- This worked flawlessly. Once I had it booted I ran it for a few days before I wiped the source disk. I setup TimeMachine as well using that disk. I tried to use the official guide on cloning but because this isn't Apple hardware, I ran into errors using recovery mode making it bootable. I eliminated recovery mode to solve the problem.
- Stellar Drive clone is one of the best disk cloning app for Mac. It creates an identical, ready to use copy of the hard drive. The Clone software creates partitions in the same way as that of the actual hard drive. The tool supports various types of cloning like, HFS-to-HFS, FAT-to-FAT and NTFS-to-ExFAT.
- Jul 10, 2020 The blog explores the best free backup and data recovery software – Stellar Drive Clone & Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac for all your data backup and recovery needs. Our personal and professional data stored in Mac, if lost, can cause serious financial & emotional damage.
Carbon Copy Cloner (left) and SuperDuper (right) are our top picks for Mac drive-cloning utilities. Both apps give you the option to erase the destination before copying files from the source;.
Our personal and professional data stored in Mac, if lost, can cause serious financial & emotional damage. There are many scenarios which can lead to such data loss; some of them include accidental deletion, hard drive failure, etc. In order to prevent such mishaps, you need to regularly backup your Mac storage drive.
Having a backup of your data gives you peace of mind against sudden data loss and its consequences. Nevertheless, there can be many scenarios where you fail to keep a backup leading to permanent data loss. In such cases, only a professional Mac data recovery solution can help you recover your lost data
A data recovery software recovers lost files from any storage medium. The software scans the storage media and recovers your lost documents, PDFs, audio, video, emails, documents, etc. Let us look at the best free backup and data recovery software for Mac.
Free Backup Software for Mac
1. Time Machine
Time Machine backs all files, apps, music, photos, emails, and documents, etc. on your Mac. It is a built-in app on MacOS which when turned on, automatically backs up your Mac and performs hourly, daily, and weekly backups of your files in an external drive.
Features:
- Inbuilt feature on Mac systems
- Automatic backup feature
- Backup scheduling functionality
Cost
Free
2. Stellar Drive Clone
Stellar Drive Clone can clone and create a disk image of your Mac hard drive, SSDs, partitions and external hard drives. This way, it allows you to take backup of all your important files and folders. You can use this clone of your hard drive as a backup to protect you against various data loss scenarios. The software can even clone encrypted hard drives and volumes and ensure backup of your most sensitive files.
It is one of the most comprehensive backup software, which supports multiple file systems and provides complete disk utility features, including resizing of drive volume. A complete list of features is listed below:
- Clones Mac HD, Recovery HD and local volumes to any other storage medium
- Supports multiple file systems, such as HFS, HFS+, FAT, and ex-FAT
- Creates snapshot of your hard drive surpassing any bad sectors and unused file space.
- Restores Mac HD or HFS volume to their original state
- Allows you to create a bootable disk image
Cost:
Free to download – Evaluate features such as, Cloning, Imaging, Restore, etc.
Paid version: $39
Download
3. Backblaze
Backblaze is a cloud backup solution provider which backs up your files in its secure servers. You also have the option to schedule backup and set an upload limit. If you need to restore these files later, you can easily download them from the Backblaze’s website.
Features:
- Keeps old and deleted files for 30 days
- Option to increase the backup limit for up to 1 year (with additional charge)
- Automatic backing up of all data
- Back-up scheduling feature
- Can locate your lost/stolen Mac
Cost
Free download. 15 days of free trial.
Paid versions: $6 (monthly), $60 (year), $100 (2 year)
4. DropBox
Dropbox is a secure storage platform which stores all your valuable info at one place. It offers flexible storage plans and is a global leader in sharing & storage systems. A cloud platform, The software allows faster access, storage, and retrieving of data. You can manage your files on the go and the files can be accessed from any device.
