Disk imaging tools
-
We've bought Active Boot Disk in the past for our manual imaging needs.
-
Clonezilla (free & open source) has always worked well for me and sounds perfect for what you're trying to do. Going from smaller to larger disks is not a problem. If you can mount the target disk directly in the host or even via USB you can directly clone it from the source on the fly, or else you can clone the source HDD to a network share and then back to the SSD when ready.
For more managed deployments, SmartDeploy is an amazing tool, but kind of overkill for what you need (driver injection, etc).
-
@thwr said in Disk imaging tools:
Want to move a fair amount of desktops from HDDs to SSDs, everything Windows.
Please note: I can't reinstall the hosts at this point because there is no software deployment or base image available and I don't have the time to build something myself at the moment. We use a lot of very specific scientific and engineering tools, which are not covered by any out of the box solution.
What's everyone's favorite disk imaging / cloning tool? A plus would be a tool which is able to image to a smaller sized partition (e.g. 1TB disk that only uses 150GB, imaged to a 250GB SSD.
I have been using Clonezilla for years but when it comes to big to smaller Drives I have been using Veeam Agent to backup fully the machine and restore to a new hard drive.
-
I've used Acronis True Image for this as well.
-
@dafyre said in Disk imaging tools:
I've used Acronis True Image for this as well.
Me too. In the past, there was often a free version of this included with the new drive making the upgrade seamless.
-
Acronis and Clonzilla have generally been what I've used as well. I was attempting to get the linux DD command to work, but the final result was not bootable.
I didn't have a chance to figure out why though.
-
The only thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is FOG. Probably a good reason for that, it'll take so much longer to get running in any environment that you really need to know you'll be using it long-term.
-
Fog is great for bulk imaging, but for a few system migrations like this. Unless it's already setup I wouldn't consider it.
-
I use parted magic or clonezilla for this kind of work, but mainly just because I am comfortable with it.
-
I use clonezilla for this.
I have no problems going to a smaller disk. Just have to use the right options.
-
@dbeato said in Disk imaging tools:
@thwr said in Disk imaging tools:
Want to move a fair amount of desktops from HDDs to SSDs, everything Windows.
Please note: I can't reinstall the hosts at this point because there is no software deployment or base image available and I don't have the time to build something myself at the moment. We use a lot of very specific scientific and engineering tools, which are not covered by any out of the box solution.
What's everyone's favorite disk imaging / cloning tool? A plus would be a tool which is able to image to a smaller sized partition (e.g. 1TB disk that only uses 150GB, imaged to a 250GB SSD.
I have been using Clonezilla for years but when it comes to big to smaller Drives I have been using Veeam Agent to backup fully the machine and restore to a new hard drive.
Veeam is the way to go. Especially if go from bigger drives to smaller.
Steps I do to ensure a successful image to a smaller drive.
1.) Disable virtual memory, the page file is often towards the end of the hard drive and is not movable.
2.) Reboot computer go into disk management in Windows and right click on drive and shrink it as much as possible.
3.) Use Veeam to image the computer.
4.) Insert SSD and boot from Veeam CD/USB and restore -
@jaredbusch said in Disk imaging tools:
I use clonezilla for this.
I have no problems going to a smaller disk. Just have to use the right options.
That is true. If you know what options to use with Clonzilla it can shrink it as well.
-
I have used gparted here to do this when replacing hdd with ssd.
plug in ssd
Boot up gparted
Reduce hdd partition size
Copy partitions to ssd
Reboot, may need to do a Automatic Repair. -
Thanks guys. I was just looking for some opinions. Used gparted / clonezilla etc. in the past for.. what, decades?
-
@emad-r said in Disk imaging tools:
my thoughts for this is I have researched alot but I never really worked on enterprise big enough to justify this.
Especially in this day age Windows installer can be created to USB drives, and if you select fast USB drive the installer will take 10 mins + you can do this on 10 laptops easily , and cost of 8GB USB drive is peanuts.Thanks for your exhaustive post. I do have a very strong Unix / Linux / BSD background, so I'm probably more aware of most of your points than the average Windows admin. Heck, I build scripts on top of
losetupandmount -o offsetto alter an sdcard image just for fun
Like I said, a fresh installation at this point is not an option. It's not even worth discussing this. Just took the job over from someone who retired more than a year ago. My major goal is to stabilize the current situation, fight the largest fires and to implement a whole new system at the same time. The old system just needs to run until I've implemented that new system and all data and services have been migrated / reimplemented.
-
Have a look at Acronis True Image and Macrium Reflect.
Clonezilla is probably where you’ll end up. Lots of people here seem to like like it.
-
@nadnerb said in Disk imaging tools:
Macrium Reflect
Ah, thank you. Macrium Reflect was the product I couldn't remember. It worked very well for someone I knew when he was in a similar situation.
Anyway, I will probably use clonezilla again
-
@thwr said in Disk imaging tools:
@nadnerb said in Disk imaging tools:
Macrium Reflect
Ah, thank you. Macrium Reflect was the product I couldn't remember. It worked very well for someone I knew when he was in a similar situation.
Anyway, I will probably use clonezilla again
+1 one for Macrium Reflect as the best easy way to go about it (I've had some unsuccessful Clonezilla attempts before). In my experience with Acronis, you can't cherry pick partitions (like the OEM recovery partition) at clone time, but you can with Macrium Reflect.
