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Comparison of disk cloning software

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Compares cloning software
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Disk cloning software makes an exact copy (clone) of a storage medium such as a hard disk (HDD) or SSD by using software techniques to copy data from a source to a destination drive or to a disk image. For example, a bootable identical SSD clone can be made of a working HDD that boots into Mac OS.

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Note: the operating system listed is the operating system (OS) the cloning software runs under. Some cloning software can be used to clone storage media with a different OS installed, either by booting a host computer into the cloner's OS (for example, with a boot "rescue" CD, DVD, or USB-connected boot medium), or by connecting the storage medium being cloned to a computer running the cloning software.

Disk Cloning Software
Disk cloning capabilities of various software.
Name Operating system User Interface Cloning features Operation model License
Windows Linux MacOS Live OS CLI GUI Sector by sector[a] File based[b] Hot transfer[c] Standalone Client-server
Acronis True Image[1][d] Yes No Yes Yes (64 MB) No Yes Yes FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, APFS, ext2, ext3, ext4 and ReiserFS[2] Yes Yes Yes Trialware[e]
AOMEI Partition Assistant[3] Yes No No No No Yes Yes No Yes Yes 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[f] 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
FSArchiver No Yes ? ? Yes No No FAT32, btrfs, ext2, ext3, ext4, ReiserFS-4, HPFS, JFS, XFS Yes Yes No GPL
Ghost[5] Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes FAT32, NTFS, HPFS, ext2, ext3[6] Yes Yes Yes Trialware
GParted Live CD[7] No Yes No Yes No Yes No ext2, ext3 No Yes No GPL
Image for Windows[8] Yes No No Yes No Yes Yes FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3 Yes Yes No Trialware
IsoBuster[9] Yes No No Yes No Yes Yes FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, ExFAT, NTFS, ext2, ext3, ext4, MFS, HFS, HFS+, UDF, XFS,[10] ReFS[11] 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[12] No ? No Yes *[g] Yes No Yes FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3 Yes Yes ? GPL
ntfsclone[13][14] No Yes No No[h] Yes No No NTFS ? Yes No GPL
partimage[15][16] Yes Yes No No[h] Yes No No FAT32, ext2, ext3, ReiserFS-3, HPFS, JFS, XFS;
UFS (beta), HFS (beta), NTFS (experimental)[16]		 ? Yes Yes GPL
Partition-Saving[17] Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3 No Yes No Freeware
MiniTool ShadowMaker[18] Yes No No No No Yes Yes FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3, exFAT 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
  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 a similar technique.
  4. ^ For a time the home version was named Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office.
  5. ^ At the trial version, you can't perform Disk Cloning feature via UI nor Rescue disc. Both methods are locked.
  6. ^ There is no Live OS dedicated specially to dd. However Live CDs of various flavors of Linux should include dd as a part of coreutils. In general this applies also to Linux-based rescue CDs (although they may not provide dd explicitly as their primary tool, they still may give access to a shell which allows dd invocation).
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ a b There is no Live CD dedicated specially to this utility. However, it is present on several rescue CD's together with other software.

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References

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  1. ^ Zhidkov, D. A., Kuligina, N. O., & Pavlycheva, T. N. (2020). Methods and Problems of Updating the Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System to Microsoft Windows 10 in the Energy Enterprise. European Journal of Natural History, (6), 30-34.
  2. ^ Bate, Madeleine. "Acronis True Image Review 2021: Is the High Cost Worth It?" Website Planet, WebsitePlanet, 10 May 2021, https://www.websiteplanet.com/cloud-storage/acronis/.
  3. ^ "AOMEI". AOMEItech. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  4. ^ Clonezilla home page (includes supported filesystems and other info)
  5. ^ "Norton Ghost". Symantec. Retrieved 15 December 2012.
  6. ^ "Ghost compatibility with various file systems". Archived from the original on 2017-01-31. Retrieved 2017-01-19.
  7. ^ "GParted Live CD". Retrieved 7 April 2013.
  8. ^ TeraByte Image for Windows home page
  9. ^ Clone a drive or partition with IsoBuster, Managed or otherwise
  10. ^ IsoBuster 4.3 Release notes
  11. ^ IsoBuster 4.8 Release notes
  12. ^ "MondoRescue HOWTO".
  13. ^ About ntfsclone Archived 2008-02-21 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ^ ntfsclone(8) man page Archived 2008-07-06 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ "Partimage home page". Archived from the original on 2017-02-08. Retrieved 2008-05-26.
  16. ^ a b "Supported filesystems". Partimage. Retrieved 3 February 2026.
  17. ^ Partition-Saving manual
  18. ^ "MiniTool ShadowMaker official site".