Talk:Comparison of disk cloning software

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This article was nominated for deletion on May 18, 2008. The result of the discussion was keep.

Someday I'll convert this article to "Comparison", but as for now it is still a "List". Sasha1024 (talk) 16:00, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To Marasmusine: please stop cutting the article:

First. It's still a stub. (External links may become links to articles later.)
Second. All of these (external) links are present in the Disk cloning article. I don't see the reason, that they can be present there but not here. If reason really exists -- just say, and I'll continue categorization/comparison right inside the Disk cloning (not in separate article) -- but don't do that silent cutting.
Third. Why don't to write to the discussion page first? I've already lost a piece of text because of that. Cutting the text that someone is working on don't make wikipedia better.

Sasha1024 (talk) 16:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lists are primarily used for navigation through Wikipedia (WP:LIST), and should not contain lists of external links (WP:EL); Wikipedia is not a directory (WP:NOT#DIRECTORY). Software listed here is subject to the same notability guidelines as elsewhere in the encyclopedia (WP:Notability); if it passes the notability guideline, a stub article can be started for it and listed here. Otherwise we should not list it at all. I hope that explains my removal of some of the links. Marasmusine (talk) 17:07, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I understand that.

But on another hand:

Most of the software lists contain some "gaps". I mean that they do not consist entirely of links-to-existing-articles, most of them contain either "red" links, either external links, either "black" entries (unlinked names). (Just click on anithing inside Category:Lists of software: for example [1], [2], [3], [4], [5].)
Lists are not for navigation only, they can be a source of information themselves (and WP:List#Purposes of lists states that as one of list purposes).

Sasha1024 (talk) 18:03, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The table does look better. Don't forget to cite where you got the information from, per WP:V. Marasmusine (talk) 22:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Andreas Groß (talk) 16:03, 12 September 2008 (UTC) I suggest, that there should also be a license column in the table.[reply]

License column added

Tables to be put into the article (stored here until finished)

General

Already there

Supported filesystems

Name	Raw copying	FAT32	NTFS	Ext2	Ext3	ReiserFS	xfs	jfs	HPFS	UFS	HFS
Clonezilla (live and server edition)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
g4u	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
PING	Yes
G4L
LRS
PartImage	No	Yes	Partial	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Beta	Beta
ntfsclone	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
FOG
Mondo Rescue

Methods of storing image

Name	Local HDD	Burning to CD/DVD	FTP	USB
Clonezilla live
Clonezilla server edition
g4u
PING
G4L
LRS
PartImage
ntfsclone
FOG
Mondo Rescue

Sasha1024 (talk) 17:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merging articles

I think we should have both a list and a comparison of disk cloning software, Wikipedia usually has both a list and a comparison:

(and so on...).

I think it makes all sense to keep both a "pure list" and a comparison, both have advantages over the other one, so I think we should keep both. We also gain by having it all organised and easier to browse... SF007 (talk) 18:55, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Splitted proprietary and free software

My original idea was to write article about free disk cloning software. I am not interested on filling info about proprietary tools (I think they are wellknown enough). Of course, I am not anti if somebody else will fill it -- but imho it'll be better not to mix them. At least, until we will have a SORTABLE license column. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sasha1024 (talk • contribs) 12:47, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the point of having that separated and I merged them, now the we only need a "license" section. Having them separated is in my opinion "non-neutral". SF007 (talk) 13:50, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

License column added

Restored hidden and removed entries.

IMHO, pure notability of some tools is a reason for removing articles on them (if they sometime appear), but not for removing any info about them from other articles (especially from comparisons). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sasha1024 (talk • contribs) 12:54, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted "CLI" to "none"

I am not sure that we can say that dd, ntfsclone and zsplit have command-line interface.

As I understand, CLI means that user can type some commands into the software tool. Like bash or psql.

In that sense, as far as I know, dd, ntfsclone and zsplit don't have CLI. User cannot type commands into them. User just can invoke them from bash (or from other unix shell) using some command -- but that is not dd's/ntfsclone's/zsplit's CLI, it's a CLI of the bash. (And dd, ntfsclone and zsplit don't have OWN command-line interface.)

Be bold to fix that in article, if I'm wrong, and if that tools are also said as having CLI. But, imho, there should be some other term, to distinguish bash/psql-like tools (with own CLI) from dd/ntfsclone-like tools.Sasha1024 (talk) 13:25, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Novell ZenWorks and PXE booting

It would be nice to have an additional column for those disk cloning software that support booting from PXE. To that end, Novell ZenWorks could be included here (with the proprietary, of course) and it does support PXE booting. --Kickstart70TC 18:40, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

REQUESTS

Please add FSArchiver to the comparison list. Thank you.

And include in table if the tool can generates image of same size as the partition, same size as the data w/without compression, and if it can restore the image to a different disk/partition of different size (smaller, larger, both).

Please add a column indicating whether the cloning program can resize partitions on the fly and handle copying to different sized disks and properly handling the extra or reduced space. Ghost does this; I'd like a list of it's competitor's that can do the same. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.59.77.102 (talk) 21:07, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

==

It would be nice if someone could add which applications support EXT4 - it would have made this list much more informative and saved me a 15min google search.

==

Merger proposal

There seem to be three pages listing similar information. I propose that this is cut down to one or two (I've noticed above that someone prefers to keep a List article *and* a Comparison article).

Any ideas or suggestions? I realise that the Disk Imaging list includes imaging of floppies and DVDs etc. but the hard drive list seems repetitive. — SimonEast (talk) 13:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's a tough one. Of course while they contain similar information, it doesn't make them the same thing. Software that can create a disk image and doesn't always clone disks while software for cloning disks can't always make a disk image. They are different things. --Hm2k (talk) 14:00, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose a merge of all the 3 articles into 1, however, I don't have any particular objection of a merge of List of disk imaging software and List of disk cloning software. I oppose a merge of all because it is useful to have both a list and a comparison of subjects, there are also many examples:

(and so on...).

--SF007 (talk) 21:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that List of disk imaging software and List of disk cloning software should be merged. Not sure about merging those with this topic.

Chkrvrty (talk) 17:52, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I too agree that List of disk imaging software and List of disk cloning software should be merged. For the comparison page however, imaging, cloning, and backing up are all similar operations. It would be useful for there to be one comparison page that itemizes all imaging, cloning, and backup software that identifies (a) which of imaging, cloning, and backing up the particular software does, (b) what the software license is, and (c) what operating systems the software will run in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.79.84.121 (talk) 17:55, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ddrescue

to be added : ddrescue — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnny Bin (talk • contribs) 14:02, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]