The lion's share of popular utilities that allow you to backup your hard drive are commercial products. Of course, the software that holds the leading position is convenient and efficient, but its cost is quite high. The article will consider completely free products. For the most part, they will require the creation of a bootable flash drive. Of course, this approach is associated with some inconvenience, but it will help out if the operating system suddenly stops turning on.
Redo backup
The main advantage of the program is simplicity. She has a minimum of options. Due to this, the launch occurs almost instantly. After loading, a simplified to the maximum OS appears on the screen, similar to Ubuntu. It automatically opens the main utility window.
In addition to the basic tools, the program for copying hard drives includes several secondary functions. The file manager will be indispensable if the main operating system does not boot. The distribution has in its kit an application that can reset the parameters of the hard disk. In this case, all data from it will be deleted. The GParted utility will allow you to change the size of the HDD partitions, make any of them bootable, format.
Additional Redo Backup Tools
In addition to basic tools, Redo Backup includes such programs for the PC as a photo viewer, text editor, Internet browser, terminal emulator. If the computer stops starting due to lack of free space, the integrated Baobab application will be useful. It will build a diagram of files and directories and indicate which of them occupy the most disk space. If you accidentally delete the desired document, it will not be difficult to restore it, because the PhotoRec utility is included in the software package. After creating the HDD image, you can save it to another physical medium, remotely send it to the SMB directory or to a folder on the FTP file server.
The size of Redo Backup is so small that it fits on any USB flash drive or CD.
AOMEI Backupper
AOMEI is released immediately in four editions: the image of a bootable USB flash drive, two free versions of the application installed on Windows, and one paid. I must say that this approach introduces some confusion. Two free versions are almost no different.
The main plus of the paid Professional edition is the function of incremental creation of the hard disk image. With its help, each new backup is not recorded with a full copy of all files. In the already created image, only the changed and new data is added. In addition, the distribution of the paid version includes the ability to remotely download. That is, the program files for the PC are located on one machine, and are downloaded to another. Of course, such a function will not interfere with the system administrator, but it is useless for a simple user.
The developers claim that free editions work more slowly, however, if special measurements of speed can determine this, then "by eye" no advantages in this regard are noticed.
Key features of AOMEI
Even the free version of AOMEI offers the user many more options than Redo Backup. Copying can be done in different ways: simply cloning the HDD, creating a backup of only the system partition, transferring the entire contents of the disk to another medium. The latter is very convenient if it is necessary to restore the performance of the machine in a short time.
To image files do not take up too much space, the program for copying disks performs data compression. In this case, the compression level is set by the user. If there is no lack of space on the medium, and time is short, compression can be turned off.
AOMEI can work as scheduled. For this, a scheduler is built into the program. At the set time, the application will automatically start, make a copy, and then end.
Clonezilla
Clonezilla is an absolutely free disk copying program. Its source code is open, which means that anyone can participate in the development. The application interface is made in the form of a step-by-step wizard. However, the application is quite complex and will attract experienced users, it will scare away beginners. It should be noted that the utility is completely Russified, which makes it possible to read comments and learn functions in the native language. The translation of the text is correct.
The program for copying discs can work with any file systems used by both Mac and Linux, and Windows. To create a bootable flash drive you need to make a minimum of effort. Copy all the program files to a USB drive, and then simply run the makeboot.bat file
You can create a backup copy as separate files or as an image. The latter is recommended if you are backing up a system partition. Of course, Clonezilla is able to recover data based on the created copies. By default, the utility writes the backup to the local drive, but nothing prevents you from changing the settings so that it is automatically sent to the remote SMB directory or server using the SSH protocol.
If you have secret or important documents, the program for copying disks has the ability to encrypt all files with the AES-256 algorithm. The minimum system requirements of the application will allow you to run it even on the most low-power and obsolete machines.
HD duplicator
If Windows does not boot and the fault is a faulty HDD, HD Duplicator will come to the rescue. This application is designed specifically for creating disk images with bad sectors, a damaged magnetic surface, a failing head block. The only condition that is necessary for the software complex to work correctly is installing a second working HDD in the computer.
Quickly changing operating modes between UDMA and PIO allows you to copy in cases where other products are stuck. In addition, the program is completely independent of the BIOS, and access to the HDD is made directly.
The main advantages of the product:
- High speed.
- Recovery of information from defective surface areas.
- Combination of various algorithms for maximum security of all operations.
- Rebooting the PC with a long lack of readiness of the drive, which helps to reduce the risk of HDD failure.
The program for copying damaged disks has only one drawback - it is not free.