 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2012) |
Disk cloning software facilitates a disk cloning operation by using software techniques to copy data from a source to a destination drive or to a disk image.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2012) |
Disk cloning software facilitates a disk cloning operation by using software techniques to copy data from a source to a destination drive or to a disk image.
| Name | Operating system | User Interface | Cloning features | Operation model | License | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windows | Linux | MacOS | Live OS | CLI | GUI | Sector by sector [lower-alpha 1] | File based [lower-alpha 2] | Hot transfer [lower-alpha 3] | Standalone | Client–server | ||
| Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office [1] [lower-alpha 4] | Yes | No | Yes | Yes (64 MB) | No | Yes | Yes | FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, APFS, ext2, ext3, ext4 and ReiserFS [2] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Trialware [lower-alpha 5] |
| AOMEI [3] | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Freemium |
| Apple Software Restore | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | HFS+ | Yes | Yes | Yes | Part of macOS |
| Carbon Copy Cloner | No | ? | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | APFS, HFS+ | Yes | Yes | ? | Trialware |
| Clonezilla [4] | No | Yes | ? | Yes (210 MB) | Yes | No | Yes | FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs, btrfs, f2fs, NILFS2, HFS+, UFS, minix, VMFS3 | No | Yes | Yes (Clonezilla server edition) | GPL |
| dcfldd | No | Yes | No | ? | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | GPL |
| dd (Unix) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes [lower-alpha 6] | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | GPLv3 |
| Disks (gnome-disk-utility) | No | Yes | Yes | ? | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | ? | Part of Gnome |
| DiskGenius | Yes | No | No | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3, ext4 | Yes | Yes | No | Freemium |
| Disk Utility | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | HFS+ | Yes | Yes | No | Part of macOS |
| EaseUS Partition Master [5] | Yes | No | No | Yes (526MB) | No | Yes | Yes | NTFS, ext4, ext3, ext2, FAT32, FAT16, FAT12, ReFS | Yes | Yes | Yes (Enterprise edition) | Trialware |
| FSArchiver | No | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | No | No | FAT32, btrfs, ext2, ext3, ext4, ReiserFS-4, HPFS, JFS, XFS | ? | Yes | No | GPL |
| Ghost [6] | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | FAT32, NTFS, HPFS, ext2, ext3 [7] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Trialware |
| GParted Live CD [8] | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | ext2, ext3 | No | Yes | No | GPL |
| Image for Windows [9] | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3 | Yes | Yes | No | Trialware |
| IsoBuster [10] | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, ExFAT, NTFS, ext2, ext3, ext4, MFS, HFS, HFS+, UDF, XFS, [11] ReFS [12] | No | Yes | No | Trialware |
| Kleo Bare Metal Backup | No | ? | ? | Yes (570 MB) | No | Yes | Yes | FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3, HFS+ | No | No | Yes | Freeware |
| Macrium Reflect | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | ? | No | No | No | Trialware |
| Mondo Rescue [13] | No | ? | No | Yes * [lower-alpha 7] | Yes | No | Yes | FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3 | Yes | Yes | ? | GPL |
| ntfsclone [14] [15] | No | Yes | No | No [lower-alpha 8] | Yes | No | No | NTFS | ? | Yes | No | GPL |
| partimage [16] [17] | Yes | Yes | No | No [lower-alpha 8] | Yes | No | No | FAT32, ext2, ext3, ReiserFS-3, HPFS, JFS, XFS; UFS (beta), HFS (beta), NTFS (experimental) [18] | ? | Yes | Yes | GPL |
| Partition-Saving [19] | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3 | No | Yes | No | Freeware |
| Redo Backup and Recovery | No | No | No | Yes (225 MB) | No | Yes | Yes | FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3, ext4 | No | No | Can access networked drives | GPL |
| Notes | ||||||||||||
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Universal Disk Format (UDF) is an open, vendor-neutral file system for computer data storage for a broad range of media. In practice, it has been most widely used for DVDs and newer optical disc formats, supplanting ISO 9660. Due to its design, it is very well suited to incremental updates on both write-once and re-writable optical media. UDF was developed and maintained by the Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA).
Disk partitioning or disk slicing is the creation of one or more regions on secondary storage, so that each region can be managed separately. These regions are called partitions. It is typically the first step of preparing a newly installed disk after a partitioning scheme is chosen for the new disk before any file system is created. The disk stores the information about the partitions' locations and sizes in an area known as the partition table that the operating system reads before any other part of the disk. Each partition then appears to the operating system as a distinct "logical" disk that uses part of the actual disk. System administrators use a program called a partition editor to create, resize, delete, and manipulate the partitions. Partitioning allows the use of different filesystems to be installed for different kinds of files. Separating user data from system data can prevent the system partition from becoming full and rendering the system unusable. Partitioning can also make backing up easier. A disadvantage is that it can be difficult to properly size partitions, resulting in having one partition with too much free space and another nearly totally allocated.
A disk image is a snapshot of a storage device's structure and data typically stored in one or more computer files on another storage device.
