Set and Forget - The data on disk is modified, updated and added every day. The following criteria can help you evaluate the best hard drive imaging software. When looking for a free disk imaging software, it is important to make an informed decision on which product is right for you. Therefore, system administrators create a disk image with fully prepared applications environment of a well-adjust system to quickly deploy it to each computer by using PXE network boot. Installing operating system and programs into each of them one by one requires a lot of time and effort and has a significant possibility of human error. OS Deployment: Large companies often need to buy large numbers of new computers with same or different hardware. Thus, disk imaging is an alternative way to directly clone. System Migration: Because the performance of SSD is better than HDD, more and more people are more willing to clone HDD to SSD or migrate OS to another computer with better hardware. If so, you can buy a new hard drive and replace the dead one, and then restore disk image to bring your computer to the state when it works well and all data is intact. Just like our human beings, every hard drive is going to die eventually.

Why need to create a disk image? Normally, disk imaging is used in several major areas:ĭata Protection: Most users create a disk image to prevent data loss from a virus, system crash or disk failure.

A disk image, a single compressed file, is an exact copy of computer’s hard drive, which holds all data including operating system installation, boot information, applications, and individual files.

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