Free Disk Cloning Software For Mac

Software To Clone Hard Drive – Use high end tools and protect data from disaster
Disk cloning software helps to back up one's valuable information on computer and networks to mitigate any disasters that can happen due to data loss or damage to data.

Stellar Drive clone is one of the best disk cloning app for Mac. It creates an identical, ready to use copy of the hard drive. The Clone software creates partitions in the same way as that of the actual hard drive. The tool supports various types of cloning like, HFS-to-HFS, FAT-to-FAT and NTFS-to-ExFAT. Here is Mac Disk Cloning Software that allows Mac user clones their Mac hard disk fully as a complete bootable copy of your hard drive onto another drive. Drive Cloning is very important because it is useful for system recovery in case of a hard disk disaster happens or upgrade to a larger hard drive with minimal hassle. Disk Utility is free and included with every copy of the Mac OS. And while the various cloning apps have a lot more features, if you don't have access to third-party apps, using Disk Utility will create a perfectly usable clone, although it may require a few more steps and lacks some nice features, such as automation and scheduling. The software has a Mac Clone Utility Tool which clones the hard disk bit-by-bit. This would make the process of upgrading a disk or replacing it much easier and hassle free. The tool also allows the user to migrate their Mac Data from HDD or SDD with much ease. Cloning is a viable option if installing a fresh copy of the OS and migrating your data is not an option. Cloning is a destructive process that will erase the recipient drive, leaving the source drive intact. The instructions below are for cloning.

• Hard Disk Tools

There is a lot of hard drive cloning software available in the market. One can search Google using 'free hard drive cloning software download' and find this cloning software.One can have a look at hard disk cloning software below:

1. AOMEI Partition Assistant

This 'aomei disk clone' software is helpful to copy and clone a hard drive to new hard drive. It is freeware and its main features are:

• It helps cloning disk from one to another
• It helps cloning a partition to other location
• It allows resizing partition size without loss of data
• It helps moving free space from one partition to another

2. Clonezilla

This is partition and disk cloning tool. It is a freeware and its main features are:

• It has built-in unattended mode and multicast support
• It can clone up to 40 machines at once
• It has boot parameters which help one to customize cloning
• It can save and restore partitions and whole disk as well

3. DriveImage XML

This tool helps to back up drives and partitions. It is a freeware and its main features are:

• It allows copying directly from drive to drive
• It allows setting schedule for automatic backups
• It uses Microsoft Volume Shadow Services and stores images in XML file
• It works very fast and works for all windows-based systems

4. ShadowCopy

This hard drive cloning software is free to download and its main features are:

• It has easy and smooth interface
• It copies all the files including locked and open files
• It uses Microsoft Volume Shadow Services
• It is executed from command prompt
• It allows copying single file or entire system just with a click of button

5. Paragon Backup & Recovery Free

This hard disk cloning software is freeware and works for Windows-based systems. Its main features are:

• It has complete and reliable back up including the OS
• It has option to back up only the changed data as well
• It does a fast and easy recovery
• It creates a bootable rescue media
• It has all partitioning features

6. Redo Backup

This is perhaps one the best freeware hard drive cloning software. Its main features are:

• It has the most simple and easy to use graphical features
• It does not require installation and executes from a CD or USB flash drive
• It automatically finds files in the local networks
• It helps recovering deleted pictures, files and documents

7. Fog Project

This is open source complete cloning software. This is a freeware and its main features are:

• It supports Windows, Mac OS, Linux systems
• It can clone any number of systems and there is no limit
• It allows computer management activities
• It can manage computers on network as well

8. EASIS Drive Cloning Free

This software helps cloning hard drives, partitions or other storage devices. This is free to download and its main features are:

• It allows creating high compressed hard drive images for better managing
• It supports RAW image formats as well
• It clones bad sector data also
• It helps to rewrite images back to drive

9. HDClone 6 Free Edition

This software helps to copy contents of hard disks to another hard disk. It is available for free download and its main feature are:

• It can handle even larger hard disk sizes as well
• It supports IDE/ATA and SATA/eSATA hard disks
• It is capable of cloning up to 300 MB/min

Guidelines to select hard drive cloning software

With plenty of tools and programs available for selecting effective hard drive cloning software one should have some idea on how to choose the best one. The cloning software should be able to take back up even the open files is the first criteria because most of the applications will be in running mode and one cannot expect to close the operations just for backing up. Then it should be able to take back up from optical discs as well. The vital incremental and differential update options should be available on the software for one to choose according to their requirements. The software should have the option to skip the auxiliary files while performing compression and encryption. This is also one of the crucial aspects for selection of the software.

