HDClone

HDClone is a disk cloning and backup application by Miray Software. It supports copying storage devices sector-by-sector as well as file-by-file, which allows to create both, a physical and a logical identical copy. Supported are x86 and x64 computer architectures, the Windows desktop versions XP through 10 and the Windows Server versions 2003 through 2016. HDClone is offered as a free download; the pay version may also be purchased as a data CD. The license model is Freemium. By the price policy, HDClone is for home users and for professional users. HDClone is offered in seven languages (while the website focuses on German and English), has several hundred thousand users worldwide, and has been sold in over 140 countries.[4]

HDClone
Original author(s)Miray Software
Developer(s)Miray Software
Initial release2003
Stable release
Version 9[1][2] / January 17, 2019 (2019-01-17)
Operating systemWindows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows Server 2003 (R2), Windows Server 2008 (R2), Windows Server 2012 (R2), Windows 2016 [3]
Platformx86-64
Available inGerman, English, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian [3]
Typedisk cloning, disk imaging and data recovery
LicenseFreemium
WebsiteOfficial website

Overview

Functionality

The primary aim of HDClone is cloning storage devices and creating or restoring storage device images. Generally it is possible to start HDClone directly on Windows or as stand-alone from a boot media. With the boot media it is possible to implement a Bare-metal Restore. On Windows HDClone offers a command-line interface which allows automatic control, e.g. in combination with the Windows Task Scheduler. With the Enterprise Edition it is possible to write on 16 storage devices at once. With the separate tool Miray Virtual Disk it is possible to mount images on Windows as virtual drives in order to access their content. [3]

Editions

HDClone is offered in several editions. The Free Edition is free of charge and offers a basic functionality for cloning and creating respectively restoring images. For additional functionalities higher editions must be purchased. Some of these additional functions include others: [3]

  • Less or no throttling of the data transfer rate.
  • Unlimited size for storage devices.
  • File-by-file data transfer.
  • Differential Images.
  • Control via a command-line interface.
  • Parallel writing on up to 16 storage devices in one run.

Tools

Depending on the edition HDClone has the following additional software modules:

  • Sector editor for storage devices.
  • Speed test for storage devices.
  • Info center for storage devices (e.g. for S.M.A.R.T. values).
  • Partition editor (MBR / GPT).
  • TRIM tool for SSDs.
  • Tool for creating an ISO file from an optical storage device.
  • Tool for editing registry hives.
  • Miray Virtual Disk: separate tool for mounting images as virtual drives.

File systems

HDClone supports edition-dependent the following functionalities for the listed file systems.[3][5]

File system File-by-file copy Upsizing Downsizing Defragmentation
FAT YesYesYesYes
ExFAT YesYesYesYes
NTFS YesYesYesYes
ReFS YesYesNoNo
ext2-4 YesYesNoNo
XFS YesYesNoNo
HFS+ YesYesYesYes

Boot media

It is possible to make a USB drive or an optical medium bootable in order to start HDClone from it, independently of Windows. This also allows it to copy operating systems on which the HDClone executable file can't be started. It uses either Miray Symobi or Linux as the host operating system.

Symobi

Symobi is the proprietary real-time operating system from Miray Software. It was the sole base for starting HDClone via a boot media in the first 5 years (until HDClone 3.5 ). Symobi is based on the message-oriented operating system µnOS, which itself is again based on the real-time kernel Sphere.[6][7][8][9]

µnOS version 0.92 was officially presented on 1 August 2001.[10][11] Intermediately, Sphere SP 2.0 was released on 14 May 2002.[12] Symobi then was presented for the first time with version 1.2 at the "Systems" fair in Munich in the year 2006. And in the following year again, the version 1.4 with multi-core support for up to 32 processor cores.[13][14][15][16]

