AMA: MultiDrive - free app to clone, backup, erase drives

[Vitaliy Mokosiy]

Hi everyone,

I’m Vitaliy Mokosiy, CTO at Atola Technology and one of the creators of MultiDrive, a 100% free tool for backing up, cloning, and erasing drives on Windows.

Why MultiDrive? At one point, a friend asked me how to quickly upgrade from an HDD to an SSD, and I realized there wasn’t an easy and free solution—nothing simple enough. I kept running into similar situations, like needing to back up a USB drive or securely erase it, and saw the same problem each time. And it was really hard to find a quick solution every time. Most other tools are either paid-only, less capable, or feature-limited.

So our new tool is super easy to use. Without annoying pop-up banners or upsells, and no feature limitations.

Keeping it simple as 1-2-3, we added decent value for advanced tech people like you:

• Run multiple drive operations simultaneously
• Pause and resume any task without losing data
• Process parts of disks instead of entire disk spaces
• Performance-optimized drive backup directly to ZIP, and restore from ZIP
• Well-thought-out command-line interface (CLI) for automation and scripting

Check it out: multidrive.io

Ask me anything about technical decisions, use cases, comparisons to existing tools, CLI examples, whatever you're curious about!

[northwind]

Very nice. I tried a simple backup from a folder to a zip file and it works like a charm.

Great work, thank you!

[lcoughey]

Looks cool.

One suggested feature that you might want to consider it the ability for the user to specify drives as read-only so they don't ever show up on the target list, except as a location to save a backup file.

[pclab]

May I suggest an option to erase with a specific pattern, defined by user?

Thank You

[lcoughey]

Gave it a little test for wiping multiple drives of unknown condition.

And to answer @pclab's question, there is a spot to put in a custom HEX pattern to write when wiping

Not too bad. Another feature idea is to simply show a drive that has failed SMART properties in the Drives list.

[Vitaliy Mokosiy]

Looks cool.

One suggested feature that you might want to consider it the ability for the user to specify drives as read-only so they don't ever show up on the target list, except as a location to save a backup file.

Thanks!

The feature is a bit hidden yet it's there. When selecting Target drive for your task, right-click one of the target drives you want to protect > Click Restrict for selection. The Drive will remain greyed out if you reboot the app.

Funnily enough, I was the one who requested in the early stage of development to protect myself from accidental writing to my work drives

[Vitaliy Mokosiy]

May I suggest an option to erase with a specific pattern, defined by user?

Thank You

Yeah, it is possible in both GUI and CLI versions of the app. In GUI, you click Erase > then Options button. The pattern option is there.

[Vitaliy Mokosiy]

Gave it a little test for wiping multiple drives of unknown condition.

Not too bad. Another feature idea is to simply show a drive that has failed SMART properties in the Drives list.

Luke, please pay attention MultiDrive is not designed as a data recovery tool.
Thus, it stops any running task in the event of an I/O error. Perhaps in the future, we will add the ability to skip read/write errors; however, it will not be effective in standard Windows that cannot handle even slightly damaged drives

It's a good idea, as is the SMART. In theory, at least. In practice, there are CrystalDiskInfo and HDSentinel, which track the SMART table. I don't see how we could do anything better.

[pclab]

Great! I will use it for sure.

I will also test the clone feature.

Another request, if possible: when cloning, maintain the percentage of each partition. For instance: if the original drive is 256GB with one partition, when cloning to a 1TB drive, do the same percentage.
If the drive has 2 partitions, for instance 40/60, do the same on the destination.

Do you think it's possible?

[lcoughey]

Gave it a little test for wiping multiple drives of unknown condition.

Not too bad. Another feature idea is to simply show a drive that has failed SMART properties in the Drives list.

Luke, please pay attention MultiDrive is not designed as a data recovery tool.
Thus, it stops any running task in the event of an I/O error. Perhaps in the future, we will add the ability to skip read/write errors; however, it will not be effective in standard Windows that cannot handle even slightly damaged drives

It's a good idea, as is the SMART. In theory, at least. In practice, there are CrystalDiskInfo and HDSentinel, which track the SMART table. I don't see how we could do anything better.

Yeah, I'm not thinking as a data recovery tool and was only looking from the perspective of erasing drives of unknown condition. For me, a failed to erase drive gets crushed and a drive with SMART errors get labeled as such for parts only.

[Vitaliy Mokosiy]

Another request, if possible: when cloning, maintain the percentage of each partition. For instance: if the original drive is 256GB with one partition, when cloning to a 1TB drive, do the same percentage.
If the drive has 2 partitions, for instance 40/60, do the same on the destination.

Do you think it's possible?

It's possible, but I'm not sure if we're ready to spend months implementing partition resizing and scaling. It's an advanced feature that takes time. I would stick to MiniTool Partition Wizard or Paragon Hard Disk Manager for that purpose.

Thank you for your feedback anyway. Noted!

[Vitaliy Mokosiy]

Yeah, I'm not thinking as a data recovery tool and was only looking from the perspective of erasing drives of unknown condition. For me, a failed to erase drive gets crushed and a drive with SMART errors get labeled as such for parts only.

