Comparison of disk cloning software

This is a comparison of disk cloning software. See also: List of disk cloning software

Contents

Table

Name Interface Usage Based on Raw copying[1] Mountable and/OR explorable Backups Smart copying[1] Architecture License
Provides Live USB (approx. size) Provides Live CD (approx. size) Boots from floppies (count) Live copying[2] Ext2/Ext3 FAT32 NTFS HFS+ Without server Client/server
Clonezilla Live text-mode Yes (108.2 MB) Yes (109.1 MB) No No partimage, ntfsclone, dd, partclone[5] Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (Clonezilla server edition) GPL
g4u command-line  ? Yes (3 MB) Yes (2 floppies) No NetBSD Yes  ? No No No Yes requires FTP server Yes BSD
PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost) text-mode  ? Yes (31 MB) No No partimage?, zsplit Yes  ? Yes Yes Partial[3]  ? Yes Yes GPL
G4L text-mode  ? Yes (80 MB) No  ? g4u[4][5], partimage, ntfsclone Yes  ? No No No  ? No No GPL
partimage text-mode  ? Partial [6] No  ? No  ? Yes Yes Partial [3]  ? Yes Yes GPL
ntfsclone command-line  ? Partial [7] No  ? No  ? No No Yes  ? Yes No GPL
SelfImage GUI No No No Yes  ? Yes  ? Yes  ? [8] Yes  ? Yes No GPL
OSFClone command-line Yes (26 MB) Yes (27 MB) No No dc3dd Yes  ? No No No No Yes No GPL
Mondo Rescue text-mode  ? No No Yes partimage? Yes?  ? Yes Yes  ?  ? Yes  ? GPL
ODIN[9] GUI  ? Yes WinPE No Yes Yes  ? No Yes Yes No Yes No GPL
Linbox Rescue Server (GPL edition) GUI  ? Yes (187 MB) No  ?  ? No[10]  ? Yes No[10] No[10]  ? No Yes GPL
FOG GUI  ? No No  ? partimage Yes  ? Yes Yes Yes  ? No Yes GPL
zsplit/unzsplit command-line  ? Partial [11] No  ? Yes  ? No No No  ? Yes No GPL
DriveImage XML GUI  ? Yes, using WinPE  ? Yes Yes  ? No Yes Yes No Yes Can access networked drives Free for private use
Partition Saving text-mode  ? Yes (4 MB) Yes (1 floppies)  ? Yes  ? Yes Yes Yes No Yes No Freeware
Acronis True Image GUI Yes (64 MB) Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Proprietary
Ghost 11.5 GUI and Commandline  ? Yes WinPE or Linux Yes (3 floppies) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Proprietary
R-Drive Image GUI and command-line Yes Yes Yes (2 floppies) Yes Yes  ? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Proprietary
Paragon Backup & Recovery GUI Yes Yes  ? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Has some network functionality Proprietary with a free version for home use
StorCube PC/Server Backup & Recovery GUI and command-line No Yes No Yes No  ? No Yes Yes No No Has some network functionality Proprietary with a free version for Migration(StorCube Virtual Converter)
Macrium Reflect GUI  ? Yes (6 MB)  ? No Yes  ? Yes Yes Yes  ?  ?  ? Proprietary (with a slimmed down free version for personal use)
Kleo Bare Metal Backup for Servers GUI Yes (570 MB) Yes (570 MB) No No partimage Yes  ? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Freeware
HDClone 3.9 GUI Yes Yes Yes No No  ? Yes Yes No ? ? Proprietary, five editions, one is freeware
SystemImager text-mode  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ? No Yes GPL v2
SmartDeploy GUI No Yes No Yes No  ? No Yes Yes No Yes Yes Proprietary

Notes

  1. ^ a b Raw copying means a possibility to perform sector-by-sector copying of a whole partition, while smart copying means here a possibility to distinguish which portions of the partition really contain data and to copy these only.
  2. ^ Live copying means that a drive or volume can be copied/imaged while it is in use (commonly using Shadow Copy techniques), avoiding the need for booting into a separate operating system or Live CD.
  3. ^ a b At the current time support of NTFS in partimage is experimental [1].
  4. ^ g4u/g4l Copyright Infringement Analyzis, by g4u author
  5. ^ g4l documentation, PDF, see page 102 "Disclaim file that discusses issues between early version of G4L and G4U."
  6. ^ There is no Live CD dedicated specially to partimage. However partimage is present on several rescue CD's together with other software.
  7. ^ There is no Live CD dedicated specially to ntfsclone. However ntfsclone is present on several rescue CD's together with other software.
  8. ^ To spite the manual seems to only do raw.
  9. ^ ODIN is in early beta stage and not recommended for primary use. Currently only supports copying a partition to an identically sized partition.
  10. ^ a b c LRS has proprietary and GPL editions; LRS GPL edition cannot handle FAT and NTFS [2][3]
  11. ^ zsplit/unzsplit are available on DeviceImage-Live CD, however DeviceImage-Live CD is not available for free download [4].

Creating a Live USB

Any application that can be booted from a CD or floppy can also be booted from a USB drive if the system's bios supports booting from USB. To create a bootable USB drive you will need to install a boot-loader such as grub4dos (freeware) which is related to GNU Grub.

Other disk cloning applications

Recovery Live CDs & Live USBs that include disk-cloning utilities