9 Best Disk Imaging Software in 2024
Losing files critical to your day-to-day work is detrimental to your productivity. You can avoid this by backing up your infrastructure with disk imaging software to ensure that you have a copy of all the data that you need to do business every day. It creates a replica of a storage device.
Disk imaging is majorly used for backup; however, it can be used as a temporary measure when decommissioning a disk. Forensic investigators also use it to take a complete copy of a device for examination offsite.
To achieve proper storage of your data, you need to choose the best disk imaging software.
Best Disk Imaging Software
1. Acronis True Image
A Full-featured Backup Solution which is a Combination of Disk Imaging and File Backup Utilities
Acronis True Image is a backup solution with an intuitive interface that makes it easy to use. This backup solution also supports disk cloning for those who are interested. It is ideal for both home and business users.
With its integrated anti-malware technology, all cyber threats are blocked through one console. In addition, you can automatically replicate your local backup in the cloud so that you always have an off-site copy available for recovery. The program works quickly and does not overload the computer when creating disk images and copies.
Using its visual dashboard, you can check your protection status at a glance. This disk imaging software also allows you to track the status of backups, antivirus scans and respond to issues quickly by pushing messages to your desktop tray.
It is available on Android, macOS, Windows, and iOS devices. You can cancel your subscription by opting out of its payments or submitting a support ticket.
Pricing
Acronis True Image offers three paid plans. The Essential Plan costs $49.99 per year. With this plan, you get antimalware protecting your device and backup data. You also get a 30-day free trial period when you can try out its features before committing.
With the Advanced Plan, you get advanced unique features, including Microsoft 365 backup, for a fee of $89.99 per year. In addition, this plan gives you 500GB of cloud storage. The Premium Plan costs $124.99 per year. You enjoy all the features in the advanced plan plus one terabyte of cloud storage for free.
These prices are for users with one computer.
2. EaseUS Todo Backup
A Free Disk Imaging Backup Software
EaseUS Todo Backup is a robust backup software that offers complete data back-up and recovery for Windows, Android, macOS, and iOS. It is a highly secured platform that gives out 16TB of storage to all its users. Unfortunately, you cannot integrate it with third-party applications.
Apart from backup and recovery, EaseUS also has tools for disk cloning. During backup, recovery, or system transfer, EaseUS Todo Backup can also be automated to send email alerts and notifications. You can access your data anywhere and anytime. Its service is also accessible via the cloud so that you can access your data so long there is an internet connection.
The interface is super easy to use. Therefore, you do not need any advanced technical knowledge to operate it. With this disk imaging software, you can copy your system drive to an SSD/HDD without reinstalling windows. Various types of backup methods it offers include scheduled, incremental, differential, and full backups.EaseUS Todo Backup is available in a variety of languages.
EaseUS Todo Backup offers a wide array of backup features, including disk, mail, SQL, and exchange. Users can easily and quickly restore a backup of their data immediately after a problem. This will ensure users can get machines to working order fast and also prevent significant downtime.
Pricing
EaseUS Todo Backup offers a 30-Day free trial period when you can try out its features before committing. Pricing plans are available for Windows and Mac. For Windows, its 1-year plan costs $29.95, its 2-year plan costs $39.95, and its lifetime upgrades cost $59.00.
Pricing for Mac costs $29.95. This software offers a 30-Day money-back guarantee.
3. ManageEngine OS Deployer
A Growth-driven Disk Imaging Software that Can Perform Offline and Online Imaging
ManageEngine OS Deployer is an OS imaging and deployment service for PC operating systems, device drivers, and settings. This OS imaging and deployment feature allows you to automate the disk imaging and deployment process, eliminating possible errors from drivers and configurations.
Using a unique authentication passcode, you can perform deployments . Administrators can share this passcode with employees. Then, depending on the number of computers they plan to deploy, administrators can select their deployment mode.
Admins can schedule deployments whenever it is convenient for the organizations. Financial and educational institutions, government organizations, and healthcare industries use ManageEngine OS Deployer.. Additionally, you can use it with the ManageEngine Desktop Central application to implement complete PC lifecycle management.
The flexible booting options allows for installing operating systems on a wide range of computers. In addition, you can perform live disk imaging using modern techniques without disturbing the end user’s productivity.
You can apply different methods for deploying operating systems, including unicast, multicast, passcode-based, and schedule-based OS deployment systems. OS Deployer reduces support, training, and management costs with its central image capturing and deployment features. In addition, it utilizes modern image techniques for quicker and efficient results.
IT administrators can send the single OS disk image to single and multiple computers in real-time to reduce bandwidth. Users can use an OS deployer to monitor employees working from remote locations in real-time.
Pricing
ManageEngine OS Deployer offers a free trial period. You can also contact its sales expert for a custom quote.
