Hi Muad,
I just did a little test of "free" disk image apps.
I used Vista SP2 x64 - because I had tried them on various builds of 7 , and one of them had issues - the others worked flawlessly. It wouldn't be fair to draw too many conclusions on Beta o/s - I decided to use Vista - they should all sail thru that.
All were installed on Vista SP2 x64 partition and the same source and target partitions used each time.
1.
Macrium reflect free edition. A true native 64 bit app. performs disk/partition imaging and allows scheduling - a big plus point. It is very small at 25 mb installed , with a 6.5mb boot disc.
This is always available free at their website.
Set at medium compression and highest priority. The program opens and enumerates the drives extremely quickly.
To create image:
Time taken 6m 30s. Max CPU usage 22%. Image size 5.28gb.
Rt click the image and it mounts almost instantaneously.
2.
Paragon Hard Disk Manager 9.5 special edition. One of the free promo's they often do - not available on the website - googling may come up with something. They do free "Express" versions always available on the site, but with basic functionality.
It is not small at 134 mb, tho. includes a large array of partitioning functions, a 60mb boot disc with lots of options , e.g. File Transfer Wizard and Boot Corrector.
It also performs a full range of Backup functions including file/folder, partitions /drives, incremental/differential, scheduling and various include/exclude options.
Set at medium compression - it doesn't allow for high priorty setting.
To create Image:
Time taken 13mins. Max CPU usage 11%. Image size 5.4gb.
Altho slower - taking into account the CPU usage and compression - similarly efficient.
3.
Acronis ATI 11 - the free version from Seagate. You are supposed to have a Seagate or Maxtor drive for this to work - so not available to everyone.
This is large at 210 mb. It does include cloning functions, but not the partitioning of the Paragon, or the scheduling of the Macrium and Paragon.
It took a long time to analyze the drives and start up.
Set at medium compression and high priority.
To create image:
Time taken 7 m 30s. Max Cpu 29%. Image size 5.7 gb.
Not as efficient as the others, but you can't complain as it's free.
Rt clicking the Image to mount caused it to Analyze the drives again - this time it froze - a bit of a concern - but it worked after shutting it down and trying again. A big plus is the ability to access the image via Windows Explorer.
4.
Easeus Todo - a new freebie - couldn't be included in the "test" as it declared there wasn't enough space on the target ( only 11gb free- seems sensible enough - but the other apps. didn't complain at the same space constraint).
It is quite small at 58mb , including 28mb boot disc.
It does drive/partition imaging and has a cloning function , but no scheduling or partitioning.
Testing it with a different source and target doesn't allow accurate comparison with the others, but showed that it works fine - with good compression level but not particularly fast.
It mounted the image without issue.
The GUI is very simply laid out and easy to follow - good for your average user.
It worked fine on 7x 64 also.
Free Backup Software for Hard Drive System Backup and Restore. Backup freeware for data backup and disaster recovery in Windows and Linux - EASEUS
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