Clonezilla is one of those cool Open Source pieces of software that works for a variety of methods. If you have ever created a drive clone, you have probably worked with or are familiar with Norton Ghost®. Norton Ghost® by Symantec is an amazing software for what it does until you need to clone multiple systems. This is where Symantec Ghost Solution Suite comes into play. This is great except, Symantec only sells this software with commercial licensing options.
Clonezilla Free Disk Cloning and Imaging
Clonzilla has two different versions available: Clonezilla live and Clonezilla SE (server edition).
Live Edition: If you are only looking to backup or restore a single machine, Clonezilla Live is what you need.
Server Edition: If you are looking to deploy a massive amount of machine clones, you should consider Clonezilla SE. I have not personally used Clonezilla SE, but according to test results listed at clonezilla.org, Server Edition was able to clone a 5.6 GByte image to 41 computers in roughly 10 minutes.
Software Features
- FREE (GPL) Software License
- Extensive filesystem support:
- GNU/Linux: ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs, btrfs
- Windows: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS
- Mac OS: HFS+
- FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD: UFS
- VMWare ESX: VMFS3 and VMFS5
- Bootloader Support: Grub (V.1 V.2) and syslinux
- Multicast in Server Edition to massively clone. Server Edition can be remotely used to save or restore a bunch of computers if PXE and Wake-on-LAN are supported.
- Unattended mode: almost all steps can be completed via commands and options.
System Requirements
Processor Architecture: X86 or x86-64
196+ MB of RAM
Supported Boot device: CD/DVD Drive, USB port, PXE, or hard drive
If you are looking to clone a system, I recommend checking out clonezilla.
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