Best Freeware Disk Utility For Mac
In my opinion, only about 20 percent of an app’s features should be considered premium features that users should have to pay for. However, In most cases, users really only need the other 80 percent of features which should be free. EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition v12.10 Review & Free Download Partition Master's setup routine will install EaseUS Todo Backup Free and a couple other programs along with the Partition Master.unless you uncheck that option. In this case, you have to rely on a third-party Mac partition manager, as Disk Utility won't work. Other times you want to make several partitions or adjust the size on an external hard disk, you are suggested to try Disk Utility, only to find the partition option has been grayed out, or it takes forever to complete during the erasing process. However, Disk Utility doesn’t provide overly extensive hard drive repair and management options and it doesn’t provide any data-recovery features. Also, the tools found in Mac OS X’s Utilities folder don’t include extensive diagnostic tools. Free Download Bootdisk Utility - Create bootable USB disks with your favorite MAC OSX distribution and latest Clover bootloader by turning to this l. Disk utility for mac free download - Mac Free Disk Partition Recovery, Mac Free Disk Player, Apple iDisk Utility, and many more programs. Mac Disk Utility. Download32 is source for mac disk utility freeware download - Shardana Antivirus Rescue Disk Utility, ANALYZER for RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk, Active@ Hard Disk Monitor, Wise Disk Cleaner Free, Glary Disk Cleaner, etc.
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Managing your hard-drive partitions effectively is an important aspect of owning a PC, as that allows people to segregate data based on categories. For instance, you can keep your multimedia files (movies, music etc.) in one partition, your work folders in another, while your programs etc. can be installed on your system drive. Also, if you’re a power-user and use your PC to double or triple-boot into various operating systems, you already know that it’s impossible without dividing your SSD or HDD into smaller partitions. That being the case, we’ve compiled a list of the best free partition software for Windows and Linux to help you manage your hard disk partitions effectively:
Best Free Partition Software in 2019
1. EaseUS Partition Master
EaseUS is one of the very best free partition software in the market today. It gives a host of options to the user, including, create, format, resize, move, split, merge, copy, wipe, check and explore. The reason it is at number one is because it not only works exactly as advertised, but also includes a number of extra features, like a partition recovery option that can recover lost or deleted partitions. It also allows users to convert from FAT to NTFS, primary to logical and vice-versa. The best part? It’s all included in the free version.
I’ve personally used EaseUS Partition Manager myself to partition my hard drives and SSDs for several years, and have found the GUI to be extremely intuitive, and the program itself is also extremely easy to use for anybody with the slightest idea of what they want to do. While the free version offers a comprehensive set of features, you’ll need to upgrade to the ‘Pro’ version if you want to migrate your operating system to a new HDD or SSD. The program is available only on Windows, and is compatible with every version from XP to Windows 10.
Download: (Free, $39.95)
Platform: Windows
2. AOMEI Partition Assistant
AOMEI Partition Assistant is available as a free download without any restrictions, which means you can use it for both personal and commercial use. It offers a wide gamut of features and options for its users, including resize, merge, create, format, split, copy and recover partitions. Best vpn for kodi mac. You can also convert the file system from FAT to NTFS and vice-versa without losing any data in the drive volume(s) in question. The program also allows the MBR to be rebuilt from scratch.
As is to be expected with most of these so-called ‘freemium’ software, some of its most important features of AOMEI Partition Assistant are hidden behind a paywall, including the ability to migrate the operating system to a different HDD or SSD and, convert between primary and logical partitions. The software can also be used to create a bootable Windows disc or flash drive. Called Windows PE Builder, it allows you to setup partitions even without having an operating system installed.
Download: (Free, $49.95)
Platform: Windows
3. MiniTool Partion Wizard V11.5
MiniTool Partition Wizard is yet another free partition manager program that is available for free but packs quite a punch in terms of its features. As you’d expect from most partition management programs, the free version of MiniTool can create, resize, move, delete, format, hide, unhide, split, merge, copy, clone and even recover deleted partitions. What’s more, the program also allows users to rebuild the MBR table and convert file system from FAT to NTFS and vice-versa.
