Clonezilla is free and well-known for its capabilities for cloning a disk to disk, imaging disk, and deploying systems. It is a suite that consists of two tools:
Clonezilla provides several features. As for cloning disks, it offers "disk to disk" and "disk to image." Besides, you can use it to restore disks with images. In the following, we will discuss these features in detail.
PPlease note that whether you want to use Clonezilla to clone to a smaller disk or clone to a larger disk, the primary data in the destination disk will be removed permanently. Therefore, before you start, make sure you have copied the important files and data from the destination disk to another drive. Next, let's start the disk-to-disk clone with Clonezilla.
Note: If you don't know if your computer comes with a hard drive boot function or not, you should check the manual carefully and learn to use it. For example, on Asus, you can press the ESC button and choose the USB device to force boot the computer with the USB device.
Tip: If you accidentally lose data during this process, then check out this guide on how to restore deleted files on Windows 11/12.
Why do people image disks? It's a way to protect your data, and it's the most effective way to make a copy of the source disk. Clonezilla can image a disk for free. Here are the steps.
Though Clonezilla is free to use, it's not a good option for people for the following reasons.
To use Clonezilla, people need to boot the computer with Clonezilla. It's not an easy task in the beginning. You have to read the motherboard manual for how to boot the computer with the external hard drive. And you should learn details for your computer before downloading the right version of Clonezilla. What's worse, there is no guide user interface for the whole disk clone process. You have to learn the command line. Is there any Clonezilla alternative to make it easier for disk cloning? Yes. 10 Clonezilla alternatives are listed for your reference.
There are two reasons why people want to clone disks. One is for replacing the old disks, and the other is for protecting data in the disk by making a copy. iBeesoft Dbackup is a lightweight disk backup software program. It offers 3 options: "System Backup," "Drive Backup," and "File Backup." It's a tool for disk clones and backup novices. The easy ABC data backup process helps people back up data without knowing many computer techniques.
Developed in 2006, Macrium Reflect has gained fame for imaging disk and backup for Windows PCs. It has two editions: Home Edition and Enterprise Edition. It's a reliable program that is safe and easy to use, with fast speed and a robust feature set. Users can choose the Home Edition or Enterprise Edition according to their needs. Compared with Clonezilla, besides creating full images, Macrium Reflect can create incremental and differential backup images. It's a perfect tool if you don't consider the price of $78 for one PC license per year, and it is $162 per device for a lifetime license.
Acronis True Image is a tool suite that includes backup, disk cache, cyber protection, and other tools. Put it in a word, it can backup files, including photos, clone disks, and protect computer systems from ransomware. It's famous for its intuitive interface and versatile data backup preferences. It works like a guard for your computer. Besides local backup, it offers cloud backup and security. It works for both Windows PC and Mac. The price ranges from $39.99 to $94.99 per year.
MiniTool ShadowMaker is a tool that focuses on Windows systems, files & folders, disks, and partitions backup. Besides, it allows the sync of files between devices. The Free Edition can't clone the system disk, make a full or differential backup scheme, and no backup/sync in WinPE. To use the full features, you need to subscribe to the pro version monthly for $12.99 and lifetime$79. For most people, the free edition is enough for file, system, partition, and disk backup and restore. It's a nice tool.
Easeus ToDo Backup is a backup suite that is able to clone disks, image drives and partitions, and backup files and folders, allowing the transfer of data between two computers. Coming with so many features, it's quite enough for users to back up important data and disks. The only problem that many people have complained about is that it is extremely slow when burning images and restoring hard disks. It costs $29.95 yearly, perpetual subscription without update $58.79, and lifetime license $74.95.
AOMEI Backupper is a tool suite that consists of backup, sync, restore, clone, and other tools. It has three versions: Standard Edition, Professional Edition and Workstation. The standard version is totally free. Compared with the paid versions, AoMei Backupper standard lacks system clone, universal restore, mirror sync, real-time sync, two-way sync, cloud/MS outlook backup, backup scheme, etc. Users can take a look at the differences among the three versions.
It's an online cloud backup. What does it mean? It is quite different from the software mentioned above to clone disk to disk and image disk; Comodo BackUp is a cloud-based tool that lets you back up important pictures, documents, music, videos, etc., and file types to the cloud. Users can use 10GB of online storage for totally free.
It's a totally free backup software program. You can schedule the backup of local hard drives and cloud-based online locations, such as Google Drive or Dropbox, to local and cloud destinations. It either creates the standard ZIP files or makes exact copies of the source files without compression. There are different versions for FBackup; you should choose the one after seeing the details. Please be concerned about the security of cloud-based data and accounts.
Cobian Backup is totally freeware for file backup. It can make backups of your files and directories automatically. Besides backing up the files to the local location in the same computer, it allows backing up files to the network and FTP server. Cobian officially has released Cobian Reflector, which contains completely the features of Cobian Backup but also supports SFTP transfer.
As its name, USB Image Tool, implies, it is a tool that images USB flash drives, SD cards, and other devices that are mounted as USB storage devices. It creates the exact copy of these devices and compresses image file formats to zip/gz, restoring images on the device. It's a very simple and easy-to-use tool. From the main interface, you will see how to use it to create a backup of a USB drive.
It's hard to say which software is the best Clonezilla alternative. AoMEI Backupper, Macrium Reflect, and MiniTool Shadownmaker are professional suits, but you need to pay for full-featured programs. As for free tools, like Cobian Backup, though free, it lacks the professional performance for disk clones.
Macrium Reflect, Acronis True Image, MiniTool ShadownMaker, EaseUS Todo Backup, AOMEI Backupper, etc. All have disk clone features, and they are professional tools.
There should not be any equivalent of Clonezilla, but better ones. Clonezilla is a command line-based tool, while other software, like Macrium Reflect, Acronis True Images, AOMEI Backuppers, etc., all come with a user interface, making it easier to operate.
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