Features:
- Easy recovery of deleted files and restoration of previous file versions
- Can access any device
- File sharing
- Offline backup and recovery
- Third party integration with over 300,000 connected apps
- Remote wiping feature which allows you to wipe data from stolen/lost devices
Cost
Free download. 30 days Free Trial.
Paid versions: $12.50 per month (standard) and $20 per month (advanced)
Free Mac Data Recovery Software!
A data recovery software rescues your lost data in no backup scenario i.e. when you had failed to back your data. The list below demonstrates the top free Mac data recovery software.
1. Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac
Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac offers a free data recovery software for macOS, which recovers all types of files such as documents, folders, photos, videos, audio, etc. from all kinds of storage devices, such as Mac hard drives, external hard drives, memory cards, SSD drives, SD cards, etc. The software is designed to recover files from all loss scenarios.
The software scans your Mac systems, previews the lost files, and allows you to recover up to 1 GB of deleted data.
Features:
Best Free Cloning Software
- Recover lost or deleted documents, photos, videos, audio, email & more
- Preview before you recover
- Intuitive interface, which is easy-to-use.
- Save up to 1GB of deleted data with the Free version.
- Offers Professional version for unlimited and advanced recovery
Cost
Free version offers scan, preview and recovery of up to 1GB of lost data.
Professional version: $79.99
Download
Click on the button below to download the software for free.
2. Disk Drill for Mac
Disk Drill is designed to recover files seamlessly on your Mac systems. The software comes with additional features, which enables you to also recover archived, hidden, and compressed, or encrypted files.
Features:
- Supports a wide range of file formats and systems on your Mac system.
- Additional tools such as diagnostics, cleanup, duplicate finder, etc are also offered.
- Offers multi-level scans
- Sleek user interface with a preview feature.
Cost
Basic: Free
Pro: $89
Enterprise: $399
3. AnyRecover
AnyRecover is an advanced data recovery software, purpose-built to recover lost or deleted files from multiple data loss scenarios. The new version of the software also supports Mac Recovery with MacPE bootable media.
Features:
- Recover more than 1000+ file types on Mac with a single click
- Access multi-level scan features
- Recover from all loss scenarios such as emptied trash, corrupted device, partition error, etc.
- The tool supports APFS encrypted hard drive with password
- Get free technical support and lifetime free updates with the Pro plan.
Cost
Basic: Free
Pro: $49.95
4. PhotoRec
PhotoRec is a free data recovery tool, which recovers photos, files, videos and other files. The open-source tool also has a diagnostics feature, which scans the corrupted file and recommends if restoration is possible.
Features
- Open Source software which is completely free
- The file diagnosis feature checks the device sector by sector.
Cost
Free
Conclusion
In this blog, we looked at various free data backup and recovery software for Mac, which can protect your data against accidental loss, hardware/software crashes, virus attacks, etc. The first defense is backing up your data, so that you don’t lose your valuable info, even if there is fatal damage to your Mac device. In case of no backup, a data recovery software can come to your rescue by recovering your lost data from a variety of loss scenarios. Stellar Drive Clone and Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac are highly recommended products, which provide comprehensive and effective data backup and data storage services, respectively.
If you need to migrate your data or are looking to keep a backup handy, you can clone your hard drive. Here's how to do it in Windows and on a Mac.
There are plenty of great services that can back up your files, but sometimes you need something a bit more bulletproof. Maybe you're migrating your Windows installation to a new drive, or perhaps you want a complete one-to-one copy in case anything goes wrong. In those cases, your best bet is to clone your hard drive, creating an exact copy you can swap in and boot up right away.
Some backup services, like IDrive and Acronis, have built-in disk-cloning features, supplementing to the normal file backup. We'll be using some free tools designed specifically for drive cloning in this guide, though. If you want a true backup solution with supplemental cloning features, check out one of the paid options. But for one-off clones (like if you're migrating your OS to a new drive), these tools will be all you need.
Connect Your Secondary Drive
For this process, you'll obviously need two drives: the source drive (with the data you want to clone), and the destination drive (where you're cloning that data to). If you have a desktop computer and both drives are installed internally (or you're just cloning to a USB external drive for backup), great! You're ready to continue.