4. Macrium Reflect
A Backup and Recovery Software with Complete Data Security for Home and Businesses
Macrium Reflect has a range of backups and disk imaging plans for Windows, Windows Server, and Azure Cloud. This backup and recovery tool can be used to create images for both individuals and businesses. Small and medium enterprises and startups use Macrium Reflect.
Services it offers are backup, disk cloning, and encryption, scheduling at one place. Backup on local, network, and USB drives is supported. There are many versions of this program, which allow you to choose the one that best suits your functionality and price.
With Macrium Reflect, you get the high speed of work and valuable functions needed to make your business thrive. The speed is because of the VSS service that it uses. The Macrium free software is the most popular free disk imaging program, ideal for home use, and intuitive. Files are pretty easy to back up because of its intuitive interface.
You can store more backup copies irrespective of the backup device you are using. The only thing that you need is a CD to boot the PE environment set either in Windows or Linux environment. Users can safely upgrade their machine without fear of losing their files or professional documents as files can be saved to a USB, local network, or DVD format.
Pricing
Macrium Reflect offers three pricing tiers. The Reflect Free is the free plan and is ideal for ad hoc backups and cloning. This free version is not just a one-time download but is regularly upgraded with new functionalities.
You can try out its features before buying with its Reflect 30-Day trial Plan. With this plan, you get high-performance backups with easy to configure backup plans.
The final plan is the Reflect 8 Home Plan. You get 1-year technical support and a lifetime license.
5. Paragon Hard Disk Manager
A Disk Imaging Software with Automatic Backups and AES-256 Encryption
Paragon Hard Disk Manager is recovery software that can provide both incremental and differential backups across servers and covers the full range of disk duties. You can also back up Hyper-V machines with their server version. In addition, its partition management feature allows you to create, move, merge, split, and convert partitions to provide more efficient storage usage.
You can use AES-256 encryption for backups to ensure that private information stays secure. You can also regularly update backups automatically on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. In addition, sanitization algorithms allow you to erase data from old hard drives to ensure that no one steals your data. It then allows you to copy data without rebooting into a new system.
Also, recover files using its Recovery Media Builder to build BIOS, uEFI, and USB/ISO recovery media. It allows you to create a virtual clone of your PC to a USB drive that can run portably from another PC. This imaging software is available for Windows and Linux environments.
The creation of secure virtual drives over a network is supported. It is available for home users and businesses. In cases where you want to delete some sensitive data for good, you can use its dedicated disk wiper feature.
Pricing
Paragon Hard Disk Manager offers a 30-Day free trial period. The software is called Hard Disk Manager Advanced for home use. You can purchase one license that covers up to three PCs at $79.95. The more licenses you buy, the price per license drops.
The business version is called Hard Disk Manager for business and comes with four different plans. For a single workstation, it will cost $99 for a license. A single server costs $499. The cost for the technician license is $599, and it covers multiple devices.
The enterprise license costs $899 and covers multiple devices when used concurrently. Prices for the business version of Paragon Hard Disk Manager vary by license.
6. Clonezilla
A Free and Open Source Software for Disk Imaging and Cloning
Clonezilla is a disk imaging software created for disk partition and cloning tasks. It saves and restores only the used chunks in hard disks for efficient cloning. Users can perform system deployment, bare metal backup, and recovery.
This affordable disk has support for Linux, macOS, Windows, and Chrome OS file systems. For single machine backup and restore, this software is available as a Live CD or USB. Clonezilla is available as a server for massive, multi-machine cloning with encryption and a high level of customizability.
System administrators widely use this powerful backup software. You can use the space in hard drives to backup and restore data at 8GB per minute. There are two editions of Clonezilla- Clonezilla Live and Clonezilla Server. You can use them for either individual or business purposes. In addition, it allows disk cloning and data recovery.
Clonezilla Live is designed for single machine backup and restoration and compatible with CD/DVD or USBs. The Clonezilla Server is meant for a more extensive user base and can only be used with DRBL servers. This disk imaging software offers its users AES-256 encryption to ensure that data access is secure and safe. You can use this backup tool to clone 40+ computers simultaneously, saving your time and efforts.
Pricing
Clonezilla offers a free forever plan. You can also contact its sales expert for a custom quote.
7. AOMEI Backupper
A Windows Backup Software to Ensure Data Security
AOMEI Backupper has a reliable partition tool to manage your hardware drive without losing data and a user-friendly UI design to help make your digital life more convenient and productive. In addition, this imaging software applies AES-256 encryption security technologies for SSL to ensure that users get the most secure and easiest data insurance service.
It is optimized for Windows PC, allowing you to resize, move, extend, merge without losing data, and migrate OS to SSD. You get incremental and differential backups to simplify your backup tasks. This product is a solution for files, disks, and backup systems on Windows-powered machines. You can quickly recover these items in case of emergencies like crashes.
