SSD/HHD Cloning software

O

OldBuzzard

Gawd
Joined
Jun 6, 2004
Messages
911
Folks, I need to clone a couple of drives.

One is a 1TB SSD and will be cloned to another 1T SSD.

The other is a 1TB HHD that will be cloned to a 1TB SSD.

What is a good FREE program that will do that?

Thanks in advance for your recommendations.
 
I'm a huge fan of clonezilla. It's available as a livecd, uses compression, allows device-device, device-image, image-network, the works.
 
Clonezilla works fine, no issues in my experience with it but it's a command line utility (it has no GUI) so my advice is be very very careful if you've never used it before because one wrong choice from a menu and you'll end up overwriting the source drive/partition instead of cloning it. Take your time, go slow, pay attention to the workflow that Clonezilla has and the particulars and you'll be fine.

Also, most hard drive and SSD makers have software to do cloning operations, it might not be included in the retail box or with a non-boxed HD or SSD but is typically available at the manufacturer's website for download and use so, it's worth checking into that to see if the drive(s) you have do have such software available.
 
Well the general idea is when providing information cover all the bases so, that's what I tend to do including potential warnings, and with Clonezilla and knowing someone could potentially wipe out their entire system with a single option on a menu I always tell people that if I make the Clonezilla recommendation. ;)

I built an Altair 8800 in 1975 so, I'm not all that far behind you myself really, and I was helping my Dad (an electrical engineer) programming some of those old IBM mainframes using punch cards in the mid to late 1960s so, I got some m4d 0ld 5k177s myself. :D
 
clonezilla, or I have used the free western digital tool as well. Come to think of it, Acronis also has a tool.
 
KarsusTG said:
clonezilla, or I have used the free western digital tool as well. Come to think of it, Acronis also has a tool.
Click to expand...

The "tool" supplied by Seagate and Western Digital is Acronis True Image, a slightly stripped down version of their popular retail product that checks for the presence of the respective manufacturer's product(s) and does effectively the same thing the retail True Image product does: drive cloning and imaging as well as the expected restore functions.
 
Depending upon the destination drive, I'd see if a free utility for that drive existed or not. As mentioned above already, alot of companies throw these freebies in with their drives. I've used the free Samsung Magician software a few times without issue as well.
 
I just used Macrium Reflect Free to great success. Pretty easy and worked great
 
I just did a clone with clonezilla, too. I put it on a USB drive, but you can put it on the new drive, too, and it'll overwrite it once it gets cloned out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top