8 Best Open Source “Disk Cloning/Backup” Softwares for Linux Servers

Disk cloning is the process of copying data from a hard disk to another one, in fact you can do this process by copy & paste but you won’t be able to copy the hidden files and folders or the in-use files, that’s why you need a cloning software to do the job, also you may need the cloning process to save a backup image from your files and folders.

Basically, the cloning software job is to take all disk data, convert them into a single .img file and give it to you, so you can copy it to another hard drive, and here we have the best 8 Open Source Cloning software to do the job for you.

1. Clonezilla

Clonezilla is a Live CD based on Ubuntu & Debian to clone all your hard drive data or to take a backup, licensed under GPL 3, it is similar to Norton Ghost on Windows but more effective.

Features

1. Support for many filesystems like: ext2, ext3, ext4, btrfs, xfs, and many other filesystems.
2. Support for BIOS and UEFI.
3. Support for MPR and GPT partitions.
4. Ability to reinstall grub 1 and 2 on any attached hard drive.
5. Works on weak computers ( 200 MB of RAM is needed only).
6. Many other features.

Suggested Read: How to Clone or Backup Linux Disk Using Clonezilla

2. Redo Backup

Redo Bakcup also a Live CD tool to clone your drivers easily, Redo Backup is a free & Open Source Live System licensed under GPL 3 to do the job, Features are as the website says.

1. Easy GUI boots from CD in less than a minute.
2. No installation required; runs from a CD-ROM or a USB device.
3. Saves and restores Linux and Windows systems.
4. Automatically locates local network shares.
5. Access files even without login.
6. Recover deleted files, documents, media files quickly.
7. Internet access with a Chromium browser to download drivers.
8. Small in size only 250MB Live CD.

1. Install Redo Backup to Clone/Backup Linux Systems

3. Mondo Rescue

Unlike other cloning software, Mondo doesn’t convert your hard drivers into an .img file, but it will convert them into an .iso image, you can also create a custom Live CD with Mondo using “mindi” which is a special tool developed by Mondo Rescue to clone your data from the Live CD.

It supports most Linux distributions, it also supports FreeBSD, and it is licensed under GPL, You can install Mondo Rescue by using the following link.

1. Install Mondo Rescue to Clone/Backup Linux Systems

4. Partimage

Partimage is an open-source software backup, by default it works under Linux system and available to install from the package manager for most Linux distributions, if you don’t have a Linux system installed by default you can use “SystemRescueCd” which is a Live CD that include Partimage by default to do the cloning process that you want.

Partimage is very fast in cloning hard drivers, but the problem is that it doesn’t support ext4 or btrfs partitions, although that you can use it to clone other filesystems like ext3 and NTFS.

Suggested Read: How to Backup or Clone Linux Partitions Using ‘cat’ Command

5. FSArchiver

FSArchiver is a continuation of Partimage, also a good tool to clone hard disks, it supports cloning Ext4 partitions and NTFS partitions, here’s a list of features:

Features

1. Support for basic file attributes like owner, permissions, etc.
2. Support for extended attributes like those used by SELinux.
3. Support the basic file­system attributes (label, uuid, block­size) for all Linux file­systems.
4. Support for NTFS partitions of Windows and Ext of Linux and Unix­Like.
5. Support for checksums which enables you to check for data corruption.
6. Ability to restore corrupted archive by just skipping the corrupted file.
7. Ability to have more than one filesystem in an archive.
8. Ability to compress the archive in many formats like lzo, gzip, bzip2, lzma/xz.
9. Ability to split big files in size to a smaller one.

You can download FSArchiver and install it on your system, or you can download SystemRescueCD which also contains FSArchiver.

6. Partclone

Partclone is a free tool to clone & restore partitions, written in C in first appeared in 2007, it supports many filesystems like ext2, ext3, ext4, xfs, nfs, reiserfs, reiser4, hfs+, btrfs  and it is very simple to use.

Licensed under GPL, it is available as a tool in Clonezilla as well, you can download it as a package.

7. G4L

G4L is a free Live CD system to clone hard disk easily, it’s main feature is that you can compress the filesystem, send it via FTP or CIFS or SSHFS or NFS to any location you want, it also supports GPT partitions since version 0.41, it is licensed under BSD license and available to download for free.

Suggested Read: 14 Outstanding Backup Utilities for Linux Systems

8. doClone

doClone is also a free software project that is developed to clone Linux system partitions easily, written in C++, it supports up to 12 different filesystems, it can preform Grub bootloader restoration and can transform the clone image to another computers via LAN, it also supports live cloning which means that you can create a clone from the system even when it is up and running, doClone.

There are many other tools to clone your Linux hard disks, Have you used any cloning software from the above list to backup your hard drivers? Which one is the best for you? and also tell us if any other tool if you know, which is not listed here.

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