Disk image programs should be powerful enough to allow you to customize automated images, use your images to create a boot disk and delete or format a drive. The Best Imaging Software. Acronis True Image 2020 is the best full-image backup software for your Windows and Mac. It is a fast, easy, and complete solution, with the power to let you.
Disk imaging refers to copying the contents of a data storage device or medium, and transferring this to another, similar medium or device. In its original context, disk imaging implies the creation of an exact duplicate of a computer's hard disk drive - including its programs, setup and data then storing this in a special, compressed file format.
Disk imaging aims to provide the user with an exact replica of a computer's systems and data - needed in case of a catastrophic disk crash where the user needs to recover systems or data (e.g. in the event of a virus attack or accident), to 'clone' a systems set-up for installation in another computer or to move these to another hard drive.
The Uses of Disk Imaging
The primary use of disk imaging software is to provide quick and easy back-ups of computer software and data stored on hard disks. While most people think of backing up data, disk imaging programs back up not only data but also the computer's systems and configuration.
In effect, a disk imaging program captures an 'image' of an active computer system - its structure, registry programs, 'tweaks', software, etc. This is especially useful in case of problems encountered during the life of the system - deliberate virus attacks which may erase systems or data, software or hardware glitches which may require formatting or erasure of the hard disk, installation of beta (test) software that may conflict with a computer system, catastrophic incidents like man-made disasters or accidents (e.g. fire, floods, and the like).
In other words, a disk image means having an updated 'rescue disk' that one uses to easily reinstall the system to what it was at the time of 'duplication,' without having to go through the involved process of installing software and resetting or tweaking settings once again to the desired configuration.
A second application for disk imaging software is for systems administrators who oversee multiple computers with similar configurations. Rather than spending time in transferring and configuring systems on different computers, a disk imaging software makes the task easy and quick - duplicate the systems on one machine and install the 'disk image' on another computer.
Disk Image Software
The most popular disk imaging software is Symantec Ghost. The initial versions of Ghost were used to duplicate or clone entire disks (without regard to whether the disk was half-empty or not), but later versions were configured to provide the user with a choice of copying entire disks or individual partitions. Ghost also provides for multiple means of duplicating systems or data; one can copy these to a second disk on the same machine; duplicate these to another computer linked via network or parallel cable; or to copy the image to a network or tape drive.
A corporate edition of Ghost allows for multicasting, or the simultaneous transfer of images from one computer to several ones - an approach which reduces the stress on a computer network that has to transfer large files (usually several hundred megabytes or more).
Best Disk Image Software - EaseUS Todo Backup
EaseUS Todo Backup is a reliable disk image software. It is the safe backup & recovery software offering backup, disk clone and disaster recovery solution, supporting one-click system, files and applications backup.
Disk cloning software is an important need when it comes to data disaster prevention. Disk cloning is a method to create one on one copy of all your hard drive content, including files required to boot to the OS from the drive. In simple words, you can say, it is a duplicate copy of your hard drive.
You can’t prevent hard drive failure or other mechanical failure but sure can avoid losing your precious data by creating a clone of your disk. Well, it also comes handy when you want to upgrade your HDD to an SSD, as it becomes easier to get your data on the new drive.
Jan 30, 2020 BlackHole is essentially a virtual audio device. It shows up as a hardware input and output, fooling your Mac into letting you route audio to it. Once you send audio. BlackHole is a virtual audio driver that allows applications to pass audio to other applications with zero additional latency. Virtual Audio Cable for Mac. Virtual Audio Cable by Eugene Muzychenko is an application that allows users to easily transfer audio streams between computer programs or various devices. Unfortunately, there is no version of Virtual Audio Cable for Mac available on the Internet. Instead, you can try the tools from this list to cope with the task. Mar 24, 2020 Make a virtual audio device with audio from the applications on your Mac, including production apps like Logic or Reason, as well as simple audio players, like iTunes or QuickTime. Works With Any Input Device Pull audio from the physical audio devices connected to your Mac. 
There are a lot of disk cloning software & disk imaging software available to fulfill the task, but choosing the best for you could be troublesome. To help you with that, we have listed some of the best disk cloning software available for Windows 10, 8 and 7.
Our Top 3 Choices
EaseUS Todo Backup
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Paragon Drive Copy
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Acronis True Image
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Best Disk Cloning And Disk Imaging Software For Windows PC
1. EaseUS Todo Backup Home: Reliable Hard Drive Cloning Tool
EaseUS Todo Backup is a disk cloning tool which is known to be trustworthy when it comes to creating a backup and restoring data on a Windows PC. It comes with three backup options, such as full, differential, and incremental backup.
Features Of EaseUS Todo Backup:
- Enables you to run an automated backup on your files and directories, compress file images to save disk space.
- Allows you to create a bootable backup so that you can restore your system whenever it crashes.