MiniTool is one of the fastest programs in its category and, supports RAID drives, external USB drives and even FireWire disks. The latest version of MinitTool, the V11.5 comes with the excellent new features including Data Recovery, Disk Benchmark, Space Analyzer, along with some bug fixes which makes it even better. The Disk Benchmark feature allows users to measure the read and write speeds under various disk access scenarios like sequential and random. The Space Analyzer feature is great for finding out what is taking up space on your system so you can delete unnecessary files to release some storage. Finally, the new V11.5 also adds support for two new languages; Korean and Italian.
The program is also compatible with Linux ext2/ext3 file types. There’s also an optional “enhanced data protection mode” that you can turn on while modifying your disk partitions so as to protect the data in those partitions in case of a power failure during an operation. Like EaseUS, MiniTool also offers the OS migration feature, but only in its Pro version (and above) that starts at $39.
Download: (Free, $39.00)
Platform: Windows
4. Paragon Partition Manager
Like most of the other programs on the list, Paragon Partition Manager also allows users users to create, format, resize, delete, hide and copy partitions. It also allows users to convert disk partition type from MBR to GPT and vice-versa. While the free version of Paragon Partition Master offers a comprehensive list of features, you’ll need to buy the Pro version if you want additional features, like merge partitions, convert NTFS to FAT32, change cluster size and convert dynamic disk to basic.
Paragon Partition Magic also supports GPT/UEFI configurations, and works with Apple’s HFS+ file system. While we haven’t checked out the paid version of the software, the free version isn’t really as feature-rich as some of the aforementioned options. Sure, it gets the job done swiftly and effectively, but unless you’re willing to pay for the premium versions, you’ll miss out on a few features that you will otherwise get in some of the other free programs on the list.
Download: (Free, $39.95)
Platform: Windows
5. GParted
GParted is a powerful, free and open-source (FOSS) partition editor for Linux-based systems, but can also be used on Macs or Windows PCs by booting from GParted Live. The software not only allows users to create, resize, delete, move and copy partitions on a hard disk, but also to create a partition table and enable or disable partition flags. As expected from a program meant to be run on Linux, GParted supports ext2, ext3 and ext4 alongside NTFS, FAT16, FAT32 and many other file systems.
In case you’re apprehensive about using an app meant for Linux-based systems to manage your NTFS partitions, don’t be. The program works very well with NTFS because of the Linux NTFS-3G NTFS filesystem driver that allows programs like GParted to work with Windows volumes without any data loss. Being a FOSS software, it is also completely free irrespective of your use case. However, if you’re a total novice to disk management, you may find the UI not as intuitive as the commercial solutions mentioned in this list.
Download: (Free)
Platform: Linux
6. Macrorit Disk Partition Expert
Macrorit Disk Partition Expert is by far the easiest to use when compared to the rest of the programs on this list. While it offers users the usual features that are expected from standard disk management programs, it also comes with a few features that are a little less common. First off, it offers a portable version, so you can actually use it without having to install it on your PC. Secondly, the program first applies the changes virtually to let you see their effects before actually going through with the changes for real. You’ll have to hit the ‘Commit’ button to actually go through with the action once you’re happy with what you see. Also, like MiniTool Partition Wizard, Macrorit also has “power-off protection and data disaster recovery”, which prevents loss of data in case of power outage during the partitioning/merging/deleting or any other process.
For all its innovative features, Macrorit lacks a few important features that can be found on some of the other software mentioned on this list. One of the most important features missing from the software is the ability to migrate the operating system. While it’s not really a big deal if you’re looking to use the free version of the program (because none of the others offer it in their free editions either), if you want a full-featured suite and are ready to pay for it, there are other, more feature-rich options available in the market, although, they do cost a bit more than this one.
