15 Best Disk Cloning Software (Free and Paid) in 2020

Disk Cloning Software is used for copying the content of hard drives. All the content is saved as a disk image file and transformed into the storage medium, which could be another computer’s hard drive or DVD or a USB device. The user cannot control the trash of the device, but they can prevent the precious data by having one copy of that data to some other computer’s hard drive.

Disk Cloning also makes it easy to have data on a new hard drive. Disk Cloning Software enables system recovery by returning a hard drive to its original configuration after serious problems. It also helps in recreating the system configuration on a new computer.

Contents

• 1 What Is the Difference Between Disk Imaging & Disk Cloning?
• 2 What is the Best Free Cloning Software For Windows 10?
• 3 What is Better Cloning or Imaging A Hard Drive?
• 4 Does Cloning a Drive Make It Bootable?
• 5 15 Best (Free and Paid) Disk Cloning Software in 2020
  • 5.1 1. EaseUS’s Todo Backup Home: Reliable Hard Drive Cloning Tool
  • 5.2 2. Paragon Drive Copy: One Stop Solution for Disk Cloning
  • 5.3 3. Acronis True Image: Best Mirroring Software for Windows 10
  • 5.4 4. CloneZilla: Best Free Disk Imaging Software
  • 5.5 5. Macrium Reflect: Free Cloning Software for Windows 10
  • 5.6 6. MiniTool Partition Wizard: Best Free Partition Manager
  • 5.7 7. [email protected] Disk Image: Best Disk Duplicator Software
  • 5.8 8. AOMEI Backupper Standard: Free & Smart Cloning Software for All
  • 5.9 9. Acronis Disk Director: A MultiPurpose Tool to Prevent Data Disasters
  • 5.10 10. O & O DiskImage 15: Advanced Disk Cloner
  • 5.11 11. NovaBackup PC: All-Rounder Backup Tool
  • 5.12 12. DriveImage XML: A Free Private Edition for Disk Cloning
  • 5.13 13. Hard Disk Manager Version 16: Best Tool to Maintain Disk Health
  • 5.14 14. Daemon Tools Pro 8: A Powerful Disk Imaging Software
  • 5.15 15. Symantec Ghost Solution Suite: An Enterprise Solution for Hard Disk Cloning
• 6 Final Words

What Is the Difference Between Disk Imaging & Disk Cloning?

Disk Imaging and Disk Cloning are two different terms. However, they are often used interchangeably as they are used for the same thing, i.e., Copy hard drive’s content.

Disk Cloning is a process of creating one copy of the hard drive, including information that helps to boot the operating system. In contrast, disk imaging creates a hard drive’s archive that can be then used to create a one-to-one copy.

What is the Best Free Cloning Software For Windows 10?

The best free cloning software for Windows 10, then it is better to use Clonezilla, a disk cloning program that can be used for system deployment and recovery. It has been around for many years and provides reliable service to its users at the lowest cost possible. It has a well-deserved reputation in terms of the cloning of data and precious content.

Another disk cloning software that comes for free is AOMEI Backupper, which can easily backup, sync, restore, clone your Windows system. There’s also an intelligent cloning option, which only copies overused space on the hard drive. After the whole process, the user ends up with a full copy of the hard drive, and there is no need to reinstall Windows when copying the clone over to a new hard drive.

What is Better Cloning or Imaging A Hard Drive?

The answer to this question is that yes, it is better to clone a drive as it will create a one-to-one copy of your hard drive, including files that are needed to boot to the OS from the drive. Disk imaging creates copies of everything present on the drive into a compressed file (large file). Therefore, cloning or copying the drive is the best option.

Does Cloning a Drive Make It Bootable?

The user needs to use the disk cloning tool to clone the hard drive to backup and upgrade your disk. If you use the software to clone a live hard disk, the target disk is bootable. The users can install any of the mentioned freemium software from the list to try and make a bootable disk.

15 Best (Free and Paid) Disk Cloning Software in 2020

There is a lot of disk cloning software and disk imaging software available to fulfill the task, but choosing the best for you could be troublesome. For all these purposes, some cloning software is listed below.

1. EaseUS’s Todo Backup Home: Reliable Hard Drive Cloning Tool

Todo Backup Home is one of the most reliable tools when it comes to having a backup plan for precious data or content. This software offers very effective services to the users, even on the free tier. It enables the users to use different cloning activities, including the copying of the system, copying hard drive, and partition cloning. Also, it has backup modes, including full, scheduled, and incremental backups. Some features of this software are:

• First of all, it helps the users in creating a bootable backup so that they can restore the system or device whenever it trashes.
• It enables the users to have access to an automated backup on the files and directories.
• Also, it helps in compressing file images to save disk space.
• It also comes with a Smart Backup feature, which allows the user to perform backup every half an hour.
• Store the backup content to the hard drive, DVD, tape, an external device, etc.