By the way, my team is working on an app update that will introduce a retry mechanism with resets during failed read/write commands. It will make MultiDrive more robust against loose cable connections and some instabilities.

[pclab]

Another request, if possible: when cloning, maintain the percentage of each partition. For instance: if the original drive is 256GB with one partition, when cloning to a 1TB drive, do the same percentage.
If the drive has 2 partitions, for instance 40/60, do the same on the destination.

Do you think it's possible?

It's possible, but I'm not sure if we're ready to spend months implementing partition resizing and scaling. It's an advanced feature that takes time. I would stick to MiniTool Partition Wizard or Paragon Hard Disk Manager for that purpose.

Thank you for your feedback anyway. Noted!

Got it. That's what I use here, so no issues.

[lcoughey]

For resizing partitions while cloning, I use smart partition copy with R-Studio.

[Vitaliy Mokosiy]

We released MultiDrive 1.1 update with improved data recovery and error resistance, building on lots of received feedback:

1. Support of drives with bad sectors:
- If Windows does not crash into BSOD, MultiDrive will clone or backup such a damaged drive.

2. Resilience against cable connection losses. For instance, when you accidentally touch a USB cable during read/write operations.

3. Ability to resume task that failed after several hours of work.

4. Better error reporting.

I would love to hear any new feedback you might have!

[terminator2]

We released MultiDrive 1.1 update with improved data recovery and error resistance, building on lots of received feedback:

1. Support of drives with bad sectors:
- If Windows does not crash into BSOD, MultiDrive will clone or backup such a damaged drive.

2. Resilience against cable connection losses. For instance, when you accidentally touch a USB cable during read/write operations.

3. Ability to resume task that failed after several hours of work.

4. Better error reporting.

I would love to hear any new feedback you might have!

Hi Vitality
Thanks for developing & releasing free , such daily useful tool. Appreciate your time & expertise. Most of the memebers must be having there own tools for disk inwards or inventory management or these operations but new startups or smaller individuals will find this useful.
I have a suggestion. Dashboard & interface should be simple ,clutter free showing more technical details of the disk with log creation option.
If disk details like model /type /sn/fw & smart health status could be logged & exported in txt /html that will make this more useful.
One can select source & target or cloning /imaging .A log of operation with source /target details , time taken ,list of bad sectors etc must be logged.
Thanks

[Vitaliy Mokosiy]

Hi Vitality
Thanks for developing & releasing free , such daily useful tool. Appreciate your time & expertise. Most of the memebers must be having there own tools for disk inwards or inventory management or these operations but new startups or smaller individuals will find this useful.
I have a suggestion. Dashboard & interface should be simple ,clutter free showing more technical details of the disk with log creation option.
If disk details like model /type /sn/fw & smart health status could be logged & exported in txt /html that will make this more useful.
One can select source & target or cloning /imaging .A log of operation with source /target details , time taken ,list of bad sectors etc must be logged.
Thanks

Thank you trying MultiDrive and sharing your feedback! It's great to hear from someone who understands the value of such free tools.

[Rudra]

Hi Vitality
Thanks for developing & releasing free , such daily useful tool. Appreciate your time & expertise. Most of the memebers must be having there own tools for disk inwards or inventory management or these operations but new startups or smaller individuals will find this useful.
I have a suggestion. Dashboard & interface should be simple ,clutter free showing more technical details of the disk with log creation option.
If disk details like model /type /sn/fw & smart health status could be logged & exported in txt /html that will make this more useful.
One can select source & target or cloning /imaging .A log of operation with source /target details , time taken ,list of bad sectors etc must be logged.
Thanks

Thank you trying MultiDrive and sharing your feedback! It's great to hear from someone who understands the value of such free tools.

Since its release , I am using this tool everyday. It's very handy & is saving my time.
Thanks. Keep it Up. Wishing all the Best

[henry66]

.
. .. >> great to hear from someone who understands the value of such free tools

hey, not fair: there are hundreds, if not already thousands of us out here who feel the same about multidrive - just to lazy to write, or simply not finding this forum to do so.

have now used it for some 12-15 clones, for myself, wife and friends - almost never a problem.

only one recently balked: cloning an ssd to an ssd stick - comes back with NO BOOTDEVICE FOUND - on the very same make of stick it has worked before. since cloning a 2TB ssd to a stick takes a long long time (8hrs - stick also overheats, needs constant cooling), one cannot make one test after another.

and: a link to a help file or even a handbook from within the prog would help. not just simple people like me ...

and and: sorry, i keep editing this again and again - a clear indication which version one is using (1.1, 1.4 ???), and an update option right there too, would be very useful.

many greetings - henry
.

[Vitaliy Mokosiy]

.
only one recently balked: cloning an ssd to an ssd stick - comes back with NO BOOTDEVICE FOUND - on the very same make of stick it has worked before. since cloning a 2TB ssd to a stick takes a long long time (8hrs - stick also overheats, needs constant cooling), one cannot make one test after another.
.

Thank you so much for sharing the feedback! I am always happy to learn from specific and detailed experience like yours. We will certainly discuss every point you mentioned.

I've got a few questions about the USB stick that was overheating.
- What is the model of the USB stick drive?
- What was your effective method of cooling it?