Download: (Free, $29.99)
Platform: Windows
Bonus: Windows Disk Management
A lot of people don’t realize this, but Windows already comes with a built-in disk management program called, well, “Disk Management”. The tool can be accessed by using the ‘diskmgmt.msc’ command or by searching for ‘Disk Management’ on the Start Menu search panel, and, gives users quite a few options to manage hard disks and the volumes or partitions that they contain. Users can initialize disks, create volumes, assign drive letters and format drives with the utility. As is to be expected, it supports both FAT and NTFS file systems, and can extend, shrink, merge or even delete partitions.
Microsoft first introduced the disk management utility in Windows 2000, and it can be found in all subsequent Windows editions right up to Windows 10. While the initial versions of the program were quite limited in what they could do, Microsoft has added a few new features to the utility over the course of time, and it is now a quite capable disk management tool. However, it still lacks many of the essential features that most of the free third-party programs come with, but if you’re looking for something really basic, chances are, the built-in Windows utility will be enough for your needs.
SEE ALSO: Best Free Backup Software for Windows
The Best Free Partition Software for Your Computer
As you can see from our list above, there’s a whole host of programs to manage hard disk partitions, and most of them offer a very similar set of features. While the paid versions come with extra bells and whistles, the free editions should do just fine for most users. So, do you use any of the above software to manage your HDD or SSD partitions, or do you want to recommend something else that offers more features in its free version? Do let us know by leaving your thoughts in the comment section below because we love hearing from you.
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Good backups are essential for every Mac user. Tools such as Apple’s Time Machine, included as part of OS X, make it easy to store multiple versions of every file from your computer on an external drive or an AirPort Time Capsule. And if you want the security of off-site backups without having to physically move drives around, an online backup provider such as CrashPlan is a good option.
But while both these forms of backup serve important purposes, I also recommend maintaining a clone (also known as a bootable duplicate)—a complete, identical copy of your startup volume, stored on an external drive in such a way that you can boot your Mac from it if necessary. (To learn more about designing a solid backup strategy, see Backup basics: The quick, something-is-better-than-nothing backup system and Bulletproof backups: When you absolutely can’t lose any data.)
What a clone offers that the likes of Time Machine and CrashPlan do not is immediate recovery: You can get back to work almost instantly after a drive crash or other severe problem with your startup volume. You simply attach your clone drive, restart while holding down the Option key, select the clone drive in OS X’s Startup Manager, and press Return. A few moments later, you’re back up and running—and you can then repair (or replace) your main startup drive more or less at your leisure. By contrast, even though Time Machine also backs up every file on your drive, restoring all those files to a new drive takes hours (or possibly days); restoring an entire drive from an online backup service takes even longer.
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A clone also comes in handy for troubleshooting, because you can use it to run third-party utilities on your ailing drive. (Your Mac’s built-in OS X Recovery features include Disk Utility, but sometimes you need a drive-repair app with more oomph.) Finally, having a clone is essential when upgrading to a new version of OS X, because it gives you the option to easily revert to your previous system (by erasing your upgraded-OS drive and then restoring from the clone) if compatibility problems arise.
There’s app for that
Unfortunately, you can’t make a clone merely by copying files from your startup volume to an external drive in the Finder. Every file on your drive—including thousands of hidden files—must be copied just so, with permissions and other metadata intact. Symbolic links (Unix-based file references that function like Mac aliases) must be recreated correctly. And, crucially, the System folder (/System) on the backup drive must be “blessed,” which entails recording its physical location on the drive in a special portion of the drive’s hidden HFS Volume Header. (For more details, read Mike Bombich’s article What makes a volume bootable?) All this is best done with a utility designed expressly for cloning.
