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Best software to clone SSD or HDD

LordBritish

LordBritish

2[H]4U
Joined
Jan 28, 2001
Messages
2,063
I'll be moving to bigger SSD (128gb to 256gb) soon.

What's the best way to clone the drive ?

I'm using Windows 7 professional.

Basic requirements:

* Reliably cloning the disk while also making the partition larger (128gb to 256gb)
* Is easy to use
* Preferably free

What software should I use?
 
For a free, offline clone program, I'd probably go with Clonezilla. If you want to buy a backup program that will serve your needs for a long time, I'd recommend Terabyte's product lineup for about $50. Best damn backup program around. Use Image for Linux to do an offline transfer.
 
So if I copy my 128gb SSD to a 256gb SSD with this Clonezilla, it'll copy everything and increase the size of the primary partition to 256gb as well? (I only have one partition)
 
I've used and would support Clonezilla as well. However Clonezilla has never worked for me when the source disk is a RAID array of any sort. That's my only drawback with it.

Other than that, I know Samsung includes keys for Norton Ghost with 830 SSDs for drive cloning.
 
I can also recommend CloneZilla. Host-RAID (aka Fake-RAID) array depend on the linux driver support and sometimes require interaction on the command prompt. Intel RAIDs seemed to work fine however.

A commercial solution I sometimes use is the Acronis TrueImage rescue disk, which is also a linux with a Windows 7-like user interface.
 
@LordBritish (cool name BTW - cut my teeth on Ultima ][ )

That's my reference to offline. You'll want a program with its own boot media so Windows is not running.
 
I used clonezilla last night to go from my intel 80gb ssd to my new samsung 128gb ssd. It worked just fine, though ultimately I think I will probably end up doing a fresh install anyway because there seem to be some problems (I'm suddenly getting huge fps drops in games, it seems like a driver issue as my video card is only seeing 60% usage, but it wasn't a problem before).

Either way, clonezilla. It's not super pretty or even user friendly, but as long as you pay attention you will be fine.
 
I used Macrium Reflect Free. Nice GUI and simples. =)
Meets all your requirements.

You can also create a Windows Environment (like a windows install disk) boot cd/usb or create a linux boot option (similar to clonezilla)
 
LordBritish said:
Is it safe to clone a disk while running in windows?

What happens if something changes on the source disk while copying?
Click to expand...

It actually runs in a WinPE environment.. basically you setup what you want to do, it reboots and does it. Don't have to worry about shadow copies or things getting out of sync, etc.
 
Usually the manufacture will supply free migration tools, example would be Intel and Crucial. I use both and they are flawless!
 
Where do you find those keys for Ghost? I noticed that they said they provided it but I must have missed where to get the key...

I've cloned half a dozen systems with Acronis Home 2011 which I got free with a NewEgg combo some time back. Worked perfectly every time.
 
You don't really need to do the resize at the same time, in windows vista and newer getting the partition to grow is trivial.
 
pbassjunk said:
If you want Windows software, I've used http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/home-edition/ .. works great.
Click to expand...

Does this allow one to clone a Windows partition and not the whole HDD? Acronis seemingly does not as it only wants to clone the whole HDD (600GB) onto the SSD (128GB), even though in the following stages it allows you to select what to clone. Problem is, it blocks the user from getting to that stage as it wants the receiving drive to be at least that size. It does allow copying but it states that doesn't create a bootable copy.
 
Acronis True Image.....free after rebate from Fry's almost every 3rd month of the year.
 
Mackintire said:
Acronis True Image
Click to expand...

Agreed, I have had very good results with this program. Though it is already basically "free" to everyone.

Western Digital offers Acronis True Image for download, the only catch being that it will only function if you have at least one western digital drive in the computer. Funny thing though is that I have a 2.5" Western Digital laptop drive in a small external USB enclosure, and as long as I have it plugged in, I can use the WD branded Acronis True Image for free even if I'm transferring data between two Seagate drives or w/e. It also works if you just plug an old WD drive into a spare SATA/IDE port.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119
 
GotNoRice said:
Agreed, I have had very good results with this program. Though it is already basically "free" to everyone.

