HDClone 4.3—Hassle-free AF Disk Cloning

03/21/2013

+++ Supporting Advanced Format (AF) +++ Creating dynamic VMDK-/VHD-images +++ Saving copy report +++

By presenting HDClone 4.3 to the public on 04/03/2013, Miray Software introduces the latest version of the famous cloning and backup tool. HDClone 4.3 can actively clone and backup latestst hard disks using the Advanced Format and also creates dynamic VMDK and VHD images.

The Advanced-Sector-Format allows to produce larger hard disks by using modern sector sizes of 1 kB (1Kn) and 4 kB (4Kn) instead of the 512 byte sectors as they have been in use for over 30 years now. At the same disk capacity, this reduces the number of sectors required and consequently the amount of management data on the disk. This saves disk space which is used as additional storage capacity in modern drives. For maintaining compatibility, some of these hard disks still present themselves as conventional 512 byte media (512e). Therefore, the technology used inside the hard disk may not be visible to the outside.

Emulating 512 byte sectors does not satisfy all cases and sometimes causes problems. To avoid these problems, Miray Software decided to take a different approach with HDClone 4.3. This latest version of HDClone supports cloning hard disks with different sector sizes directly and in any direction, for example from a 512 byte to a 4k-native hard disk and the other way round, too. Users can clone hard disks in any way they want and don’t have to care for sector sizes—HDClone 4.3 makes the neccessary modifications to the file system automatically.

HDClone 4.3 also allows to create backup images on storage media with differing sector sizes. Recovering from such images to hard disks using 512 byte, 512e, 1Kn, or 4Kn sector layout is done equally smoothly. This allows to use the fast sector-based copying technology of HDClone for cloning and imaging media with different sector sizes.

Using Miray Virtual Disk, included with HDClone, users can mount file images as virtual drives to access individual files, no matter which sector size the data is stored on. Besides changes to the graphical user interface (GUI), the developers also added new imaging features to HDClone. Version 4.3 from the Professional Edition on allows to create spacesavingdynamic VMDK and VHD images. These can be mounted as virtual drives in popular virtual machines or directly under Windows with Miray Virtual Disk.

HDClone 4.3 will be publicly released on 04/03/2013 in the Editions “Basic”, “Standard”, “Professional” and “Enterprise”. Miray will also offer a Free Edition at no charge. It will be available at www.miray.de/download/sat.hdclone.html.

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