More than two dozen third-party backup apps can make bootable duplicates. (You can see a list in the online appendix to my book Take Control of Backing Up Your Mac.) It’s also possible (if not especially convenient) to clone a drive using Disk Utility or by using the diskutil
command in Terminal. Most of these apps and processes do an entirely respectable job, but two cloning utilities—Shirt Pocket’s $28 SuperDuper and Bombich Software’s $40 Carbon Copy Cloner—stand above the rest. Each has a long history, focuses on cloning, presents a simple and clear user interface, and includes unusual features that make it an especially good choice for creating and maintaining bootable duplicates.
SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner
For everyday cloning tasks, SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner are equally good in almost every respect, and they have a core set of features in common. In both apps, you choose a source drive (say, your startup volume) from a pop-up menu on the left, a destination drive (your clone-backup volume) from a pop-up menu on the right, and any desired options using additional pop-up menus or buttons. Each utility provides a plain-English summary of what’s about to happen; you then click a button to begin the copying operation.
Both apps give you the option to erase the destination before copying files from the source; or to update your clone incrementally to reflect only those files that are new, changed, or deleted since the previous cloning run. (The free trial version of SuperDuper disables the incremental update feature, which Shirt Pocket calls Smart Update.) Both also let you deselect specific files, folders, or filename patterns to omit them from your backup, although they have very different interfaces for doing so—I find this task much easier to accomplish in Carbon Copy Cloner than in SuperDuper.
In addition to using an actual drive as the destination, each app can copy the source volume to a disk image (which won’t itself be bootable, but which can be restored to a drive that will then become bootable); you can choose from among several disk-image formats, with or without compression. Carbon Copy Cloner also offers encryption for disk images, while SuperDuper lets you choose from three levels of compression. Likewise, you can use either app to restore a drive from a disk image. Both apps also let you schedule backups to run unattended—on a recurring schedule, when the destination drive is mounted, or both. (For example, I update my iMac’s clone twice a day, since its destination drive remains connected all the time, but my MacBook Pro’s clone updates only when I plug in my backup drive.)
Both apps can also perform designated tasks—for example, running shell scripts; ejecting the destination drive on completion; or instructing your Mac to sleep, shut down, or restart—before or after a cloning operation. (In Carbon Copy Cloner, such actions can be specified only for scheduled tasks.)
In my testing, both apps functioned impeccably, copying everything exactly as they claimed they would, including all the finicky OS X metadata, permissions, and links.
However, beyond the basics, the two apps diverge in interesting ways—each one offers useful tricks that the other does not.
SuperDuper’s sandbox and special options
SuperDuper has two post-run options that Carbon Copy Cloner lacks: It can create a disk image of the destination volume (useful in an institutional setting where you may need to copy an image to multiple Macs), and it can install a package-based app on the destination.
In addition, SuperDuper has a feature called Sandbox, which requires some explaining but turns out to be very useful in certain situations. When you create a clone using the Sandbox option, the contents of the source volume’s /Users folder (and, optionally, the non-Apple apps in the /Applications folder) aren’t copied to the destination. Instead, SuperDuper creates symbolic links of those items from the source to the destination. Because so many files are merely being linked rather than copied, a Sandbox clone takes much less time to create than a regular clone, and it occupies less space on the destination drive. When you restart your Mac from the Sandbox volume (assuming, of course, that the source volume—typically your normal startup drive—is still connected), everything should behave almost exactly as if you copied all the files. But any changes to the contents of /Users (such as modifications to documents in your home folder) are made on the original drive, not the clone.
What’s the point of all this? For starters, you can safely do anything you like while booted from the Sandbox clone—upgrade OS X, install new software, try out wacky system customizations, or whatever—and none of those changes will affect your original drive. However, you can also feel secure knowing that any changes you make to documents and settings while working from the clone will also show up when you switch back to the original drive. (Note that if you use the “Sandbox - shared users and applications” option, updates made to linked third-party apps while running from the clone will affect the original drive.) This makes a SuperDuper Sandbox a great way to test, say, a beta version of OS X. SuperDuper’s documentation cautions that you should not treat a Sandbox clone as a replacement for a regular clone, but as a supplement for testing purposes. The developer also recommends against restoring a Sandbox clone to the original drive.
