best hard drive backup software

[CHARLIEBORG]

I'm getting ready to install a new and bigger hd in my pc. Is there a program/software that will clone (imaging program) my hard drive and let me put it on my new hd and still work ? I just reinstalled Win 7 and all my software that I use. Just want to transfer it to the new drive.

 

[CHARLIEBORG]

Ok, did some research and found several free programs.

DriveImage XML, Macrium Reflect , Runtime's Shadow Copy, XXClone, and EaseUs Disk Copy.

Any recommendations on which works better?

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I'm partial to TrueImage. Works great and maintains alignment.

 

[AFurryReptile]

Acronis or CloneZilla are both good choices. I've had some luck with Macrium Reflect too (this one's the easiest to use)

 

[GrumpyMan]

Macrium for me.

 

[PowerYoga]

Macrium for me.

Macrium +1.

 

[slayernine]

I like clonezilla!

 

[Emulex]

BESR 2010 - the best - the home version lacks encryption and some other junk but works fine it is called norton ghost now. iirc they were altiris products.

BESR != backup exec. BESR = BARE METAL backup and restore with VSS proper.

Very much like windows ultimate backup - plus encryption, rotation, multiple schedules, smb/ftp, target disk space management, central management, list goes on. Acronis - but reliable. IT is super solid - acronis was always buggy and missed backups for this or that or the VSS freaked out.

With a crappy pentium dual core 3.3ghz you can't even feel it's backing up when it runs with AES-256 and MAX compression on. It pushes about 40-70meg per box (remember its doing the vss/shadow copy and skipping empty sectors and skipping bad blocks so its not a sector copy but a filesystem copy retaining all partitions).

Pretty much everything windows backup should be. It's like microsoft took the product and gimped it out and gave it to win7 ultimate users.

 

[CHARLIEBORG]

Sounds like some good choices! Thanks guys!