5 Free Apps to Clone Your Hard Drive

Macrium Reflect has a free version - http://www.macrium.com/ReflectFree.asp

For an Open Source / Linux based imaging solution I would highly recommend the Linux Live-CD solution of Clonzilla: http://clonezilla.sourceforge.net/

The interface is pretty easy to follow and understand and walks you through the steps to capture and apply an image. It isn't for tech noobies, but should be quick to learn.

Depending on the hardware and method used, it really can be a high-speed imaging tool. Instead of doing a sector-by-sector copy of the source drive, it only captures the used blocks on the disk; not the unused space. This saves a bunch of time. It also supports "multi-casting" the image to multiple target machines at the same time. Very handy for project size deployments. Images may be "put-back" to a target from a CD/DVD, portable USB drive, or a network share.

Lately, however, I have been using a free Microsoft solution, ImageX. Loaded on a WinPE 2.0 boot CD and coupled with a USB drive (USB 2.0 preferred due to transfer speeds) I can often capture an image in 5-10 minutes and restore in in just about the same time.

ImageX http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/a8848521-b3ca-4c6c-81f0-6954f671cfe01033.mspx?mfr=true is nice in that it also is not a sector-based image method, but copies the source system's partition in a file/structure based format. So image sizes are radically smaller as you don't have all those unused sector blocks. Also, it "single-instances" the files, so that one file is stored apart from it's multiple location pointers. That means one file is imaged even though it may exist in multiple locations. When the image is redeployed, the single file is restored to the multiple locations again. Images files can also be "mounted" and browsed to extract files, and in the case of a Vista image, patches may even be applied to an image file.

The "gotchas" with ImageX are that you must first format the partition before applying the image (otherwise it will over-copy files), you can only capture partitions at a time (not an entire volume), and it is (generally) command-line based.

Because both of these (Clonezilla and ImageX) do not do a exact sector/block copy of the drive, they obviously wouldn't be good solutions for forensic-type drive imaging work, but for most enterprise/SOHO deployments and home-user scenarios, they might be worth considering.

For a full list of other freeware alternatives (14) please consider looking at my blog's post:

Drive Imaging and Cloning Solutions - http://grandstreamdreams.blogspot.com/2007/10/drive-imaging-and-cloning-solutions.html

--Cheers!

Vista Business and Ultimate have "Complete PC Backup and Restore", which is IMO an excellent drive imaging tool, albeit limited to NTFS volumes and therefore a total pain in the arse for shared drives on multi-OS networks. Also I'm quite fond of the Backup Utility under XP, although ASR doesn't work in Home (in the event of failure you have to reinstall XP first, then install Backup, then restore manually).

It's definitely not free, but I've been using Ghost for years and have been very happy with it. You can find it on sale or after rebate for less than $20, which I think is a great price for something that saves such a huge amount of time.

It has great scheduling and the ability to make incremental images helps keep storage space reasonable. You can also mount images to extract files. Both bare-metal restores and file restores always worked well for me.

I know it's popular to bash Symantec, and believe me they deserve plenty of it, but Ghost is one product that does the job well at a fair price.

Drive SnapShot. not free, yet excellent. a trial comes with Bart's PE Builder.

http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/

The review at Rick's Tech doesn't list the version numbers of the apps that were tested. Also, the comment that Macrium will be supported in the future simply because there is a commercial version is just plain stupid. If it were true, why not make the same claim for DriveImage XML? There also doesn't seem to be comprehension of what Volume Shadow Services does and how that would affect backup times, especially of the system drive. That "review" is not a good source of information.

I've been looking for some free options, Thanks for this!!!

@IanT,

Read ALL of what I typed and THINK about that I say. My comments are about the validity of the statements given the inconsistent methodology and partial information.

No version numbers (nor in your reply), logical fallacy about future updates and inconsistent application of the statement, statement near the end which brings the methodology into question (external enclosure - which type? USB? USB1.1 and 2 are uni-directional and bog down incredibly with simulataneous). VSS with a very small file set? Try it on a drive with tens or hundreds of thousands of files and multiple threaded apps running. There are too many variables and unknowns in that "review" to consider the methodology correct.

