Clonezilla

Clonezilla is a robust and open-source disk imaging and cloning solution designed for effective system deployment, backup, and recovery. It provides various editions to cater to different user needs: Clonezilla Live for individual machines, Clonezilla Lite Server for mass deployments, and Clonezilla Server Edition for extensive cloning tasks.

Key Functionalities:
- Disk Imaging and Cloning: Clonezilla allows users to create exact images of disks or partitions, making it ideal for data backup and system recovery. It achieves high efficiency by saving only the used blocks on a hard disk, which optimizes cloning speed.
- Multiple File System Support: It is compatible with a wide range of file systems across various operating systems, including GNU/Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, and VMware.
- Local and Network Cloning: Users can perform imaging and cloning tasks both locally and over the network, making it versatile for different environments.
- Security Features: Clonezilla includes AES-256 encryption to ensure secure data handling during cloning processes.

Limitations: Clonezilla requires the destination partition to be at least as large as the source partition. It does not support differential backups or online imaging, which may restrict its use in certain scenarios.

How It Works: To use Clonezilla, users typically download the Clonezilla Live image, which can be booted from a CD/DVD or USB flash drive. For mass deployments, the Clonezilla Lite Server or Server Edition can be employed, requiring network booting and configuration of a DRBL (Diskless Remote Boot in Linux) server. The installation and usage processes are well-documented, with step-by-step instructions available on the Clonezilla website.