GB to 16GB.

Why cloning? It took me many hours to install the OS, drivers, applications, and fine tuning all OS settings. It's painful to do that again. Saving the OS, allows me to reinstall my OS the way I want almost instantly. Cloning also allows me to upgrade my OS to a new drive easily. For instance, if I need a faster and larger SSD, I can do that very effortlessly.

This works for all types of OS, but for the boot sector may need to be fixed using a windows installer driver if it fails to boot. The repair program should able to fix the issue automatically, if not, use the following commands in repair mode: bootrec /scanos /rebuildbcd /fixmbr /fixboot

Same computer, same OS, and same everything, in the beginning you are seeing it using a 120GB SSD, and in the end, you will see it running on a 300GB hard drive.