Best HDD cloning software

[davenz]

Probably been asked many times, but what is the best and most cost effective drive cloning software for Windows PCs?

Thanks

 

[Porthos]

Probably been asked many times, but what is the best and most cost-effective drive cloning software for Windows PCs?

Thanks

In general or for DATA RECOVERY situations?

 

[glricht]

Probably been asked many times, but what is the best and most cost effective drive cloning software for Windows PCs?

Thanks

Discussed many times. Use the search function

 

[davenz]

In general or for DATA RECOVERY situations?

For general use. For example, moving to a larger HDD, or HDD to SSD. Thanks

 

[Porthos]

For general use. For example, moving to a larger HDD, or HDD to SSD. Thanks

I prefer Macrium Reflect.

 

[Dave 1973]

I like Mini Tool Partition Wizard.

 

[Porthos]

I like Mini Tool Partition Wizard.

I have that too but only use it to resize partitions.

 

[Your PCMD]

I prefer Macrium Reflect.

I second and third this. Reflect is an awesome product. Been using it for years, though I bought it because you know, commercial use.

 

[sapphirescales]

HD Clone Professional by Miray software. It's a German made software program and is very fast and effective. It automatically resizes partitions up/down and can even work on Mac OS and Linux volumes inside of Windows. I use it mostly for imaging but it can clone disk to disk too. I just upgraded to version 9 and it just gets better and better with every version. I'm not a fan of the current color scheme and there's no way to change that but that's a minor complaint. It works and it works well and that's all I ask for.

 

[Your PCMD]

I just upgraded to version 9

But did you purchase it or pirate it? And they only list version 8 on their site. You know I had to give you some flack.

 

[sapphirescales]

But did you purchase it or pirate it? And they only list version 8 on their site. You know I had to give you some flack.

Nope, I bought it. Version 9 won't be publicly available for purchase for another month or so. They always release the latest versions of their software to people that have bought an earlier license first before releasing it publicly. Of course, if you buy version 8 now you'll qualify for a free upgrade to version 9 once it's publicly released. Version 9 has some very significant upgrades to the copying system and how imaging is handled. I must say it's a definite improvement. I buy the portable version of the software, which entitles you to two permanent installs as well as a portable copy that you can use on any machine providing the USB anti-piracy key is plugged in.

And no, I don't buy it because it can't be pirated. I actually pirated a copy of it originally back in 2016 or so just to try it. I absolutely loved the program so I bought a license. I've been paying for a yearly license upgrade ever since. I still have that pirated copy of version 5 installed on one of my systems because they rewrote the imaging algorithms completely from scratch in version 6 so I like to keep a copy of version 5 installed so I can still work with some old images I have. The first version I ever bought legitimately was version 6 and they won't let me buy a copy of version 5 so I just keep the pirated version.

Almost every piece of software I've bought I pirated first to make sure it was going to work for me. Trials just don't cut it because most companies put some sort of handicap on the trial so you can't really see if the program is going to work for you. If I hadn't been able to pirate HD Clone I probably never would have bought it. If nothing else, torrent sites are a great way to find good programs to buy. You want to know what the best movie, music, or piece of software is? Just look at what people are pirating most. Searching Google for "best XXXXXX" is just going to give you a BS list of "top 10" software full of affiliate links. I honestly don't know how people find good software without torrent sites.

 

[Moltuae]

I second and third this. Reflect is an awesome product. Been using it for years, though I bought it because you know, commercial use.

Yep, Reflect every time.

I'm a Macrium reseller and I've been using it for probably 10 or more years now. It's an incredible product. Very flexible (especially with the built-in scripting features) and it's very reliable.

 

[sapphirescales]

Yep, Reflect every time.

I'm a Macrium reseller and I've been using it for probably 10 or more years now. It's an incredible product. Very flexible (especially with the built-in scripting features) and it's very reliable.

