HDClone vs OSFClone

HDClone creates physical or logical copies and file images of hard disks and other storage media for backups, system copies, and recovery of defective media. It works independently of partitioning scheme, file system, and operating system, including with some otherwise inaccessible proprietary formats. Depending on edition, it supports drive and partition copies, SmartCopy, PartitionSelect, and copying to multiple targets. File-image options vary by edition, with higher editions adding compression, password protection, differential or encrypted images, and virtual disk formats. Professional and Enterprise editions can create VMDK, VHD, VHDX, and VDI images for VMware, VirtualPC, and VirtualBox virtual machines. It runs as a Windows application or from bootable CD/DVD or USB media. The Free Edition costs nothing, for private use only, and is limited to 4 TB and 70 MB/s. Basic costs €19.90, paid once and is limited to private use on up to two PCs; higher one-time editions add further capabilities.

OSFClone is a free disk-imaging utility that boots from CD/DVD or USB and creates or clones disk images without relying on the installed operating system. It supports raw images and AFF, EWF, and dc3dd formats. The maker says images preserve unused sectors, slack space, file fragmentation, and undeleted file records. Users can compare a clone with its source using MD5 or SHA1 hashes, compress images, and attach forensic metadata such as case and evidence numbers, examiner name, description, and checksum. The product page describes cloning FAT, NTFS, and USB-connected drives. Its listed current download is a 373 MB ZIP for version 1.4.1000; USB installation needs a drive of at least 2 GB. The maker cautions that hardware, driver, and disk-state differences may contaminate evidence, and flags possible superblock changes when ext2/3/4 evidence drives are connected during startup. Some UEFI systems may not boot OSFClone. The software is licensed under GPL v3.0; its images can be mounted with PassMark OSFMount and analyzed with PassMark OSForensics.