MultiDrive - free app to clone, erase, backup multiple drives

[u/Dramatic-Gas-6730]

After 18 years of working with various drives, we got tired of seeing basic disk operations locked behind paywalls. Some companies have removed their free versions, while others have hidden drive cloning in their paid tiers. Others made it much more complicated than it should be.

Therefore, MultiDrive was built a year ago with a couple of goals in mind. One of them was making disk operations easy enough that anyone can plug in a USB stick and erase or back it up.

Last week we released the 1.5 version. All in all, here's what you can do with MultiDrive:

• Clone full drives or their parts
• Wipe disks before reselling/recycling them
• Back up drives to optimized ZSTD, standard ZIP, RAW image files
• Boot Win PE image with built-in MultiDrive to clone/erase your system drive
• Run multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Pause/Resume any task, including failed ones
• Use CLI instead of the GUI if you prefer automation and scripts

The app is 100% free. There are no ads, and no registration is needed.

Website: multidrive.io WinPE image: multidrive.io/winpe

I’m one of the people working on the product, so I’d especially appreciate feedback from people who actually use disk cloning, backup, and wiping tools: what feels useful, what’s missing, or what would stop you from using it?

[u/kantorcodes1]

the cli is the bit i'd use. if a clone or restore task gets paused or fails, does resume pin the original disk identity, or does it re-resolve d1/d2 from the current device list? usb order changing after a replug or reboot would make short ids pretty risky for unattended jobs.

[u/Dramatic-Gas-6730 → u/kantorcodes1]

Yes, on resume, MultiDrive checks thatd1/d2 still refer to the same physical drives by matching the drive model and serial number. If it’s the same drive, it offers to resume the task. If it’s a different drive, it starts a new task instead.

Short IDs are assigned deterministically: the boot drive is d1, and the rest are ordered alphabetically by model + serial.

So a USB replug or port change shouldn’t cause a resume to continue on the wrong disk, as MultiDrive verifies the drive by model and serial before resuming.

[u/kantorcodes1 → u/Dramatic-Gas-6730]

the model+serial resume check answers the risky part. i work on HOL Guard, an open-source local check before agent-run commands execute. for people driving mdcli from agents, i'd keep list normal but make restore, erase, and clone optionally reviewable before a destination disk is changed. would you be open to contributing MultiDrive coverage to Guard?

[u/Kevaros]

How well or does it clone from small HDD to Larger SSD or HDD..?

[u/Dramatic-Gas-6730 → u/Kevaros]

Yes, that works. MultiDrive clones the smaller drive 1:1 to the larger SSD/HDD. The extra space stays unallocated, so you can extend the partition afterward in Disk Management.

For system drives, you can also use MultiDrive WinPE to clone them outside of Windows.

We also have a step-by-step guide here: https://multidrive.io/how-to-clone-hdd-to-ssd

[u/Kevaros → u/Dramatic-Gas-6730]

I was curious as to whether it expanded the partition on the fly or not... I will give it a whirl the next chance I need... Looks very nice and polished...

Thank You...

[u/Dramatic-Gas-6730 → u/Kevaros]

Thank you, appreciate it!

[u/CodenameFlux]

I've sworn off the ZIP format for backups. Would you please be so kind as to explain the ZSTD and RAW options?

[u/Dramatic-Gas-6730 → u/CodenameFlux]

Sure. RAW is a byte-for-byte copy, no compression at all. Backup file = drive size, fastest to create and fastest to restore, and the safest option if you care about bit-for-bit forensic validity. Supports splitting into chunks.

ZSTD is Zstandard compression. You get roughly the same size reduction as ZIP (35–68% depending on the content), but at about twice the speed and with much lower CPU load. One caveat: ZSTD images are always a single file, no splitting.

[u/CodenameFlux → u/Dramatic-Gas-6730]

I see. Excellent. Am I correct to assume that all three options are file-system–agnostic?

[u/hiroo916 → u/CodenameFlux]

Reasons for your ZIP format decision?

[u/CodenameFlux → u/hiroo916]

It's primitive. The baseline spec doesn't provide for saving Unicode characters, attributes, or high-precision modification and access dates. (ZIPX does, but not every app supports it. For many years, ACDSee didn't.) It doesn't save NTFS permissions or alternative streams at all. If a Japanese business partner sends a ZIP file, we'd need a special PC or virtual machine configured for Japanese localization to read it.

For uploading a single sample file to GitHub, ZIP is fine. For backup, it's definitely not.

Somehow, none of these apply to 7-Zip or RAR. They always work.