Rescuezilla
Whole-disk backup and restore. Runs from a USB stick and copies an entire drive to an image file, or clones it.
Our verdict
Rescuezilla is the closest match for Macrium Reflect or Acronis True Image if what you used them for was imaging the whole disk. You write it to a USB stick, start the computer from that stick, and it gives you a plain window with buttons for backup, restore and clone.
Because it runs before your system loads, it works on a machine that no longer starts, and it handles Windows drives as happily as Linux ones. The images it makes are Clonezilla format, which means they are readable by other tools rather than locked to this one.
The gap is scheduling. Acronis and Macrium sit in the background and image the disk every week on their own. Rescuezilla does not, so for everyday file backups you want Deja Dup or Pika Backup running to a second drive, and Rescuezilla for the occasional full picture before a big change.
What's good
- Images the whole drive, so a restore brings back the system exactly as it was
- Backs up and restores Windows, Mac and Linux drives from the same USB stick
- Runs before the system starts, so it can rescue a machine that will not boot
- Free, and it reads images made by Clonezilla, VirtualBox, VMware and Qemu
What to know first
- It is a bootable USB stick, not an app you open on the desktop
- There are no scheduled backups. Every one is something you sit down and do
- It cannot restore to a drive smaller than the original without help
- Images are all-or-nothing, so pulling one file out of last month's backup is awkward
The details
- Cost
- Free
- Open source
- Yes (GPL-3.0)
- How you install it
- AppImage download
Windows apps it can replace
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