Comparison of disk cloning software

This is a comparison of disk cloning software, computer programs that can copy the contents of one disk into another disk or into a disk image.

Table

Name Operating system User interface Sector by sector[lower-alpha 1] File by file[lower-alpha 2] Hot transfer[lower-alpha 3] Mount or extract[lower-alpha 4] Operation model License
Standalone Client–server Offline
(From a Live OS)
Acronis True Image[1] Windows Graphical Yes FAT32, NTFS[lower-alpha 5] Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (64 MB) Shareware
Apple Software Restore OS X Command-line Yes HFS+ ? ? Yes Yes ? Part of Mac OS X
Clonezilla[2] Linux Text-based Yes FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3, HFS+ No Through a hack[3] Yes Yes (Clonezilla server edition) Yes (109.1 MB) GPL
dcfldd Linux Command-line Yes No No No Yes No ? GPL
dd (Unix) Unix Command-line Yes No No No Yes No ? BSD/CDDL/GNU/others
Disk Utility OS X Graphical Yes HFS+ Yes Yes Yes No Yes Part of Mac OS X
EASIS Drive Cloning Windows Graphical Yes No No No Yes No Yes Shareware
FSArchiver Linux Text-based No FAT32, btrfs, ext2, ext3, ext4, ReiserFS-4, HPFS, JFS, XFS ? ? Yes No ? GPL
Ghost v15[4] Windows Graphical
Command-line 		Yes FAT32, NTFS Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Shareware
GParted Live CD[5] Linux Graphical No ext2, ext3 No No Yes No Yes GPL
Image for Windows Windows Graphical Yes FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3 Yes Yes Yes No Yes Shareware
Kleo Bare Metal Backup Independent (Live OS) Graphical Yes FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3, HFS+ No ? No Yes Yes (570 MB) Freeware
Macrium Reflect Windows Graphical Yes FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3 Yes Yes ? ? Yes (6 MB) Freemium
Mondo Rescue[6] Linux Text-based Yes FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3 Yes ? Yes ? Yes *[lower-alpha 6] GPL
ntfsclone[7][8] Linux Command-line No NTFS ? ? Yes No No[lower-alpha 7] GPL
partimage[9][10] Linux Text-based No FAT32, ext2, ext3, ReiserFS-3, HPFS, JFS, XFS;
UFS (beta), HFS (beta), NTFS (experimental)[11] 		? ? Yes Yes No[lower-alpha 7] GPL
Partition-Saving[12] Windows, Linux, DOS Text-based
Command-line 		Yes FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3 No Yes Yes No Yes Freeware
PING[13][14] Linux Text-based Yes FAT32, ext2, ext3, ReiserFS-3, HPFS, JFS, XFS;
UFS (beta), HFS (beta), NTFS (experimental)[11] 		No ? Yes Yes Yes (31 MB) GPL
Redo Backup and Recovery Independent (Live OS) Graphical Yes FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3 No No No Can access networked drives Yes (225 MB) GPL

See also

Software:

Lists:

Notes

  1. ↑ Sector-by-sector transfer involves accessing the disk directly and copying the contents of each sector, thus accurately reproducing the layout of the source disk.
  2. ↑ File-based transfer, (as opposed to sector-by-sector transfer,) involves opening all files and copying their contents, one by one. It requires the cloning utility to have a knowledge of the file systems on the source disk. The target disk's layout may not resemble that of the source disk.
  3. ↑ Hot transfer refers to copying the contents of a volume on which there are open files in use. Implies use of Shadow Copy or such techniques.
  4. ↑ Extracting is the process of browsing a disk image and retrieving some of the files that it contains, one users choice. Mounting a disk image is the process of make the disk image content available to the user as if he or she is accessing a physical read-only disk.
  5. ↑ Acronis True Image can detect and identify Linux partitions and prompt user to switch to sector-by-sector mode.
  6. ↑ There is no ready-to-use Live CD with this utility. It does come bundled with Mindi-Linux which is a small Linux distribution that can be used to create a customized Live CD.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 There is no Live CD dedicated specially to this utility. However, it is present on several rescue CD's together with other software.

References