Sorry but that just wasn't my experience. 1 out of every 20 or 30 images/clones would fail. There's no on the fly automatic partition adjustment for imaging/cloning to a smaller (or bigger) drive. Granted it's been a few years since I've used it, but there's a reason I abandoned it for something better. Literally with HD Clone you just select the image, select the target drive, then click start. You can image ANY filing system including Mac OS, Windows, Linux, etc. It automatically adjusts the partition data so you can clone to a smaller/larger drive and the main partition is resized automatically. When I left Macrium Reflect, none of that stuff was there.

 

[Moltuae]

There's no on the fly automatic partition adjustment for imaging/cloning to a smaller (or bigger) drive.

That feature has been there for for as long as I can remember in Reflect, although to be fair it's not immediately obvious if you're not familiar with the interface. You have to manually drag and drop the individual partitions and/or edit their properties to resize them. It's not fully automatic like it is with some software but, to be fair, it's not always obvious which partition(s) needs to be resized. Personally I prefer the greater control over partition resizing that Reflect gives.

And I can honestly say that Reflect's drive imaging has NEVER let me down, but then I always enable image verification.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Yes discussed many times. I've used them all...plus quite a few more. Even have hardware cloning appliances. But software wise I'm yet to find anything faster or easier than the FREE version of Acronis that is available for download at drive manufacturers websites. We have a few CDs or USBs that we boot from with the tool on it, use an older Dell Precision workstation with a Xeon CPU and many SATA ports. Resizes on the fly, up or down (as long as the consumed space size allows on the source drive).

 

[johnrobert]

I only use Acronis worked first time perfect and every other time so why would I change and complicate things
Actually, I did try the CD that came with a new Samsung SSD once had to stop, it looked like it was going to take a week.

I recently clean installed a laptop installed Acronis backup needed a shoe horn to get the money out of her, a few days later she gladly handed over $385 to an online browser scam, says to call this number you are infected and nothing will close down. you know the one
The next day when she started the laptop up, she got the message no profile can load, all I had to was to restore the Acronis image. that was made automatically. I could have fixed it but I wanted to go back before the scam, that she blamed me for, the scammer told her the person who set up her computer did not do a good job

 

[sapphirescales]

That feature has been there for for as long as I can remember in Reflect, although to be fair it's not immediately obvious if you're not familiar with the interface. You have to manually drag and drop the individual partitions and/or edit their properties to resize them. It's not fully automatic like it is with some software but, to be fair, it's not always obvious which partition(s) needs to be resized. Personally I prefer the greater control over partition resizing that Reflect gives.

And I can honestly say that Reflect's drive imaging has NEVER let me down, but then I always enable image verification.

HD Clone also allows you to mess with the partitions manually, but 99% of the time that isn't necessary. I want something as easy as possible. The fewer clicks and the more stuff that happens automatically the better. I never use verification. I used to but HD Clone is so good that I don't need to turn on the verification option.

To be fair, I never had a clone/image fail with Macrium Reflect unless I was resizing the partitions. But then again, you have to resize the partitions most of the time. The decreased reliability is a no-go as far as I'm concerned. I image probably 20 drives or so per day and I haven't had a failure with HD Clone since 2016. The copy engine definitely needed a rewrite, which I'm sure is why they remade the copy engine from scratch in version 6.

 

[hjelpio]

Are the OEM versions of Acronis technician friendly license wise? They obviously only work with one OEM's drives, but would you be able to backup on a WD drive and recover on a Seagate drive as long as you use the correct versions on each side? Or are the backups tagged somehow?

 

[Sky-Knight]

Are the OEM versions of Acronis technician friendly license wise? They obviously only work with one OEM's drives, but would you be able to backup on a WD drive and recover on a Seagate drive as long as you use the correct versions on each side? Or are the backups tagged somehow?

The Acronis that WD licenses works if there is a WD drive in the system, but I think you're only supposed to use it to move stuff to or from a WD disk. I've done so many SSD upgrades with it, you can make a USB key to boot to but I find that only works on EFI enabled systems. For older BIOS platforms you just install it and run it from the platform being imaged.

 

[Porthos]

a few days later she gladly handed over $385 to an online browser scam, says to call this number you are infected and nothing will close down. you know the one

I get NEW clients because of that. NEVER has a past client had that issue unless someone other than the client does something else on the computer to messs up my setup and training of the client.