Miray Virtual Disk

With the separate tool Miray Virtual Disk it is possible to mount with HDClone created images on Windows as virtual drives. This allows it to access the contained data via the Windows Explorer. Depending on the edition it is possible to mount from 1 to 7 images at the same time - optionally permanently and writeable. If the content of a mounted image is changed, then these changes are stored in an overlay which functions as differential image and may also be included for restoring the respective image.[3]

History

On 31 March 2003 HDClone version 1.0 was announced, and on 25 April 2003 HDClone was officially presented.[17][18] HDClone started as a stand-alone product which required a boot media to start it. After five years, with version 3.6 it was also possible to start HDClone directly on Windows.[19] However, parallel writing on multiple storage devices was already realised for the Enterprise Edition one year before.[20] In 2010 came with version 3.9 the command-line interface for the automatic control.[21] In the same year Miray Virtual Disk was added as separate tool to version 4.0, which allowed to open HDClone images as virtual storage devices for the first time.[22] After four years version 5.0 was equipped with support for SATA hot plugging.[23] Since 2017 it is possible to use Linux as additional host operating system for the stand-alone boot media from HDClone 7 on.[5]

Versions
VersionYearNew Features and Functions
2.02003Core functionality: physical clones and images; Only as stand-alone version with Symobi as operating system.[18]
3.02004SCSI for hard disk drives with up to 2048 gigabyte.[24]
3.12005unknown
3.22007Firewire (IEEE1394) and AHCI (SATA II); Parallel writing on multiple storage devices.[20][25]
3.52007Logical clones and images of NTFS und FAT file systems.[26]
3.62008Runable on Windows; Upsizing of NTFS and FAT file systems.[19]
3.72009unknown
3.82009Hot swapping (VSS); Logical clones and images, as well as upsizing of ext2-3 file systems; Capacities above 2 terabyte; Partition selection.[27]
3.92010Defragmentation on the fly; Image compression; Downsizing of NTFS file systems; Alignment by 4K sectors; Command-line interface.[21]
4.02010Access to images via virtual drives with Miray Virtual Disk; USB 3.0; VMDK file images.[22]
4.12012Speed increase for SSDs and USB 3; GPT support; AES encrypted images.[28]
4.22012Windows 8 compatibility; Partition copy; UEFI support; Fast compression for images.[29]
4.320134K sectors (Advanced Format); VHD file images.[30]
5.02014Intel Matrix RAID; SATA hot plugging; AES-256 encrypted images; VHDX file images, VDI file images; TRIM; Increase of RAM usage from 2GB to 4GB on Windows.[23][31]
6.02015Cloning of dynamic disks; Differential images; SecureBoot for UEFI; Revision of the copy algorithm; Downsizing and upsizing of HFS+ file systems; New user interface (tab concept).[4]
7.02017Linux as additional operating system for the stand-alone version. Logical clones and images of XFS, ReFS and ExFAT file systems. For ExFAT additionally Downsizing and Defragmentation.[5]
8.02018Reworked CopyEngine; SmartCopy for Apple filesystems; SecureBoot and Bluetooth interaction without windows; compatibility upgrades for windows 10
9.02019Extended disk details; Shrink XFS file systems when copying / restoring; Support for input devices with special drivers (I²C-BUS, Multitouch); TRIM also possible via USB bridge; TRIM also possible under Windows; New user interface (all functions on one page) / old interface is still temporary available

Reception
  • „HDClone is perfectly suited for creating an identical copy of smaller hard disk drives.“ (German original text: „HDClone ist hervorragend dafür geeignet, eine identische Kopie kleinerer Festplatten zu erstellen.“) Michael Humpa (Chip software editorial staff), 11 April 2016[32]
  • „HDClone is a fast, lucid and fully developed program. The use of HDClone can provide an effective protection against private data loss as well as in the company.“ (German original text: „Der Einsatz von HDClone kann sowohl privat als auch in der Firma effektiv vor dem Verlust von Daten schützen.“) (Netzwelt), 12 April 2015[33]
  • „HDClone Free Edition makes it easy to clone, create images, or back up drives and data.“ (CNET), 6 January 2015[34]