2. Paragon Drive Copy: One Stop Solution for Disk Cloning

Paragon Drive Copy is the cloning software that covers the full range of disk duties, including disk cloning of the entire hard drive, some activities such as cloning by the partition. Also, it helps in resizing the partition while copying it or copy a hard drive to another with a dissimilar sector size. It helps in cloning the operating system to a USB drive and use anywhere. Some features of this software are:

• Firstly, it helps in easily migrating the OS to a new PC for the transparent transition.
• It helps the users in creating backups, migrate data, and manage partitions.
• Also, it enables the user to copy the data to a hard drive even with different sector sizes.
• It also provides the option of splitting and distributing the free hard disk space again.

3. Acronis True Image: Best Mirroring Software for Windows 10

Acronis True Image is a kind of software that not only offers disk cloning duties, but it is also a comprehensive disk management software that includes creating, formatting, and labeling partitions. Also, it helps in splitting, resizing, and merging of volumes, and also volume recovery. It also provides safety, privacy, and security to the user content or data. Some of the features of this software are:

• Firstly, it helps the user by providing free access to the data and backup files anywhere via cloud backup.
• It also comes with a backup solution to protect the user’s computer from ransomware and crypto-jacking in real-time.
• Moreover, it provides dual protection and security as it backups the precious data both on cloud and locally so that the user can access the data offsite as well.
• It enables the users to store the precious data or content locally on an external hard drive, network folder, offsite in the cloud, and more.

4. CloneZilla: Best Free Disk Imaging Software

CloneZilla is the software that makes those lists of the ‘Best Freeware Programs’ time and again. As it has been around for many years and provides reliable service to its users at the lowest cost possible. It has a well-deserved reputation in terms of the cloning of data and precious content. Clonezilla comes in three different versions, Clonezilla lives, Clonezilla SE, Clonezilla lite server. Some of the features of this software are:

• It supports many file systems, including ext2, ext4, ext3, reiserf4, FAT12, FAT16, NTFS, FAT32, and more in terms of backup and transferring the data and content.
• The tool works for Windows, macOS, Linux, and more and is available for free and open-source.
• It enables retrieving the used portion of the hard disk, which increases the efficiency of the clone.
• It allows users to save the image file on the ssh server, local disk, samba server, WebDAV server, and NFS server.

5. Macrium Reflect: Free Cloning Software for Windows 10

Macrium Reflect supports the direct disk cloning of data and content. The free edition of this software is licensed for home and business use. This system not only provides a free trial, but it also includes paid subscriptions for the best and latest functions, which are more beneficial to the users. This software ensures the user that the data is protected and safe. Some of the features of this software are:

• This software can perform disk cloning of the content.
• It helps in creating and backup disk images.
• Boots the backups of content and data in a Hyper-V VM at once
• It also provides 30 days of technical support via email.
• It also allows the user to create images of running Windows and browse backup files in Explorer.

6. MiniTool Partition Wizard: Best Free Partition Manager

MiniTool Partition Wizard is a free cloning software that allows the user to check file systems, transfer the OS to SSD, and convert MBR to GPT. It involves a free trial system to the users. This software is only available to windows. Some of the features of this software are:

• It enables the users to copy the content and data in the hard disk in a manner that if your target drive is larger than the source, then it automatically resizes the Windows partition.
• This software comes with three backup schemes, incremental, full, and differential.
• It allows the users to restore the system to the previous state without any difficulty.
• It also enables the user to copy the original disk to any other driver, such as SSD, on the same computer.

7. [email protected] Disk Image: Best Disk Duplicator Software

[email protected] Disk Image is a cloning software that can make an exact copy of the hard drive, be it SSD, USB, CD, Blu-ray, and more. The users can also use disk images for backups, duplication of the disk, and PC upgrades. Some of the best features of this software are:

• It allows the user to schedule the backup of data and content.
• Enables the users to create or restore a disk image backup.
• Windows Server support is provided by this very helpful software.
• This software also comes with different image compression like small, medium, and large.

8. AOMEI Backupper Standard: Free & Smart Cloning Software for All

AOMEI Backupper Standard is a software that can copy a large disk to a smaller SSD drive. There’s also an intelligent cloning option, which only copies overused space on the hard drive. After the whole process, the user ends up with a full copy of the hard drive, and there is no need to reinstall Windows when copying the clone over to a new hard drive. Some features of this software are:

• This software also provides three different backups, differential, full and incremental, to make creating backup easily.
• It also comes with a real-time file and folder sync from source to destination without any difficulty.
• It also allows users to scan HDD to HDD, HDD to SSD, and SSD to SSD for data migration and disk upgrades.