- Store backups to a hard drive, tape, an external device, CD/DVD, FTP server, NAS, OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive.
- Comes with Smart Backup feature, which allows you to perform backup every half an hour, if any changes are made to data.
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2. Paragon Drive Copy: One Stop Solution for Disk Cloning
Another great hard drive cloning software, Paragon Drive Copy, can seamlessly migrate your data from a given source to the target. This disk imaging tool allows you to clone your operating system to a USB drive and use anywhere you like.
Features Of Paragon Drive Copy Professional:
- Easily migrates your OS to a new PC for a seamless transition.
- Allows you to create backups, migrate data, and manage partitions.
- Let’s you copy or retrieve data to a hard drive even with different sector size.
- Can split or merge partitions and distribute free hard disk space again.
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3. Acronis True Image: Best Mirroring Software For Windows 10
Looking for the best disk cloning software which can provide safety, privacy and security of your data? Well, your search ends here! Acronis True Image is a robust tool which can handle mirroring and disk cloning with ease.
Features Of Acronis True Image:
- Provides access to your data and backup files anywhere via cloud backup. You can manage your data remotely.
- Comes with a backup solution with AI to protect your computer from ransomware and crypto-jacking in real-time.
- Provides dual protection as it backups your data both on cloud and locally so that you can access your data offsite as well.
- Allows you to store your data, locally on an external hard drive, NAS device, network folder, offsite in the cloud and more.
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4. CloneZilla: Best Free Disk Imaging Software
Clonezilla is a disk imaging tool that works as a disk cloning tool as well. It claims to help in system deployment, system backup and recovery. Clonezilla comes in three different versions, Clonezilla live (single computer), Clonezilla SE(for servers), Clonezilla lite server (more than 40 computers).
Features Of Clonezilla:
- Supports many file systems, including ext2, ext4, ext3, reiserf4, reiserfs, jfs, xfs, nilfs2, FAT12, FAT16, NTFS, FAT32 and more.
- The tool works for Windows, macOS, Linux and more and is available for free and open-source.
- It saves and retrieves the used portion of the hard disk, thereby increasing clone efficiency.
- Allows you to save the image file on ssh server, local disk, samba server, WedDAV server, and NFS server.
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5. Macrium Reflect: Free Cloning Software For Windows 10
Macrium Reflect free disk imaging and cloning tool is great for both personal and professional use. The tool provides you with options for incremental backups to ensure your data is protected. This version of the tool is available for free and enables you to create effective backups.
Features Of Macrium Reflect Free:
- Can perform disk cloning, create, and backup disk images.
- Boots your backups in a Hyper-V VM at once
- Provides 30 days of technical support via email.
- Allows you to create images of running Windows and browse backup files in Explorer.
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6. MiniTool Partition Wizard: Best Free Partition Manager
MiniTool Partition Wizard, a free disk imaging tool which comes with other features, such as data backup, data recovery, disk partitioning, Disk Benchmark and more. It allows you to check file systems, migrate your OS to SSD, and convert MBR to GPT.
Features Of MiniTool Partition Wizard Free:
- Let’s you clone or copy your hard disk in a manner that if your target drive is larger than the source, then it automatically resizes Windows partition.
- Comes with three backup schemes, incremental, full and differential.
- Allows you to restore the system to the previous state.
- Clone your original disk to any other drive such as SSD on the same computer.
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7. Active @ Disk Image: Best Disk Duplicator Software
Active Disk Image is a disk imaging tool which can make an exact copy of your hard drive, be it SSD, HDD, USB, CD, Blu-ray, and more. You can use disk images for backups, disk duplication, and PC upgrades.
Features Of Active@ Disk Image:
- Allows you to schedule backup.
- Enables you to create or restore a disk image backup.
- Provides Windows servers support.
- Comes with image compression (fast, high and normal)
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8. AOMEI Backupper Standard: Free & Smart Cloning Software For All
Another great way to clone a hard disk is downloading AOMEI Backupper Standard. It is a free tool which makes sure your data is safe. The disk cloning tool also comes with a disaster recovery solution for laptops and computers.
Features OF AOMEI Backupper Standard:
- Provides three different backups, differential, full and incremental, to make creating backup easy.
- Comes with real-time file and folder sync from source to destination without any hassle.
- Allows you to scan HDD to HDD, HDD to SSD, and SSD to SSD for data migration and disk upgrades.
- Supports both 32, & 64-bit Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows 10.
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9. Acronis Disk Director: A MultiPurpose Tool To Prevent Data Disasters
Acronis Disk Director is one of the best disk cloning software which can help you clone your hard disk, protect & manage your data, and hard disk. This cloning software can swiftly create partitions, resize, merge, move them without the fear of data loss.
Features Of Acronis Disk Director:
- Allows you to map hard disks, create partitions in no time.