Do you understand the difference between causation and correlation? This "review" is similar. The statements lack so much qualification and consistency that they can't be considered reliable.

--

XXCLONE's methodology has some very distinct advantages which were missed in the review. the "pure" cloners don't allow modifying files on the destination drive during the process. This can be very helpful. It's methodology also defrags during the copying process, something a "pure" cloner cannot do.

The GParted Live-CD has more options than most of this software, allowing one to copy a single partition across drives rather than full drive->drive cloning. There is also The Ultimate Boot CD (or alternatively Hiren's Boot CD) which include the official DOS tools from many harddrive manufacturers. By the way, DriveImage XML requires Windows to be installed to restore (a bit of a catch-22) so a Windows-PXE-Live CD is required (with DIXML tools integrated) or a more complex setup (another Windows install on another drive configured for the same computer or perhaps installing a fresh install of Windows first, then running the DIXML restore)

I don't what he is doing to get such terrible backup times with DriveImageXML. I image a 5GB partition within Windows using standard compression in 12 minutes. With High compression it takes about 20.

IanT,

That "review" and your replies to me are sloopy and logically inconsistent.

Your first reply debates the conclusions, which have nothing to do with my post to which you replied. Your second reply misstated my comments about too many variables, falsely attributing them only to VSS when they are actually about the structure of the "review". If you still don't understand, perhaps you should diagram the sentences.

Look at what I typed and look at the parts of the review I mention. You've totally missed every point I've made. The "review" cannot be considered a good source of information because it is incomplete, has errors in logic, and creates doubt about the methodology. It is totally illogical to believe that "review" leads credence to it's conclusions, regardless of the conclusions.

It's not a plot. It's not a conspiracy. The "review" is sloppily constructed, includes logical fallacies and incomplete information. That makes it suspect.

IanT,

I didn't make any comment about semantics. I said the methodology in that "review" yields it completely unreliable.

I also didn't make the statement you attribute to me.

Your inability to grasp basic logic is not my concern.

Good day to you.

I'm the author of PING and I'd like to thank you, DownloadSquad, for mentionning PING.

We're working hard on PING so to add nice features. I'd like to announce here that version 2.01.16 has just been released, with major enhancements.

Finally, I'd like to say, not only is PING free, it's also opensource.

Take a look at your hard drive manufacturers, they often have a free hard drive backup tool on offer. :-)

The trick with backing up your C: drive is not just doing a file backup process, tonnes of apps do this.

You want Disaster Recovery.

Three scenarios:
1.
You delete a file: This is easy to recover from with any modern free app.

2.
You delete a OS file and the OS dies on you:
You can't run the backup program because it needs the OS to be running. Oh dear how do you recover it?

You could reinstall the OS? But that is boring and very time consuming.

Simple: The backup program has a bootable CD/DVD/USB program that doesn't need Windows/Linux, etc. thus it allows access to the backed up data! So you can recover your files.


3.
You get a corrupted OS or dead hard drive: You need to restore the OS and probably need a new drive.

With Windows this is difficult as you first need to format the drive, install Windows (to be able to run the backup software) and then restore your C: drive on top of the OS. Ah but See the catch?
Most Windows backup programs can't restore over an already running OS.

You need Disaster Recovery Software (DRS). The program builds a CD or DVD with your current version of the program and OS on it and you've got the main backup of the C: on USB mass storage or multiply CD/DVDs/ or another drive.

The program on the DRS CD is bootable. It has its own small OS built in and simply formats hard drive, sucks the data off the USB/other drive/CD/DVDs so your new C: drive has all the original data on it.

You remove CD and reboot the PC and there, your data is restored in the minimum of time and fuss!

If any of these can't do all 3 scenarios, then get one that can. You'll need one at some point. :-))