Carbon Copy Cloner’s conveniences
Although Carbon Copy Cloner lacks a Sandbox feature, it has four other unique capabilities that you may find even more helpful.
Recovery HD support When cloning a volume, Carbon Copy Cloner can duplicate the hidden Recovery HD partition that’s created when you install OS X 10.7 Lion and later—this is the hidden partition that makes OS X Recovery possible. At first, I didn’t see much point to this feature, because when I boot from a clone, I can use third-party disk utilities that may offer more features than the limited toolkit (Disk Utility and Terminal) I get when restarting into OS X Recovery. But having a Recovery HD partition on an external drive can come in handy. For example, if you want to encrypt the external drive using FileVault, that drive must have its own Recovery HD partition. In addition, if you ever need to erase (or replace) your internal drive and restore it from a clone, Carbon Copy Cloner enables you to restore the Recovery HD partition as part of the process; with SuperDuper, you’d have to run the OS X installer again to recreate that partition.
Archiving Versioned backups (such as those created by Time Machine and CrashPlan) normally are not bootable, and bootable clones normally contain only the most recent versions of your files. But Carbon Copy Cloner has a mode that attempts to give you the best of both worlds. When you use the “Preserve newer files, don’t delete anything” option, Carbon Copy Cloner moves any items that have been deleted from the source volume, and older versions of items that have been changed, into a date-and-time-stamped subfolder of a new _CCC Archives folder at the top level of your destination drive. Those folders maintain the original drive hierarchy—so, for example, if a file was originally located in /Users/jk/Documents, it’ll be found in /_CCC Archives/[date and time]/Users/jk/Documents afterward. Carbon Copy Cloner can also prune older files (beyond a size limit you set) when updating your backups. Although restoring files that were archived this way is much less convenient than in most backup programs, the feature does (to an extent) enable you to combine both backup techniques.
Network cloning SuperDuper can clone a drive to a disk image that’s stored on a network server, but Carbon Copy Cloner can also clone a drive directly to an external drive connected to another Mac on your network. That means you could later hook up that drive to your Mac and boot from it, without having to restore anything first. The procedure to set this feature up is odd: You must first create an authentication-credentials package on the source Mac, manually copy that package to the destination Mac, and install it there (complete instructions are included in Carbon Copy Cloner’s documentation). But once configured, it’s as easy to clone your drive to a network volume as to a local volume.
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Block copying Carbon Copy Cloner normally operates on a file-by-file basis, but when certain conditions are met (for example, both the source and destination volumes must be locally attached and be able to be unmounted), the utility can perform a block-by-block copy, which is faster for an initial backup. (Updates to existing backups are always file-by-file, which is faster for that purpose.)
Honorable mention: ChronoSync
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Though SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner are my favorite drive-cloning tools, a third backup app, Econ Technologies’ $40 ChronoSync (4.5 mice) earns an honorable mention here. As its name suggests, ChronoSync is primarily a Mac-to-Mac sync tool, but it also includes an extensive set of backup features, including the capability to make bootable clones. Like Carbon Copy Cloner, it can even clone to an external drive connected to another Mac on your network (as long as you install the $10 ChronoAgent utility on that Mac). Also like Carbon Copy Cloner, it can move changed and deleted files to an archive folder on the destination; and like both Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper, ChronoSync supports incremental updates, scheduling, pre-/post-run scripts, and the use of disk images as destinations, although you must create those images manually in Disk Utility.
On the downside, ChronoSync lacks special features such as SuperDuper’s Sandbox and Carbon Copy Cloner’s Recovery HD cloning; and although it has a massive array of options you can configure, it’s not quite as easy to use as my top choices. However, it’s still an excellent all-purpose choice for syncing, backups, and cloning.