Option to visualize emulated drives and machines is also one of the prominent features of the software. It is very critical that the software does restore the backed up files flawlessly and having options to restore particular drives or files is good. The software that one use to this vital activity of cloning should have proper support and software vendor should provide sufficient instructions on performing cloning is also equally essential.
Insights and varieties of hard drive cloning software

One can understand various aspects and operations of hard drive cloning by searching the Google using 'disk cloning' or 'hard drive cloning'. One can search Google to find a particular brand of cloning software using 'macrium reflect free edition' or 'clonezilla download' and utilize them. To find hard drive cloning software specifically for Windows-based systems one can search Google 'disk cloning software windows 7' or 'disk cloning software windows 10' and download them.

Summary :

What is the best free drive copy software? MiniTool Partition Wizard is the best hard drive cloning software which can be used to clone hard drive easily and safely. Download the free cloning software now and have a try!

Why Clone Hard Drive?

Disk cloning is very useful in hard drive management. Simply put, disk cloning copies the complete contents of a hard drive, including the files, the partition tables and the MBR to another location.

It is worth mentioning that when you clone a hard drive, both the source disk and the target disk can be used directly, which is regarded as a simple, direct duplicate (however, cloning is different from copy & paste, check Clone VS. Copy & Paste for the detail).

In the following situations, you may consider hard drive cloning:

• To upgrade to larger hard drivewhen the current hard drive is too small and cannot meet your data storage requirements any longer. For example, you meet the 'low disk space' issue but all partitions are almost full.
• To upgrade hard drive to more advanced SSD to enjoy smooth computer performance. This is extremely useful for those who want to upgrade system disk, as SSD offers faster read-write speed.
• You have a batch of computers (with the same configuration) to be installed. To avoid installing all computers one by one, you can install only one at first and then turn to hard drive cloning software to save effort and time.
• To make an exact hard drive backup. Through free disk cloning, you get a copy of disk backup and avoid the trouble of data restoration when the backup copy is needed.

So the conclusion here is that if you are upgrading your hard drive to a larger one, or replacing it due to a physical failure, cloning hard drive is the easiest method to complete that task. Besides, doing hard drive copy reduces the risk of any accidental data loss.

Recommended Hard Drive Copy Utility

Since hard drive copy is significant, you must be wondering: which is the best freeware for drive copy? In my opinion, MiniTool Partition Wizard is the top recommendation. I will give you my explanation.

Developed by MiniTool Software Ltd., MiniTool Partition Wizard is regarded as the best drive copy software for Windows users, including those who are running 32/64 bits Windows 10, Windows 8, and Windows7.

As free drive cloning software, MiniTool Partition Wizard offers two ways to clone hard drives for hard drive upgrade or data backup, including 'Copy Disk' and 'Migrate OS to SSD/HD' (if you only want to clone the system).

All you have to do is put the new drive in the computer as a slave or secondary drive and use this disk copy software to clone the old drive to the new one. Once the process is complete, switch the new drive to the primary and then you are good to go (for hard drive upgrade).

Just press the button to have this free drive cloning tool downloaded! The free edition is flexible to copy any non-system disk; while to copy your system disk, you will need to upgrade to a more advanced edition.

Knowing what MiniTool Partition Wizard is, let's have a look on how to clone a hard drive by using MiniTool Partition Wizard. Here we just take clone hard drive Windows 10 for example, and MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition should be the right choice.

1. To use 'Copy Disk Wizard', both the source disk and target disk must be basic disks.
2. The target disk will be cleaned during the cloning process. Please make sure it can be cleaned; otherwise transfer data out at first.

Step 1. Run MiniTool Partition Wizard to the main interface, then you can see all your hard drives connected to this PC are shown in the middle panel and some operable features are listed in the left panel. Now, select Copy Disk feature to clone hard drive. Games i can play on my macbook air.