- Comes with a disk editing feature, under which you can make changes to your disk drive content to recover deleted/missing information.
- Can replace an old hard disk to a new one, without reinstalling OS, apps and other settings.
- Supports Windows Server 2016, latest operating systems and 4K hard drives
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10. O & O DiskImage 15: Advanced Disk Cloner
O&O Diskimage 15 is one of the great tools to choose to clone your hard disk as it can back up all your files into a single file anywhere you want, even when you are working on your computer. If you lose your data, then this disk cloning tool can help you recover your data seamlessly.
Features Of O&O DiskImage 15:
- Comes with support for SSD hard drives and the latest UEFI system.
- Allows you to create a system restore, clone or duplicate your hard drive.
- Provides a facility to restore a backup onto a computer with different hardware from the source.
- Comes with both automatic and manual backup options
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11. NovaBackup PC: All-Rounder Backup Tool
NovaBackup PC is robust disk imaging software which ensures protection for your data. The tool promises multiple File and Image Backup options such as Differential, Full, and Incremental. With Boot Disk, it allows you to restore Image Backup, at the time of system failure to get back to the previous state when Image Backup was created.
Features Of NovaBackup
- 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.
- Allows you to restore a single file, which was included in the backup file.
- Provides an option to schedule backup so that you don’t have to be bothered for the same.
- Supports NTFS format drives connected to the hard drive and comes with AES 256-bit, AES 192-bit, and AES 128-bit encryption.
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12. Drive Image XML: A Free Private Edition For Disk Cloning
Another disk cloning tool, Drive Image XML which is available for free, allows you to create an image and backup of your PC’s partitions and drives. This cloning tool can help you create or restore images to both similar and different drives.
Disc Image Software Free
Features Of DriveImage XML
Disk Imaging Software
- Allows you toschedule backups so that your data is always secure.
- A simple and trustworthy tool to create images and backup of your hard disk.
- The tool uses Microsoft Volume Shadow Services to create safe “hot images” even while working on your computer.
- Provides you with an option to copy drive to drive directly.
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13. Hard Disk Manager 16: Best Tool To Maintain Disk Health
Hard Disk Manager 16 is another disk mirroring software that comes with an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it easy to use for all. You can maintain your hard disk, keep control on storage space and performance of your computer.
Features Of Hard Disk Manager 16:
- Allows you to transfer data from one computer to another in a few seconds.
- This tool to clone your hard disk is free and comes in protected mode, which means you can preview the changes and apply them if you want.
- Use the basic partitioning feature to maintain your system’s health.
- Provides an option to restore your data in the event of any malware infection.
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14. Daemon Tools Pro 8: A Powerful Disk Imaging Software
Looking for a disk mounting tool which can mount all forms of images from explorer or app? If yes, then the answer is Daemon Tools Pro. This drive cloning software is a powerful emulation tool that can get images from physical discs using advanced parameters.
Features Of Daemon Tools Pro 8:
- Comes with TrueCrypt containers to keep confidential information. Allows you to create dynamic and fixed virtual hard disks.
- Compress, convert, and protect your files by using a password.
- Has an ability to emulate all 32 DT, HD and SCSI with 4IDE devices.
- Comes with Advanced imaging tools to create new and edit old Audio CD and data images.
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15. Symantec Ghost Solution Suite: An Enterprise Solution For Hard Disk Cloning
Symantec Ghost Solution Suite is a great tool to create images, deploy 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.
Features Of Symantec Ghost Solution Suite:
- With a simple interface, the tool is fast, easy to use and reliable.
- Saves settings configuration in the image, saving hours of manual configuration.
- Allows you to build an image library which can be used for servers, and workstation.
- Can clone a hard disk along with image deployment.
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Free Disk Image Backup Software
So, these are some of the best disk cloning software to create a disk image or a clone so that you never lose your data ever. What do you think of this post? Please let us know what you think about it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is The Difference Between Disk Imaging & Disk Cloning?
Disk Imaging and Disk Cloning are two different terms, however, 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 to one copy of the hard drive, including information that helps to boot the operating system. However, 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?
If you are looking for the best free cloning software for Windows 10, then you can use Clonezilla, a disk cloning program which can be used for system deployment, and recovery. Another disk cloning software that comes for free is AOMEI Backupper, which can easily backup, sync, restore, clone your Windows system.
Is It Better To Clone Or Image A Hard Drive?
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).
Does Cloning A Drive Make It Bootable?
You need to get a disk cloning tool to clone the hard drive so you can backup and upgrade your disk. If you use the software to clone a live hard disk, the target disk is bootable. You can install any of the mentioned freemium software from the list to try and make a bootable disk.
How Do I Clone A Disk For Free?
You can use any of the freemium products mentioned in the list. Our personal favorite is CloneZilla, you can install the tool and clone your hard drive with ease.
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