9. Acronis Disk Director: A MultiPurpose Tool to Prevent Data Disasters

Acronis Disk Director is one of the best cloning software that helps the user to copy the hard disk and manage the precious data. Also, it protects the data or content of the user. It comes with advanced tools and works smoothly on computers. Some of the best features of this software are:

• It allows the users to navigate the hard disks and create partitions in no time.
• It comes with a disk editing feature, under which the user can make changes to the disk drive content or data to recover deleted/missing information.
• The user can replace an old hard disk with a new one, without apps and other settings.
• It also supports Windows Server 2016, all the latest operating systems, and a 4K hard drive.

10. O & O DiskImage 15: Advanced Disk Cloner

It is the best cloning software that enables the cloning of hard disk as it can back up all your files into a single file anywhere the users want. It works smoothly on computers. If the data or content is lost, then this disk cloning tool can help in recovering the data seamlessly. Some important features of this software are:

• It comes with support for SSD hard drives and the latest UEFI System.
• Also, it allows users to create a system restore, clone, or duplicate the hard drive.
• Additionally, it also provides a facility to restore a backup onto a computer with different hardware from the source.
• It also comes with both automatic and manual backup options that work wonderfully.

11. NovaBackup PC: All-Rounder Backup Tool

NovaBackup PC is one of the best cloning software which promises multiple File and Image Backup options such as Differential, Full, and Incremental. It also allows the users to restore backup images to the previous state when Image Backup was created. This software ensures decent speed and is safe and stable to use. The smart tool can handle all the work. It has many important features like:

• This software generally comes with two backup options, file and image backup. File backup enables you to backup specific files, but image backup is to backup complete hard disk.
• It also enables the users to restore a single file, which was included in the backup file.
• It also provides an option to schedule backup so that the uses don’t have to be bothered for the same.
• This software supports NTFS format drives connected to the hard drive. Decent speed and software is safe and stable to use. Don’t require all full attention; it can handle it all.

12. DriveImage XML: A Free Private Edition for Disk Cloning

DriveImage XML is free to use disk cloning software that allows the users to back up all the files of your computer and hard drives. Some of the best features of this software are:

• This software allows the users to schedule backups so that the data is always secure.
• It is a simple and trustworthy tool to create images and backup the hard disk.
• The tool uses Microsoft Volume Shadow Services to create safe images even while working on your computer.
• It also provides users with an option to copy the drive to drive directly.

13. Hard Disk Manager Version 16: Best Tool to Maintain Disk Health

Hard Disk Manager Version 16 is a software that comes with an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it easy to use for all. With the help of this software, the users can maintain the hard disk, keep control of storage space and performance of your computer. Some important features of this software are:

• It allows the users to transfer data from one computer to another in a few seconds.
• This tool to clone the hard disk is free and comes in protected mode, which means the users can preview the changes and apply them if needed.
• The partitioning feature enables the users to maintain the health of the system or operating device.
• It also provides an option to restore the data in the event of any malware infection.

14. Daemon Tools Pro 8: A Powerful Disk Imaging Software

Daemon Tools Pro 8 is a famous cloning software that can mount all forms of images from Explorer or app. It is software that can get images from physical discs using advanced parameters. Some important features of this software are:

• This software has a TrueCrypt container to keep confidential information. It allows users to create dynamic and fixed virtual hard disks.
• This software can emulate all 32 DT, HD, and SCSI with 4IDE devices.
• It also comes with advanced imaging tools to create new and edit old Audio CD and data images.

15. Symantec Ghost Solution Suite: An Enterprise Solution for Hard Disk Cloning

Symantec Ghost Solution Suite is a cloning software that creates images, deploys desktops, tablets, laptops, and servers. It is easy to migrate the latest OS, deploy software across hardware as well as OS, and do custom configurations. Some important features of this software are:

• It has a simple interface, and the tool is fast, easy to use, and reliable.
• It also helps the users save settings configuration in the image, saving hours of manual configuration.
• It also allows the users to build an image library which can be used for servers, and workstation.
• Moreover, it can also copy a hard disk along with image deployment.

Final Words

The users can use any of the freemium products mentioned in the list. Our personal favorite is CloneZilla, as the user can install the tool and clone your hard drive with ease. It is a disk cloning program that can be used for system deployment and recovery.

It has also been around for many years and provides reliable service to its users at the lowest cost possible. It has a well-deserved reputation in terms of the cloning of data and precious content.

It is necessary to clone a hard drive, but the main one is likely for the creation of a backup. Cloning a hard drive allows the users to make a full and faithful copy of it so that if the original hard drive trashes, the user can swap it out for the clone.

This helps the users avoid any need to completely reinstall system software and copy all data, allowing them to continue working more quickly. A backup drive could be set up and cloned within the existing PC, or it could be set up as an external drive to allow the user to store it off-premises as needed.

It can also be useful when simply looking to upgrade your hard drives, such as to one with a higher capacity or a different type entirely, such as from a mechanical hard drive to a solid-state drive (SSD).