Enterprise Software

Five free disk cloning apps

By · August 20, 2012, 11:14 PM PST · jlwallen

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  • Introduction

    NOTE: If you'd prefer to view this information as a blog post, check out this entry in our Five Apps blog.

    Sooner or later, you're going to need to recover from a disaster. If you have a cloned image, the task will be far easier. But many IT budgets can't cover the cost of some of the pricier cloning tools, like Acronis Backup and Restore. When you don't have the budget, what do you do? If you're lucky, you have access to one of the following free applications, all of which do an admirable job of cloning disks.

  • Clonezilla

    Clonezilla is one of my favorite cloning tools. It's more like a bootable Linux distribution that can do bit-by-bit copying, and it supports a ton of file systems. There's an unattended mode and multicast support built in. Clonezilla might be the single most powerful disk copy tool available that doesn't have a price tag.

  • Clonezilla

    If you're looking to clone multiple machines quickly, Clonezilla SE can clone 40 machines at once. Clonezilla does use a curses-based interface, so some might find it a bit challenging at first.

  • Macrium Reflect Free

    Macrium Reflect Free Edition touts itself as one of the fastest disk cloning utilities available. It supports only Windows file systems, but it does it quite well and has a fairly straightforward user interface.

  • Macrium Reflect Free

    Macrium Reflect Free does disk imaging and disk cloning, allows you to access images from the file manager, creates a Linux rescue CD. It's compatible with Windows Vista and 7.

  • DriveImage XML

    DriveImage XML uses Microsoft VSS to create images and does so with reliability you might not expect in a free tool. With DriveImage XML you can create "hot" images from a disk already in use. Images are stored in XML files, so you can access them from any supporting third-party software.

  • DriveImage XML

    DriveImage XML can also restore an image to a machine without the need for a reboot. This software runs under Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Vista, and 7.

  • Shadow Copy

    Runtime's Shadow Copy sacrifices in interface design for the sake of simplicity. With this tool there is little more to do than decide what you want to image and where you want to image it to. Shadow Copy makes use of VSS so you can even copy locked files on a running system. You can copy a single file or an entire system with the click of the mouse.

  • Paragon Backup & Recovery Free

    Paragon Backup & Recovery Free is for stand-alone Windows machines, and it does a great job of handling scheduled imaging. The free version is based on the powerful pro version, but it's for personal use only.

  • Paragon Backup & Recovery Free

    I highly recommend using the free version to try out the software. If it fits the bill, pony up for the full version (or even the server version). Paragon is also one of the few backup and recovery software titles already labeled as Windows 8 ready.

Introduction

NOTE: If you'd prefer to view this information as a blog post, check out this entry in our Five Apps blog.

Sooner or later, you're going to need to recover from a disaster. If you have a cloned image, the task will be far easier. But many IT budgets can't cover the cost of some of the pricier cloning tools, like Acronis Backup and Restore. When you don't have the budget, what do you do? If you're lucky, you have access to one of the following free applications, all of which do an admirable job of cloning disks.

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By Jack Wallen

Jack Wallen is an award-winning writer for TechRepublic and Linux.com. He’s an avid promoter of open source and the voice of The Android Expert. For more news about Jack Wallen, visit his website jackwallen.com.

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