Top companies use AOMEI Backupper, including commercial establishments, government sectors, enterprises, and academic institutions. Anyone can perform backups on this disk imaging software because of its straightforward interface. The transfer of the OS to the hard drive is pretty fast using this backup disk.
Pricing
It has four paid plans. The Professional Plan, which has more features than the free plan, costs $49.95 per license. In addition, it has a lifetime upgrade option, enabling you to upgrade to new versions of the software for free and access free technical support.
The AOMEI Backupper Server Plan costs $199 per license, with lifetime upgrades and amazing features. For even more unique features, the AOMEI Backupper Technician Plan is ideal. It costs $499. With this plan, you get access to unlimited PCs and licenses, an image deploy tool, a PXE boot tool, and a good toolkit.
To get all the features in the other plans plus additional unique features, the AOMEI Backupper Technician Plus Plan is ideal. It costs $899.
AOMEI Backupper is available for both home and business.
8. SmartDeploy
An Intelligent Imaging Software for Deploying Windows and Applications to any Software
From its central console, businesses can manage endpoints. SmartDeploy’s service creates a library of applications that can be installed on network devices. You can talk with a product expert to request a demo. This disk imaging software allows you to deploy, update, and patch applications zero-touch to any endpoint.
You can quickly deploy one Windows golden image regardless of the PC model. Using SmartDeploy, monolithic PC images are broken up into separate driver layers, application layers, and user data layers that can be deployed and managed from each other.
This intelligent imaging software has an intuitive interface that makes it pretty easy to set up and navigate. You can either deploy locally or remotely. They have a great team and excellent customer support. Its Platform packs feature contains all the necessary drivers necessary to deploy to a target audience successfully. This approach is a time saver when it comes to PC deployment.
Separating hardware and software information allows for more flexibility with image deployment. With SmartDeploy, you can deploy one image to multiple devices while keeping the image library current and minimal.
Pricing
SmartDeploy offers three pricing plans. The Starter Plan offers imaging, deployment, support, and maintenance features. With the Plus Plan, you get everything in the Starter plan plus zero-touch image deployment, application deployment, remote tasks, and many unique features.
The Pro Plan has everything in the plus plan plus management from the cloud.
9. Active@Disk Image
An Easy-to-use Software to Create Image-based Backups
Active@Disk Image is a disk cloning tool for Windows that can make an exact copy of any PC disk and create an image that can be used for backups, upgrades, and disk duplication tasks. Disks you can backup include HDD, CD, SSD, DVD, Blu-ray, memory cards, USB, and USB flash drive. It is available for both home and business use.
This easy-to-use imaging software has a dated interface and shares some similarities with the interface of Windows XP. It is easy to use and has wizards to help you navigate. Technical support is available by phone and email. You can as well create a ticket after you have logged in to the Customer Communication Center.
Active@Disk Image is partition-oriented, as all the files on the selected disk partition are saved into the archive. Thus, there is no risk that you will overlook essential files with a partition-oriented approach, and the folder structure and all hidden system files are saved.
You can create and restore a disk image without having to restart the computer. It provides AES-128, AES-192, and AES-256 encryption. In addition, there are log reports that detail a list of actions performed during a backup. These reports come in XML, plain text, and Windows event log format.
Pricing
Active@Disk Image offers a Lite freeware version that comes with limited features. The Basic Corporate Standard Edition is priced at $39, $49, and $2595, and the Corporate Professionals Edition costs $69, $99, and $5199.
It provides a free trial that can be downloaded from its website.
What is Disk Imaging?
Disk imaging is the means to copy the Operating System and the data stored in a disk from the master system to distribute to other computers. It is a hard drive backup that places all of a hard drive’s data into a compressed file stored on different devices in a file system or the cloud. A disk image is the exact copy of the data stored within the disk in your computer.
Its primary use is to provide quick and easy backups of computer software and data stored on hard disks. Disk imaging does not only backup data but also the computer’s system and configuration. It should be powerful enough to allow you to customize automated images, use images to create a boot disk, and delete or format a drive.
What Features to Look For in Top Disk Imaging Software
There are a few features to consider when choosing disk imaging software.
1. Ease of Use and Support
When choosing a disk imaging software, you should go for the one that is easy to use. Imaging and deploying should be simple, quick, and reliable. Before spending hours trying to configure an imaging software that works the way you need it, you should take a break and evaluate your options.
If you put together all the time that it takes you to create and upload your image, and it takes more than an hour, you are probably wasting valuable time.
2. Driver Management
You should look out for imaging software that works for your environment now and handle future changes. Since manufacturers change models often, it is almost impossible to keep everyone on the same hardware. Imaging software that allows you to manage drivers effectively well is suitable.
