Free Disk cloning software?

I put free macrium onto several machines years back and automated a daily clone from ssd to old hdd.

Every now and then I notice a machine has slowed down, turns out the SSD is toast and it is running on the HDD, then I just use macrium to clone to a new ssd and carry on like before.

Great program.
 
Some SSDs come with free versions of cloning software.

My Sabrent 2TB came with a free copy of Acronis True Image.
 
AOMEI Backupper Standard

I don't think the updated free version allows it, but if you find a website that has an older free version then you are good to go. Not sure of all the legalities of using older versions of software.
 
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Can't recommend Macrium enough if they still offer their non-commercial free version. I have been using it for years and it's never once broken an install, with a bit of tinkering it also handles resizing partitions really well (where it makes sense of course).

Here's a link on how to get the free version:
www.majorgeeks.com

Download Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - MajorGeeks

With Macrium Reflect Free Edition you'll be able to easily make an accurate and reliable image of your HDD or individual partitions. Using this image you can restore the entire disk, partition or...
www.majorgeeks.com
 
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Jackal46 said:
Looking for a free or cheap cloning software.

It must be able to
> Clone existing hard disk to an image.
>Write image to new drive from image.

The idea here is to create an image from old SSD that to small and move it to a bigger SSD but still keep a backup of it on thumbdrive. So if **** hits the fan I can recover the entire install and not lose all the software and settings and all that crap.

I use to use Norton Ghost but it doesn't work with Win11 for whatever reason. It is old software but it worked well.
Click to expand...

 
@Jackal46

1. Get Macrium Reflect FREE edition 8.0.7783 (177MB) (Probably 64-Bit for your use case) from Majorgeeks website
2. Install Macrium, Following the prompts > Tickbox Personal Use, Untick Register installation. Wait for install to complete.
3. Launch Macrium > Other Tasks > Create Rescue Media > Select Device - ISO File > Save ISO File and click Build.
4. Once Macrium Rescue Media Builder has completed, the ISO is available where you saved it (default location - C:\MacriumRescue.iso) - Just tested now, my ISO is 1.5GB
5. Use ISO as per normal, or use Ventoy for a self contained backup solution

A note on Ventoy - You can drag/drop ISO files to the Ventoy USB drive, boot them from there and save your .mrimg files to the drive directly. You can use this on various desktops/laptops but in my experience some laptop trackpads don't work if Macrium wasn't built with that specific device (probably missing some drivers, Either Tab through menus or a usb mouse resolves that so not a real train smash)
 
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