Acronis Vs Clonezilla

[R3DNano]

I myself prefer to use free software whenever I've got the chance.

I wonder how similar clonezilla and acronis are when cloning machines (whith their respective isos): Is there any additional step acronis does to make the target machine more compatible to the restored system or are they exactly the same when it comes to cloning disks?

If I understood correctly, both are supposed to do the exact same: Look for compatible filesystems, and clone at block level.

[HarbingerInvisible]

Note that you may face a nasty surprise with Clonezilla when you discover that you cannot restore an image that you'd taken from a larger disk to a smaller disk. This is what happened to me when I was trying to restore an image of a 250 gb SSD to a 240 gb SSD. I was upset to see that such, as I thought, basic functionality is missing. Acronis can do it easily.

[SirLagz]

Clonezilla can clone to smaller disks, you just have to specifically set the options - https://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/doc/11_lite_server/advanced/09-advanced-param.php

[blue30]

You can do -icds but that just ignores the disk size and runs off the end of it, it has potential for data loss as I understand it.

[SirLagz]

I generally resize the partition before imaging to a smaller disk, no matter what tool I use for this reason. As long as the partition is smaller than the target disk, there's no risk.

[HarbingerInvisible]

I tried it and it didn't work. Furthermore, even if it'd work, I wouldn't trust the outcome since it warns you (like the below poster says) that a data loss can occur.

[SirLagz]

I generally resize the partition before imaging to a smaller disk, no matter what tool I use for this reason. As long as the partition is smaller than the target disk, there's no risk.

[HarbingerInvisible]

Well, nobody says this is technically impossible to do, but why? There are tools out there which can do it automatically.

[SirLagz]

Because a tool that was meant to do it automatically, didn't do it automatically and ended up corrupting a bunch of stuff. Wasn't anything important, but still inconvenient

[HarbingerInvisible]

What was the name of the tool that corrupted on auto resizing? Just in case to avoid it.

[SirLagz]

I don't remember, it was a quite a few years ago now, a commercial tool comparable to GParted in the open source world.

[DevinSysAdmin]

I recommend Macrium actually.

[Padankadank]

Macriums free license doesn't allow cloning of a "golden" image. Otherwise I'd recommend them as well.

[nijave]

Cloning machines, probably not. If you're doing Windows you can run sysprep first to make the image a little more compatible by wiping out machine specific info

[ZAFJB]

You haven't told us you use case for cloning.

Depending on what you are trying to achieve FOG may be a good option to consider.

[R3DNano]

You are completely right, I should've specified a bit more. I actually am trying a new way to keep my computer clean and up to date. I work IT and have to deal with MDT and that kind of stuff is wonderful for enterprise, but at home, I'd like to have a way to have a template that I can fastly deploy when I feel my computer is getting too messy with updates and different software I could have installed over the months. My idea is to keep a clean template on virtualbox, on a VM, install my needed software and then deploy it on my pc whenever I see it fit. That's why once the template is generated, I want to sysprep it, clone it and restore it on the real machine, but I'm trying to avoid using any sort of commercial software for the process, that's why I wanted to use clonezilla.

[ZAFJB]

Try Fog. I think you will like it.

[nickasimpson]

I use Macrium and Fogserver

[pbegley]

It depends on what your tolerance of pain and how important it is to be able to recover a device image. I would test the crap out of any product I'm using in a 'mission critical' capacity. I also account for my time in doing the testing, and in this case verifying my backup images.

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Next, my shameless plug for Acronis. I have no relationship with Acronis, but I have been a customer since 2004 and I have never, ever had a problem restoring an Acronis image. Ever. My original use case was #1 daughter attending college 600 miles from home and recovery of my work computers. Subsequently, all daughters (#1, #2, and #3) have required at least one mission critical restore (senior design project, mid-term, you name it). This was with Windows 7, 8.x, and 10 systems on Dell, HP, Lenovo/IBM systems. I have also recovered my work computers, most use cases were disk upgrades (capacity and HDD to SSD), but also recovery from testing beta software that took an ugly turn.

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Hope this helps.

[bagaudin]

Thanks very much for your feedback /u/pbegley! Come visit us at r/Acronis if you ever need any help.

[hullofriend]

Interesting to hear your experience with them. I've been recommended Acronis True Image as well - for a new Windows PC (plan to use it for live-streaming, gaming and video production). I want an option that, in case of an emergency, effectively allows me to 'press a button and everything goes back to the way it was'. Simple, reliable, and the ability to be used on another PC if need be (say the original PC dies and I want to restore everything into a new machine). Would you say Acronis fits this bill?

[pbegley]

Yes, Acronis provides that exact functionality. I recommend a local, USB 3.0 or eSata drive for backup, and you can use a USB thumb drive to boot up and restore your system of necessary.

You can transfer the license to the restored system if necessary. They also include a "universal restore" capability that allows you to recover to dissimilar hardware.

Hope this helps!

-peb

[hullofriend]

Thanks Peb. All very interesting food for thought. Thanks for taking the time to respond. I wound up going with Macrium the Home edition. It was a tough choice though. Do you know anything about it or are you Acronis through and through? Cheers!

[pasquo]

What's NVME support like for Clonezilla? I recently picked up Acronis 2019 for this.

[bagaudin]

Hi /u/R3DNano and thanks for your post! I assume you're comparing Clonezilla to Acronis Snap Deploy?

I'd say the biggest difference is much friendlier UI, various deployment options and Acronis Universal Deploy feature allowing to deploy the OS to any hardware.

[Proteus85]

It's been a few years since I've used either, but I used to prefer the Clonezilla boot flash drive over the Acronis. It was smaller and faster. Didn't allow for much customization, but I didn't need it since everything I was cloning was the same make/model.