What is the state of the art software in disk imaging?

[Madman]

I need to wipe one laptop and create a disk image for backup, and I would also like to have a regular backups of my primary PC.

Because I'm mainly using Linux now, and I will need to create safe partitioning software when I'll need to install Windows on secondary partition at some time, I need bit-by-bit backup/restore solution.

Preferably one that can create VHD images as well. Bit-by-bit is even more important because some partitions are fully encrypted in Linux system.

I remember Norton Ghost was the best 8 or so years ago, but I haven't been following the software lately. Also, I don't need a smart fancy-pants-sits-in-a-tray-uses-licence-for-each-tray solution. I want a software I can use for 2 PCs, boot with boot CD, mirror to NAS/(secondary HDD)/VHD. Reboot, restore from NAS/(secondary HDD)/VHD.

Is there anything that works like that?

[bthylafh]

Good old dd will make bit-for-bit images. Any Linux LiveCD should have it, and if your NAS supports NFS there's your remote filesystem support.

[Madman]

But what about VHD and different size partitions, partition tables?

[bthylafh]

Can't do that, but it's free and does the bit-for-bit that's your #1 goal.

[bryanl]

You've got multiple requirements. One is backup of systems, another is backup of partitions, and a third is partitioning and storage setup.

The last two are the territory of clonezilla or gparted - both available in small bootable systems

for system backup, something like rsync or similar doing snapshots on a regular basis is usually a bit better way to go.

[Flatland_Spider]

Redo backup is very friendly. (http://redobackup.org/) It's based on partclone, like clonezilla I believe, which is block level imaging.

If you need a bit level image, dd is what you want. It will create an exact image of the drive, and it looks like you can boot the image in KVM. (http://blog.sviluppoweb.eu/2010/07/16/h ... x-qemukvm/)