Reviews

Various German computer magazines, like "PC Magazin", "Computerbild", "com!", "Computerwoche" and "Chip", published tips on how to use HDClone for duplicating hard disk drive content. [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] Internationally HDClone is mainly described via digital journalism. [40] [41] [42] [43]

The Free Edition has been praised by German computer magazines for its clear and simple user interface [33][34][36][44] and recommended for copying small hard disk drives. [32][45] It has been criticized for limited and left out functionalities, which are only available for the paid versions. The reduced data transfer rate has been mentioned in this regard from time to time. [32][33][45] Some reports highlight the practice of the boot media which allows using HDClone independently from the installed operating system.[32][36][40][45]

Literature

HDClone is mentioned as example for disk cloning software in some international books. [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55]

A few international books use HDClone also as case example for disk cloning software with a detailed description:

  • Hak Cipta: Langkah Cerdas Mengamankan dan Menyelamatkan Data pada Hard Disk 2010, S. 136-139, ISBN 978-979-29-1452-8 [56]
  • Сенкевич Глеб Евгеньевич: Искусство восстановления данных 2011, S. 201-204, ISBN 978-5-9775-0618-2 [57]
  • Antonio Luís Cardador Cabello : Testeo y verificación de equipos y periféricos microinformáticos. 2014, S. 168-176, ISBN 978-84-16173-54-9 [58]

Trivia
  • Until version 5 the clone-sheep Sheepy (a comic sheep) was used as mascot for HDClone. This may be a reference to the real clone sheep Dolly.[27][59]
  • With the release of HDClone 6 there was a raffle of six software boxes with dedication and signature from the developers, which also contained a copy of the computer game The Ultimate Doom.[4]
  • Since 8 September 2003 the HDClone Free Edition is part of the Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD), a bootable CD, which contains a collection of software tools, which are mostly for the system diagnosis.[35][60]
  • HDClone occasionally wishes a happy birthday at the license information (e.g. Marius on 16 April, Franziska on 20 April or Alex on 1 May).
gollark: I don't understand.
gollark: What?
gollark: What if we rewrite the helloboi algorithm in Rust?
gollark: Any insults would be appropriately dealt with.
gollark: Yes.

See also

References
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  2. "Shop Overview". Miray Software. Retrieved 2019-01-17.
  3. Miray Software AG. "HDClone - The Universal Cloning Tool". Miray Software AG. Retrieved 2019-01-17.
  4. Miray Software AG (2015-09-29). "HDClone 6 – Simple. Different". Miray Software AG. Retrieved 2017-04-12.
  5. Miray Software AG. "HDClone 7 manual" (PDF). Miray Software AG. Retrieved 2018-06-05.
  6. Miray Software AG (2016). "Symobi". Miray Software AG. Retrieved 2017-04-28.
  7. Miray Software AG (2012-09-19). "µnOS". Miray Software AG. Archived from the original on 2016-03-25. Retrieved 2017-04-28.
  8. Miray Software AG (2012-09-19). "Sphere SP 2.0". Miray Software AG. Archived from the original on 2016-03-25. Retrieved 2017-04-28.
  9. Robert Dörfel, Michael Haunreiter, Uwe Baumgarte (2007-10-11). "The RTOS Symobi: Fulfilling the Requirements of Embedded Systems" [Das RTOS Symobi: Erfüllung der Anforderungen in eingebetteten Systemen.] (PDF) (in German). Technical University of Munich. Retrieved 2017-05-04.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. Miray Software AG (2000-04-11). "no title". Miray Software AG. Retrieved 2017-04-28.
  11. Miray Software AG (2001-08-01). "no title". Miray Software AG. Retrieved 2017-04-28.
  12. Miray Software AG (2002-05-14). "New realtime microkernel Sphere SP 2.0". Miray Software AG. Retrieved 2017-04-28.
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