Can rsync be used to update restoration hdd?

I have two identical hard disks (say HDD1 and HDD2) with 4TB capacities. I want to create install CentOS, update it, install services and create users on one of the hard disk, say HDD1, meant only for backup.

Now if I want to clone this on to HDD2 it takes a huge amount of time. So instead I would like to first create (almost) identical partitions and install CentOS of the same version installed on HDD1 and then rsync HDD1 onto HDD2 while booting from some live OS. Would this serve the same purpose of making a copy (though not a clone) of HDD1 on to HDD2 or would there be some issues that I should be conceed about? The copy is to be used only for back up purpose and nothing else.

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