Western Digital offers Acronis True Image for download, the only catch being that it will only function if you have at least one western digital drive in the computer. Funny thing though is that I have a 2.5" Western Digital laptop drive in a small external USB enclosure, and as long as I have it plugged in, I can use the WD branded Acronis True Image for free even if I'm transferring data between two Seagate drives or w/e. It also works if you just plug an old WD drive into a spare SATA/IDE port.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119
Click to expand...

LOL! I have an old WD 160 GB drive that is just not reliable any longer. I was going to trash it, but now I have a reason to keep it! ;)
 
This is the scenario:

I have a HDD with multiple partitions.

I want to copy the primary boot partition of the HDD to the SSD and make it the only partition on the SSD and I need it to be bootable.

These are my results using Acronis True Image (WD version) and Easeus Home Edition.

I used the partition copy feature of Easeus to copy just the primary boot partition from my HDD to my SSD.

Software Used: Easeus Home Edition
Result: FAIL
Reason: SSD was not bootable.

My guess is because it failed to copy the MBR.

So I abandoned Easeus and moved on to Acronis True Image.

Software Used: Acronis True Image.
Result: PARTIAL SUCCESS
Reason: Acronis True Image does not do partition copy. You can't copy just a single partition to another drive.

What I did with Acronis True Image was do a disk clone. Luckily the actual data on all the partitions of the HDD fit onto the SSD. If I had more data, I wouldn't be able to use disk clone. I did have to shrink the partitions size on the SSD to make this work.

I did not try Clonezilla so I can't report on that.

So I still don't know of a fail proof way to copy a single boot partition from a multi-partition HDD onto a SSD and make it the only partition and have the SSD be bootable.

Perhaps Clonezilla would have worked but my work around worked this time. Next time I might not be so lucky.

Any suggestions?
 
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LordBritish said:
This is the scenario:

I have a HDD with multiple partitions.

I want to copy the primary boot partition of the HDD to the SSD and make it the only partition on the SSD and I need it to be bootable.

Software Used: Acronis True Image.
Result: PARTIAL SUCCESS
Reason: Acronis True Image does not do partition copy. You can't copy just a single partition to another drive.

What I did with Acronis True Image was do a disk clone. Luckily the actual data on all the partitions of the HDD fit onto the SSD. If I had more data, I wouldn't be able to use disk clone. I did have to shrink the partitions size on the SSD to make this work.
Click to expand...

I just Installed an Intel 330 Drive. It gives you a link to free Acronis Data Migration software, that makes it easy/automatic. I assume it is the same base software you used for cloning.

My old drive was a 64GB windows/Boot partition and ~900GB of Data Partition.

I noticed it wanted to make two partitions on the SSD as well. Since I already backed up the drive and was planning to remove it anyway, I simply removed the second partition off the drive. Then it worked as I wanted to. It is annoying that you can't just choose the boot partition only.

After the above change, it did, what I wanted, cloned, made a bootable SSD form the original.

Though, I might have fiddled with the partition and messed up alignment. No problem though, Intel also has a link for Acronis Align Partition. It worked the same way. Point at partition, it reboots and does the work outside of windows.

Simpler than making an image and then manually putting the new image in place.
 
Snowdog said:
I just Installed an Intel 330 Drive. It gives you a link to free Acronis Data Migration software, that makes it easy/automatic. I assume it is the same base software you used for cloning.
Click to expand...

Link ?? TIA.
 
Acronis Disk Director works great as well.

I got a copy of the latest for $9 during a special they just had.
 
Aomei Partition Assistant home edition (free) works fine. And to achieve this goal there are several software can, including partition software, backup software.

In addition, if some just want to migrate OS to SSD could choose Aomei Partition Assistant home, this program has a "Migrate OS wizard", it will directly transfer the OS to SSD, after migrating the SSD could boot directly.
 
Valnar said:
For a free, offline clone program, I'd probably go with Clonezilla. If you want to buy a backup program that will serve your needs for a long time, I'd recommend Terabyte's product lineup for about $50. Best damn backup program around. Use Image for Linux to do an offline transfer.
Click to expand...

I've been using the free WD version of Acronis True Image to back up two Win7 PCs to an external WD drive and have liked it so far, but am thinking about buying the latest full version so I don't have to rely on a WD drive being in the system. Seeing your comment, I've been looking into Terabyte Image, and looking at the prices ($40 to Terabyte covers 3 home PCs, while a 3-pack for Acronis costs $80) and general comments about recent versions of Acronis, I'm thinking seriously of getting Terabyte instead.