If, however, you're using a laptop with only one drive bay, you'll need an external SATA-to-USB adapter, dock, or enclosure to connect your bare drive to the computer. Once you've connected your drive, you can go through the cloning process, then disconnect it and install the drive internally.
Best Mac Cloning Software
In most cases, your destination drive will probably need to be as large as, or larger than, your source drive. If it isn't, you'll need to free up space on your source drive and shrink the main partition down to fit. (You'll probably only need to do this if you're migrating from a hard drive to a smaller SSD; we have a separate guide on that process here.)
Windows Users: Clone Your Drive with Macrium Reflect Free
Windows users have lots of great cloning tools available, but we'll be using Macrium Reflect Free. It's free, easy to use, and widely loved by many, so it's hard to go wrong.
To install Macrium Reflect, download the Home Use installer and start it up. It's just a tiny tool that will download the actual installer for you, based on the type of license you want. Choose the temporary folder for these files—I just put them in my Downloads folder—and click the Download button.
Once it's finished, it'll automatically launch the Macrium installation wizard, which you can click right on through—the default options should be fine for our purposes. You can safely delete all the installer files from your Downloads folder once the wizard has finished.
Start Cloning Process
Open Macrium Reflect and you'll see a detailed list of the disks connected to your computer. You have two main options: you can directly clone one disk to another, or create an image of a disk. Cloning allows you to boot from the second disk, which is great for migrating from one drive to another. Imaging, on the other hand, allows you to store as many full, one-to-one copies of your source disk as the destination's space will allow, which is useful for backups.
Select the disk you want to copy (making sure to check the leftmost box if your disk has multiple partitions) and click 'Clone This Disk' or 'Image This Disk.'
Choose Clone Destination
In the next window, choose your destination disk—the one that will house your newly copied data. Note that this will erase all data on the disk, so be careful which one you choose. If there's any old data on it, you may want to select it and click the 'Delete Existing Partitions' button until the drive is empty.
If you're cloning to a larger drive, you'll want to click the 'Cloned Partition Properties' button at the bottom of this window, and extend your main partition to fill up the entire space of the disk.
Schedule Your Clone
The next page will ask if you want to schedule this clone, which is useful if you want to regularly image your drive for backup purposes. I've skipped this, since I'm just doing a one-time clone. On the page after that, you can also save the backup and its schedule as an XML file for safe keeping, but I've unchecked that option for the same reason—I'm only doing this once for now.
Boot From Your Cloned Drive
Finally, Macrium Reflect will begin the cloning process. This can take some time depending on the size of your drive, so give it time to do its thing. If you cloned your drive, you should be able to boot from it now by selecting it in your BIOS. If you're imaging your drive, you can actually keep the second drive connected for future image backups.
Mac Users: Clone Your Drive with SuperDuper
If you're on a Mac, we recommend SuperDuper for all your cloning needs. It's free, simple to use, and has been around for years. Download the app, open the DMG file, and double-click on the icon to install. (Don't drag it to your /Applications folder like you would most Mac apps; double-clicking on it should install it to your computer.)
Once installed, open SuperDuper and you'll be greeted with its incredibly simple, intuitive interface. In the first menu next to 'Copy,' select the source disk you want to clone. In the second menu, select the destination disk you're cloning to—this will fully erase the drive in that second menu, so make sure there isn't anything important on it! When you're ready, click the 'Copy Now' button. The process will begin. (Yeah, it's that easy.)
Finalize Your Drive Clone
This may take a while, but when it's done, you have two choices. If you want to replace your Mac's internal drive with the new drive (say, if you're migrating to a larger drive), you can open up your Mac and swap those now, then boot up as normal.
If you want to boot your cloned drive from USB, you can hold the Option key as your Mac starts up and select it from the boot list. Your cloned drive will be in the exact state your computer was during the cloning process, and you can continue working without skipping a beat.