Drive Imaging Software

Greetings!

I am looking for some free software that will periodically clone my primary drive and store it on a different drive. I've seen a few lists and have an idea of where to start but I'd also appreciate some suggestions.

I would prefer an easy-to-use program that has a graphical user interface because I have limited exposure to Linux. If there is some software that is command line based that is largely superior then I will definitely give it a shot. A nice interface is a major plus, though.

I will be using this software under Linux Mint 8 KDE Community Edition.

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

ntfsclone can clone ntfs partitions to a file or another drive
dd can do a block-for-block clone of your disk to a file

 

rsync is good for backups (but not for imaging of partitions). one can use a cron job to schedule regular runs.

but rsync doesn't make drive images. if that's essential, consider clonezilla server. it can clone over a network. so in case your backup drive is a nas, it might be worth looking into. (i've only used clonezilla live myself.)

 

Thanks for the suggestions! I will consider all of the options.

Would it be easier, though, to just set up two drives in a RAID 1 configuration? The problem with that is that one drive is SATA and the other is IDE. I'm not sure if those can be used in the same array. If not, would something like this IDE to SATA adapter allow it to work? I suppose the downside to this method would be that I wouldn't be able to use the remaining portion of the 80GB drive. That isn't too big of a deal, though, since I'd be gaining redundancy.