I know Clonezilla is free, but I'm interested in keeping things elegantly simple because if Terabyte is good, I may also get it for a relative with 3 PCs to back up who is less techy than I am.
 
Only serious tools like macrium, shadowprotect, terabyte, and maybe clonezilla will provide the facilities to copy everything. Even they can be a bit sketchy about it. Even gparted wont take care of you here.

Mbr and disk signature both must be presented to you if the program is to be called comprehensive
 
evilsofa said:
I've been looking into Terabyte Image, and looking at the prices ($40 to Terabyte covers 3 home PCs, while a 3-pack for Acronis costs $80) and general comments about recent versions of Acronis, I'm thinking seriously of getting Terabyte instead.

I know Clonezilla is free, but I'm interested in keeping things elegantly simple because if Terabyte is good, I may also get it for a relative with 3 PCs to back up who is less techy than I am.
Click to expand...

Be careful with Terabyte. I had to ask for a refund after buying their boot manager. over-complicated and support guy had an attitude:mad:.
 
I use Acronis WD edition..you just have to have a wd drive plugged in..It doesn't have to be involved in the imaging,and it works great!
 
At work / home I mainly use the linux util dd or ddrescue to clone drives to destination drives of the same size or larger. These both make an exact clone no resizing. Its just a bit for bit copy of every single sector. In the case of ddrescue it will even skip around unreadable sectors and try recover as much of the readable sectors as possible. One other feature (or lack of feature depending on your viewpoint) that I like is that dd/ddrescue do not try to analyze the disk, partition or file structure before the clone so there is no "I can not do that fix your corruption ... first" errors that I used to see with other products.

These utilities are however not for those who do not understand the linux shell and linux devices since there is no GUI and if you reverse the source and destination devices these will be happy to clone the blank disk to the drive with important data as a result for most users I recommend either Acronis or CloneZilla.
 
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Whach said:
I used Macrium Reflect Free. Nice GUI and simples. =)
Meets all your requirements.

You can also create a Windows Environment (like a windows install disk) boot cd/usb or create a linux boot option (similar to clonezilla)
Click to expand...
I used this after EaseUS and others failed. It works great!
 
I was thinking of buying one or two licenses Acronis TI 2013, since I want several of the features on the full version and Ghost 15 (which I've had no issues with until now) won't activate on Windows 8. Symantec isn't patching Ghost nor giving an ETA for a new version so to hell with them. True Image is $20 right now at Newegg & Amazon... I see a lot of horrid reviews mixed in with the good ones tho, as was the case with Ghost I suppose.

EaseUS seems to be the most mentioned alternative to TI, wish I could find a good comparison... All I really need are scheduled full drive images from within Windows, reliable restore from bootable media, and the option to mount the images within Windows for minor file recoveries. Could care less aboutiincrementals, file backup, online options, etc. Flexibility in handling partition/drive sizes is a bonus, Ghost was always decent at this.
 
Welp, the promo mysteriously disappeared, Newegg must've set a low sale count limit on it... Whatever, guess I'll check out their trial when I install Win 8 and if it works well enough I'll get the 3-pack (only $20-30 more than if I bought three licenses for $20/each). If not I'll look into EaseUs or Macrium.
 
Why not just use Windows' built in system image option? I've used it plenty of times with no problem (64GB ssd to 128, then 128 to 256)

I should say I'm assuming you'd have a spare disc to save the image too - if not then you won't be able to do it this way :)
 
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I don't even think there's a regular image backup tool in Windows 8, not one that's exposed to the user and easily accessible anyway. The other day I saw an app that acts as a GUI front end for the recimg console command that's behind the new Refresh option, it adds some of the typical features like scheduling etc but I need something a bit more robust that isn't as finicky about restoring to smaller drives, etc.

I forgot TI is still $20 at Amazon, might spring for two copies and just use recimg or some freeware on the netbook, stuff on it doesn't change much anymore.
 
I've got an old true image (and also WD drives on hand) but I want to clone an XP hard drive while getting a new aligned partition on the SSD and I'm pretty sure acronis won't do that.

So, clonezilla it is, or is there something else more like acronis that I could use ? I don't mind a complicated tool and I have already done this in 2009 for my first SSD, but I don't have much time so easier is better. I seem to remember using DriveImageXML.
 
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