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Software reviews
Ten cloning and imaging tools, reviewed on what they actually do rather than what their landing pages claim.
Free and open source
No licence fee for the core cloning job, though a couple have limits worth knowing about.
Clonezilla Live
The open-source workhorse. Ugly, free, and it clones anything.
Rescuezilla
Clonezilla with a real graphical interface. The best free starting point.
Hasleo Disk Clone
Free system cloning from inside Windows, with no artificial paywall.
Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows FREE
Enterprise-grade image backup and bare-metal restore, free for personal use.
SSD vendor tools (Samsung, WD, Crucial, Seagate)
Free with the drive you just bought — if the destination is the right brand.
dd and ddrescue
The command line answer. Total control, zero safety net.
Freemium and paid
Commercial products. Two of these have free editions that stop short of system-disk cloning.
AOMEI Backupper Standard
Polished free backup suite — but boot-drive cloning is now a paid feature.
EaseUS Todo Backup
Free for backups, paid for cloning. Know which one you need.
Macrium Reflect
The enthusiast favourite. The free edition is gone; the paid one is still excellent.
Acronis True Image
Cloning plus cloud backup and anti-malware, at a subscription price.