Step 2. Here you need to select the target disk (must be basic disk) and click Next to continue. Make sure you know which drive you are cloning to so you do not overwrite the wrong drive.

DoYourClone For Mac: Best Disk Copy And Disk Clone Software ..

Step 3. Here come the copy options. If you are copying from a GPT disk, you are able to see 2 options. (4 options when you are cloning an MBR disk, see details here.)

• Fit partitions to entire disk: all partitions will be cloned to the target disk and take up its full capacity according to the partition size proportion.
• Copy partitions without resize: all partitions will be cloned to the target disk according to the original partition size. This option is available when the target disk is large enough to hold all partitions on the source disk.

After you have made the copy options, you can customize each partition size according to your own preference. Then click Next to go on.

Step 4. Then you can see a note which reads 'To boot from the new disk, please configure computer BIOS settings. Make sure the new disk is configured as the default boot disk.' Please keep this in mind if you are cloning the system disk before you click Finish.

Step 5. Finally, you need to press the Apply button located on the toolbar to start hard drive cloning process. When finished, you will find all your files stay intact on the original drive and the target drive has an exact same copy.

For a more intuitive guidance, please watch this video:

Don't hesitate to have a try on this free cloning software now!

RECOMMEND:

Want to know more information about how to successfully boot computer from the new hard drive? Now, you can find answers from our previous post: 2 Ways to Boot from New Hard Drive after Copying Disk or Migrating OS.

In fact, MiniTool also puts forward another free cloning software to clone hard drives which is called MiniTool ShadowMaker. Although it is mainly designed for Windows backup, it also comes with useful Clone Disk feature. To get the details of how to use this disk copy software, you are suggested to read Clone OS from HDD to SSD.

Tips for Cloning Your Hard Drive

Now you know how to clone hard drive by using MiniTool free cloning software. Here I would like to put forward some tips to help you deal with cloning issue better.

• Don't just copy & paste files to another location on your hard disk if you are leading the operating system. Use professional disk cloning software like MiniTool Partition Wizard to help you.
• Use another hard drive, especially an external hard drive for your backup copies, because there is less chance of losing/damaging computer and external hard drive at the same time.
• At least one cloning copy should be kept well. Don't erase the current backup unless you are going to create a new one.
• If you use your computer frequently, back up your data often. Having a recent backup is always good for data recovery. Apart from hard drive clone, professional disk imaging software is also recommended to save effort.

Further Reading: Cloning VS. Imaging

When dealing with backup issue, cloning or imaging is always the question asked by many users. Many people choose to make a disk image, while many prefer hard drive cloning. Before I state my opinion, I would like to start with cloning VS. imaging.

One may ask, 'what the heck is the difference between cloning and imaging?'

Imaging is frequently used for preventative backup, which means you never know when you need the backup image for data restoration. Today most disk imaging software offer schedule backup feature, and you can set to back up files daily, weekly, or monthly. Besides, incremental backup and differential backup are provided, making it possible to save hard disk space.

If something bad happens, you can have the original image for restoration purposes without having to reinstall Windows and other applications.

Disk cloning is more significant for hard drive replacement or hard drive upgrading, which means probably you will use the destination disk right away. When you clone a hard drive, actually you are cloning the entire contents of the drive instead of creating an image file.

The only issue you need to concern is that you need to have another physical hard drive that is large enough to contain all data in the original drive. During the cloning process, all files on the target disk will be cleaned so be sure that you are operating the right disk.

Free Cloning Software Windows 10

The conclusion here is: although cloning and imaging both back up and restore data, whether to choose cloning or imaging all depends on what you want to accomplish. In a word, for frequent backup issue, imaging software is better; for hard drive upgrading issue, free hard drive cloning software should be given the priority.

Summary

Best Hard Drive Cloning Software

In this post, I mainly tell why you need to clone hard drive, which tool is best for hard drive clone, how to use it to clone hard drive, the differences between cloning and imaging, and several tips on hard drive cloning. Hope all these information is helpful in dealing with your hard drive copy issues.

Now it's your turn to have a try. Just download the best free drive copy software and start cloning hard drive. I believe you can do everything smoothly as long as you follow this guide correctly. For any suggestions or questions towards using MiniTool software, please contact [email protected] or leave us comments below. Much appreciated!