An imaging process will keep devices performing at their best and improve security since you will consistently deploy the most up-to-date images.
3. Partition management
Partition management is the process of undertaking disk partitioning. The process of partition works by using a partition table. The partition table records the size, nature, and location of each partition. When done correctly, it allows users to make more effective use of storage resources.
The corruption of files in one partition will not affect information stored in separate partitions. It also allows users to store copies of different partitions with ease. In addition, partition management enables users to run multiple operating systems on the same device.
4. AES 256-bit Encryption
Advanced Encryption System is the encryption standard for security purposes. AES 256-bit encryption is the strongest encryption standard. It uses a 256-bit key to encrypt and decrypt files and data. After 192- and 128- bit encryption, it is one of the most secure encryption.
256-bit encryption is more secure, while 128-bit is faster. Therefore, you should choose AES 256-bit encryption and accept the slight slow-down for more security if you encrypt sensitive files.
Since the encryption process of AES is easy to understand, it allows for easy implementation and fast encryption and decryption times. Every disk imaging software must have this feature to ensure its security. Encryption is made possible via a password that is added to access a disk.
5. Boot Disk Option
A boot disk is a removable data storage medium used to load and boot an operating system. The boot disk option is the creation of a device to boot a disk image. A disk image requires a lot of space; therefore, it is usually stored on external devices for data security and convenience. Users can then create a boot disk out of external devices, allowing them to restore data when connected automatically.
Disk Imaging FAQ
Disk imaging is a helpful tool for businesses to recover their data on a computer when the image was made. It saves every detail of the previous hard drive, including operating systems, applications, and documents. As a user, you do not have to reset every aspect of a new computer.
It allows you to make copies of important data files, which can be quickly recovered when the original document is lost or destroyed. In addition, without an image, you will be stuck reinstalling your applications and operating systems; therefore, disk imaging helps you save time and effort.
Cloning your drive will produce a bootable new drive with your computer’s state when you took the clone. Various reasons could cause your drive not to boot.
If the source disk contains bad sectors, the clone is incomplete, you fail to change the boot drive in BIOS, the computer motherboard does not support UEFI boot with the cloned GPT disk, and the computer lacks the necessary drivers to boot up the cloned SSD, your drive will not be bootable.
Windows 10 has a built-in option called System Image that allows you to create a complete replica of your installations with partitions. With disk clones in Windows 10, you can upgrade the computer hard drive to a bigger one. This way you can improve your computer’s storage with an increased speed.
System image does not support restoring to partition layouts smaller than the drive it’s replacing. You will receive an error indicating that the disk is too small.
Cloning a drive will not delete your data. However, you should ensure that the used space on the hard disk drive (HDD) does not exceed the free space on the solid-state drive (SSD). You can uninstall programs, games, downloads, and many more to create space in the SSD.
Cloning and imaging are two methods of backup for computer protection. Once there is something wrong with your hard drive or Windows operating system, a clone or image backup can get your computer working perfectly fine.
Disk cloning is the process of copying all the contents, including Windows boot records, programs, files, and settings on your hard disk, to another disk, while disk imaging is like creating a large compressed file of your drive. Everything you have on your hard drive and all your Windows files need to run will be compressed into an image.
You can choose based on your actual needs. Cloning is ideal if you want to move your data to another disk for more extensive storage space. It can also replace the damaged disks and increase the computer’s speed.
Imaging backup offers you many backup options, such as differential and incremental backup, which can record how the data on your disk changes. Both are essential backup services; however, it boils down to use cases. For a quick backup, cloning is suitable, but if you have time, imaging is ideal since it supports many features.
Which Disk Imaging Software Should I Choose?
With disk imaging software, you can avoid losing data due to an issue with your computer. If you are looking for a cost-effective solution to backup your data, EaseUS Todo Backup is suitable.
Before making a purchase, you should conduct your research to evaluate the imaging software that is ideal for you. You can try Acronis True Image, EaseUS Todo Backup, ManageEngine OS Deployer, AOMEI Backupper, Paragon Hard Disk Manager, and Active@Disk Image, as they offer free trials before committing.
Some software that offers free forever plans are Macrium Reflect, Clonezilla, AOMEI Backupper, and Active@Disk Image. Enterprises looking for free and open-source disk imaging software should go for Clonezilla. You can also use it to clone a machine manually.
Acronis True Image, AOMEI Backupper, and Active@Disk Image are ideal for both homes and businesses.
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Martin Luenendonk
Martin loves entrepreneurship and has helped dozens of entrepreneurs by validating the business idea, finding scalable customer acquisition channels, and building a data-driven organization. During his time working in investment banking, tech startups, and industry-leading companies he gained extensive knowledge in using different software tools to optimize business processes.
This insights and his love for researching SaaS products enables him to provide in-depth, fact-based software reviews to enable software buyers make better decisions.