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Best free disk imaging software (Windows) for home use.
Best paid disk imaging software (Windows) for home use.
What says the CP community?
Sad day - My 8 year old 27" iMac died this weekend. Looked heat related at start but degraded to full constant failure. Based on my PC usage these days (and the fact that my wife still has a MacBook Pro to use when absolutely needed) I decided to try an inexpensive Wintel system again.
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. ~ Ronald Reagan
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I know, I know - I've said it before: AOMEI Backupper.
It has a free version which does pretty much everything, including images and you can not only restore the image, but load it as a virtual disk to retrieve specific files if you need to. It's also extremely easy to use: AOMEI Backupper: Data Backup and Restore Software for PC, Laptop and Server[^]
I do wish they would pay me for each time I say this... 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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You're right to plug it Paul its an excellent bit of kit - I paid for it to show my appreciation
We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP
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Actually OG, from the other post, I went and grabbed and installed this tool.
I like it. While I have not done the myriad of restores I need to do, in order to "trust it" 100%
It is the best free tool I have used.
Thanks!
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The first thing I did when I got it was backup and then restore to a different physical disk - it worked beautifully, and I still do trial restores periodically to check it. Never given me a problem!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Definitely the best I've tried.
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I have used clonezilla with good success at work.
John
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Arguing with a woman is like reading the Software License Agreement. In the end, you ignore everything and click "I agree".
Anonymous
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Also bump, and Clonezilla server (DRBL) is a nice multi-cast option that can be run from a live disk on the fly just like the old-school GhostCast.
I have run into issues with using it to multicast more complex volume structures, but direct imaging still worked in that case.
Should be a breeze with Win10.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Benjamin Disraeli
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Macium Reflect, it has saved me a couple times now.
Aomei: already reported problems network drives, and can not restore from hidden volumes,
Lately found out it's multi gen [file backup full then incrementals] restore to a different machine is also a complete PITA - had to manually choose & restore each file one by one starting from the full backup.
- in macrium you only need click on the last file in the series, it finds its own back trail to the first/full file.
Aomei just sucks, it may be "1 click backup", but it's "all day frustration with many many clicks" when it comes to restore." (In short: Aomei is the best as long as you never intend to do a restore.)
Sin tack
the any key okay
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Quote: Macium Reflect, it has saved me a couple times now.
Echo that! I have used the Macrium product for several years now and have never been disappointed!
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
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Only problem I've had with Acronis stand-alone (2017) it that it doesn't seem to support Bluetooth mice and the keyboard shortcuts are a real PITA 
Steve
_________________
I C(++) therefore I am
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Has new-acronis finally caught up with old-acronis? A few years back they did a complete rewrite of their backup that had a lot fewer features than the old version and was the subject of massive internet rage. IMO it sucked and I took my business elsewhere (clonezilla).
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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This is my goto backup solution.
I have a 5 user license for the team.
I have tested various restores, clones, etc. All worked.
I even cloned a table mini hard drive using a special USB connector to another one for a neighbor, and it was plug an play!
If you are paying, this is my first choice. I also have a few SMALL clients on this.
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I used Acronis in my IT consulting business for years, but am very unhappy with their current company behavior and product. I had a client order Acronis direct from Acronis and told them to specify ship the bootable DVD product (Acronis always offered a bootable disk in the past which I preferred to I could avoid installing it and just use it to disk image backup) for another $10 or $20 (I forget).
They did that after much fighting on the phone with Acronis, who did not want to ship the disk, instead offering them a download key. When the disk finally arrived it was not the bootable disk but simply the download file copied to the disk.
Add Acronis to the list of companies I have stopped using in the last 5 years (Adobe--all products except for an old copy of Standard I've had for 10 years, Microsoft Office, Symantec, etc.---all trying to play cute with the delivery of the product).
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I have just given up on Acronis True Image, after making the mistake of upgrading to 2017.
I am now in a 30 day free trial of Macrium Reflect, so far so good.
I have found Acronis, which I used for many years, to have turned in to a bloated, buggy mess.
After recent updates, my backups consistently hang at about 50% into the backup. So I run a backup overnight and check it in the morning and it is stuck. To make it even worse, you cannot "Stop" it, it just spins forever. If you kill all the processes, or reboot, it attempts to retry and also gets stuck. There seems to be no good way to just kill the thing except to edit the backup and remove the schedule.
Their support gave me a solution - I have to go into their install directory and delete a bunch of DLL's to do with VSS. That did fix the problem. And every time they update the software, I have to go do it again. This is on a pretty generic, fully updated Windows 10 Pro.
They have also removed the feature to mount the .tib file as a folder and explore and copy files. You have to open recover from within True Image. Not a deal breaker, but I used to like that feature.
Another annoyance is that if the tool gets confused and doesn't remove old backups on schedule, it gets angry with you if you do it through File Explorer. Yet there is no way within the tool to delete a backup set except to delete the actual job - along with all the backup settings.
Besides this, there are many sub processes and services running now to do with Cloud backup, which I do not use, and mobile backup, likewise, etc.
To sum up, I no longer recommend True Image, in fact I recommend looking hard for something else.
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Macrium Reflect - never had a problem with it, used for many years. It just works.
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
-- Marcus Brigstocke, British Comedian
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Macrium backup.
If you want to do SD cards, Win32DiskImager.
Or the built in Windows disk imager is also good.
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Acronis True Image. All the usual backup stuff plus the wonderful ability to restore to completely different hardware. Can also backup sector by sector - so practically anything. I'm going to try moving a W7 system to an AMD Ryzen rig this week - different chipset, CPU (obviously!), RAM, etc.
For US$40...what do you want?
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Funky! 
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Obligatory Larry Niven[^] reference
Software Zen: delete this;
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I think Niven is one of the greats; especially the Ringworld[^] series.
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I just finished re-reading the Ringworld and Fleet of Worlds series.
Next on the reading list are Oath of Fealty and Footfall, my two favorite Niven/Pournelle books.
Software Zen: delete this;
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