A live CD is a complete bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading from a hard disk drive. A live CD allows users to run an operating system for any purpose without installing it or making any changes to the computer's configuration. Live CDs can run on a computer without secondary storage, such as a hard disk drive, or with a corrupted hard disk drive or file system, allowing data recovery.
In the maintenance of file systems, defragmentation is a process that reduces the degree of fragmentation. It does this by physically organizing the contents of the mass storage device used to store files into the smallest number of contiguous regions. It also attempts to create larger regions of free space using compaction to impede the return of fragmentation. Some defragmentation utilities try to keep smaller files within a single directory together, as they are often accessed in sequence.
Disk cloning is the process of duplicating all data on a digital storage drive, such as a hard disk or solid state drive, using hardware or software techniques. Unlike file copying, disk cloning also duplicates the filesystems, partitions, drive meta data and slack space on the drive. Common reasons for cloning a drive include; data backup and recovery; duplicating a computer's configuration for mass deployment and for preserving data for digital forensics purposes. Drive cloning can be used in conjunction with drive imaging where the cloned data is saved to one or more files on another drive rather than copied directly to another drive.
GHOST, now called Symantec™ GHOST Solution Suite (GSS) for enterprise, is a disk cloning and backup tool originally developed by Murray Haszard in 1995 for Binary Research. The technology was bought in 1998 by Symantec.
Bare-metal restore is a technique in the field of data recovery and restoration where the backed up data is available in a form that allows one to restore a computer system from "bare metal", i.e. without any requirements as to previously installed software or operating system.
In computing, data recovery is a process of retrieving deleted, inaccessible, lost, corrupted, damaged, or formatted data from secondary storage, removable media or files, when the data stored in them cannot be accessed in a usual way. The data is most often salvaged from storage media such as internal or external hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), USB flash drives, magnetic tapes, CDs, DVDs, RAID subsystems, and other electronic devices. Recovery may be required due to physical damage to the storage devices or logical damage to the file system that prevents it from being mounted by the host operating system (OS).
In computer data storage, a volume or logical drive is a single accessible storage area with a single file system, typically resident on a single partition of a hard disk. Although a volume might be different from a physical disk drive, it can still be accessed with an operating system's logical interface. However, a volume differs from a partition.
The Windows Imaging Format (WIM) is a file-based disk image format. It was developed by Microsoft to help deploy Windows Vista and subsequent versions of the Windows operating system family, as well as Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs.
The terms Recovery disc, Rescue Disk/Disc and Emergency Disk all refer to a capability to boot from an external device, possibly a thumb drive, that includes a self-running operating system: the ability to be a boot disk/Disc that runs independent of an internal hard drive that may be failing, or for some other reason is not the operating system to be run.
Acronis True Image is a proprietary backup, imaging, cloning and cybersecurity suite developed by Acronis International GmbH. It can back up files, data, clone storage media and protects the system from ransomware. In 2021, the product was renamed to Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office before being renamed back to True Image in 2024.
TestDisk is a free and open-source data recovery utility that helps users recover lost partitions or repair corrupted filesystems. TestDisk can collect detailed information about a corrupted drive, which can then be sent to a technician for further analysis. TestDisk supports DOS, Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, SunOS, and MacOS. TestDisk handles non-partitioned and partitioned media. In particular, it recognizes the GUID Partition Table (GPT), Apple partition map, PC/Intel BIOS partition tables, Sun Solaris slice and Xbox fixed partitioning scheme. TestDisk uses a command line user interface. TestDisk can recover deleted files with 97% accuracy.
Partimage is a disk cloning utility for Linux/UNIX environments. Partimage can save partitions in many formats to a disk image. Utilities such as Partimage are useful in a number of situations which are commonly encountered by network administrators as well as advanced computer users who maintain their own systems. The last stable release was in 2010; since then, one of Partimage's authors has worked on FSArchiver, which has broader functionality than Partimage.
VHD and its successor VHDX are file formats representing a virtual hard disk drive (HDD). They may contain what is found on a physical HDD, such as disk partitions and a file system, which in turn can contain files and folders. They are typically used as the hard disk of a virtual machine, are built into modern versions of Windows, and are the native file format for Microsoft's hypervisor, Hyper-V.
Clonezilla is an open-source suite of disk cloning, disk imaging and system deployment utilities. Clonezilla Server Edition uses multicast technologies to deploy a single image file to a group of computers on a local area network. Clonezilla was designed by Steven Shiau and developed by the NCHC Free Software Labs in Taiwan.
Notable software applications that can access or manipulate disk image files are as follows, comparing their disk image handling features.
Redo Rescue, formerly Redo Backup and Recovery, is a free backup and disaster recovery software. It runs from a live CD, a bootable Linux CD image, features a GUI that is a front end to the Partclone command line utility, and is capable of bare-metal backup and recovery of disk partitions. It can use external hard drives and network shares.
Macrium Reflect is a backup utility for Microsoft Windows developed by Paramount Software UK Ltd in 2006. It creates disk images and file backup archives using Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service to ensure 'point in time' data accuracy. Macrium Reflect can back up whole partitions or individual files and folders into a single compressed, mountable archive file, which can be used to restore exact images of the partitions on the same hard disk for disaster recovery, or a new hard disk for data migration.
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