Acronis True Image
Acronis True Image is one of the most popular premium disk imaging utilities. It has all the disk imaging features expected in a premium tool. It offers a selection of backup schemes (including incremental backup), scheduling options, email notifications, file and folder exclusions, and many advanced features (some of which are detailed below). In my tests, it had the best compression and fastest backup times (although not by a wide margin).
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Paragon Hard Disk Manager
Paragon Hard Disk Manager (HDM) is a decent choice of disk imaging tool if you also want general disk management features but don’t mind spending time learning how to use the software. As the name implies it offers a range of hard disk management features, so is not only for disk imaging. If you want to manage (e.g. create/merge/split/wipe) partitions as well as create disk image backups, then this is a good way to go, since you get these extra features for a similar cost to a dedicated imaging tool.
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O&O DiskImage
O&O DiskImage is a newer entrant to the disk imaging space for Windows users, but is quickly developing a good reputation for reliability. DiskImage offers all the standard features we have come to expect in premium disk imaging tools. Since it’s a newer application, there isn’t a lot of legacy, so the user interface is up to date. I found I had to go searching for a few features so it’s not quite as intuitive as the more seasoned Acronis True Image, however it ultimately had all the features a typical user will care about and the backup speed is very competitive.
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Macrium Reflect
Macrium Reflect Free is one of the more polished free disk imaging tool currently on the market. The user interface is intuitive, and is quite snappy and responsive unlike some tools which can be a bit clunky in places. However, it is missing several important features available in premium tools (presumably because it’s a free tool). There is also a paid version of Macrium Reflect with all the typical advanced disk imaging features, although it is a bit more expensive than other popular backup tools.
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AOMEI Backupper
AOMEI Backupper is one of the more popular disk imaging tools available. It’s straightforward to use and has a good range of features for a free tool. Some of its strong points are the availability of incremental backups and free customer support. It also has AES encryption, allows email notification and does system cloning. Interestingly it also has a folder syncing feature so that some folders can be synchronized to a backup location. This is useful to backup personal data separately to disk image backups.
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EaseUS Todo Backup
EaseUS Todo Backup is likely the most popular free disk imaging software available, with the company claiming over 6 million users worldwide. One reason for the popularity of this backup utility is the advanced features set compared to equivalent free tools. This will be a good fit for many users. Todo Backup does incremental backups which saves disk space, and also has good backup plan settings, to create full and incremental backups, and handle automated removal of older backups to save space.
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Clonezilla
Clonezilla is a free and open source disk imaging and cloning utility. It can be run either from a bootable CD/USB disk (Clonezilla Live) for an individual computer, or from a server (Clonezilla SE) for cloning multiple computers across a network. It’s a sophisticated disk imaging tool which uses some powerful and long established Linux utilities under the hood – eCryptfs for encryption, gzip/bzip2 for compression, and ntfsclone/dd for cloning, as well Clonezilla’s own partclone utility.
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SyncBack
SyncBack is a Windows utility to backup and synchronize files. It is used for file backup, rather than disk image backup. SyncBack is noteworthy because it has an impressive selection of advanced features to control how files and folders get backed up and synchronized. While it doesn’t do disk imaging, it’s a complementary program for backing up personal data. Often people prefer to backup their system and personal data separately, as it gives greater control and flexibility.
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