Free tools · Checked against each developer’s page
Free Storage Tools
Testing a new drive, reading its health, timing it, backing it up, copying it and wiping it before it leaves all work with free software. These are 37 tools that come up often among people who look after drives, one table per job, each row checked against its developer’s own page in November 2026.
How the list was built
A tool is on this page when its developer’s own page, read on November 5, 2026, offers it with no price and not as a trial. Most are open source, and the License column says when one is freeware instead. I started from the tools that come up often in home lab, data hoarding and drive repair threads, then kept only the ones that pass that rule. Each row’s cells come from the developer’s own page, except where a note names another source or says it is my own view, so each row is the developer’s claim, not a test I ran.
The jobs run in the order a drive meets them, from the day it arrives to the day it leaves. The tools I wrote myself are on the Software page, and the ones that run in a browser are on Labs.
How the list was built
Ten jobs, in the order a drive meets them
Burn-in and fake capacity
Test a new or used drive
A full write-and-read pass shows whether a drive keeps what it is given before your data depends on it. badblocks checks every block of a disk, and f3 checks a card or USB stick against the capacity it reports. A fake stick, as GRC’s ValiDrive page explains, silently drops whatever is written past its real flash.
Test a new or used drive
A fake stick drops every file past its real flash
| Tool | What it does | Runs on | License | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| badblocks | Searches a whole device for bad blocks, read-only by default or with a full write-and-check pass. | Linux | GPL version 2 (e2fsprogs) | Part of e2fsprogs. Its man page warns never to run the -w write test on a drive that holds a file system. |
| f3 (Fight Flash Fraud) | Fills a card or USB stick and reads it back to find its real capacity, and f3fix can shrink a fake drive’s partition to the size it really has. | Linux, macOS, FreeBSD; f3write and f3read on Windows under Cygwin | GPL version 3 | f3probe and f3fix are Linux only. |
Read the drive’s SMART data before and after a long test, with one of the tools in the next section.
Flash ID
See what is inside a drive
A flash ID reader asks the controller which flash sits behind it and decodes each bank’s ID bytes into the flash maker, technology and cell type. VLO’s utilities are the ones I reach for to read a drive’s flash and controller, and ssd-flash-id brings the same approach to Linux.
See what is inside a drive
A flash ID reader asks the controller what flash it drives
| Tool | What it does | Runs on | License | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VLO’s SSD utilities (flash ID readers) | Flash ID readers by Vadim Ochkin that report which flash sits inside an SSD or USB drive, for Phison, Silicon Motion, Maxio, Realtek, Innogrit, Tenafe, Marvell, JMicron, SandForce and Yeestor controllers. | Windows | Download offered, no price or license stated | Each reader covers its own list of controllers. The same page also lists firmware flashers and repair tools, which this row does not cover. |
| ssd-flash-id | An open-source Linux counterpart to VLO’s readers that reports the flash maker, technology and cell type of each NAND bank on NVMe and SATA SSDs. | Linux | MIT | It needs root, and covers Silicon Motion, Realtek, Phison and Maxio NVMe controllers plus several SATA families. |
SMART readers
Check a drive’s health
Every drive keeps a SMART log of its own health, and each of these reads it. CrystalDiskInfo suits one Windows PC, smartctl and nvme-cli suit a terminal, and Scrutiny keeps a dashboard for a server full of drives.
Check a drive’s health
Three tools read the drive, and two more build on smartctl
| Tool | What it does | Runs on | License | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CrystalDiskInfo | Reads the health data of hard drives and SSDs, including some USB, Intel RAID and NVMe drives, in a window you can leave running. | Windows | MIT | NVMe drives need Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016 or later. |
| smartmontools (smartctl) | Reads SMART data from ATA and SATA, SCSI and SAS, and NVMe drives at the command line. | Linux, Windows, macOS, BSD, Solaris | GPL version 2 | The NVMe SMART Decoder on this site reads its output. |
| GSmartControl | A graphical front end for smartctl that can also open a saved smartctl report as a read-only drive. | Linux, Windows, macOS, BSD | GPL version 3 | It reads drives through smartctl, so smartmontools comes with it. |
| Scrutiny | A web dashboard that collects SMART data from the drives in a server and sets it against real-world failure rates. | Docker; builds for Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, Windows | MIT | Its developer still calls it a work in progress with rough edges. |
| nvme-cli | The command-line tool for managing NVMe drives on Linux. | Linux | GPL version 2 | Most Linux distributions package it under the name nvme-cli. |
To make sense of an NVMe drive’s log, paste smartctl or nvme-cli output into the NVMe SMART Decoder. The wear figures for my own system drive in Do SSDs Wear Out in a Couple of Years? came from a read-only smartctl capture.
Benchmarks
Measure a drive’s speed
A benchmark is only as good as its setup. CrystalDiskMark and KDiskMark give quick numbers you can compare; fio and DiskSpd let you describe the exact workload.
Measure a drive’s speed
Preset tests for a quick number, a described workload for a real one
| Tool | What it does | Runs on | License | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CrystalDiskMark | A simple disk benchmark with sequential and random read and write tests. | Windows | MIT | The sequential read results in my myth guides come from it. |
| KDiskMark | A hard drive and SSD benchmark with a graphical interface that runs fio and lays out its results. | Linux | GPL version 3 | It needs fio installed, since fio does the testing. |
| fio | The Flexible I/O Tester: you describe a workload, and fio runs it with threads or processes. | Linux, Windows, macOS, BSD, Solaris | GPL version 2 | Each tagged release from fio 3.31 on has a Windows installer. |
| DiskSpd | A storage load generator from Microsoft’s Windows, Windows Server and Cloud Server Infrastructure engineering teams. | Windows | MIT | The binary release needs Windows 10, version 1803 or later. |
The sequential read results in A Higher Sequential Speed Means a Faster PC are CrystalDiskMark runs from my bench. Synthetic benchmark tools explains what each test stands for, and Benchmarking 201 builds fio jobs step by step.
Disk usage
Find what fills a drive
When a drive fills up, a size map shows where the space went before you delete anything.
Find what fills a drive
A treemap makes the one big folder obvious
| Tool | What it does | Runs on | License | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WinDirStat | Maps a drive’s folders by size and finds large or duplicate files, with cleanup tools built in. | Windows | GPL version 3 or later | It can also scan network shares and cloud storage. |
| SpaceSniffer | Draws a drive’s folders and files as a treemap you can click into, with filters by type, size, date and tag. | Windows 7 to 11 | Freeware | It is portable, so it runs without installing, and can export a text report. |
| WizTree | A disk space analyzer that lists the biggest folders and files on a drive. | Windows, macOS | Freeware, free for personal use | Free for personal use only. |
| ncdu | A disk usage browser for the terminal, for servers with no desktop. | Linux, BSD, macOS | MIT | Packages exist for most Linux distributions, the BSDs and macOS. |
After a cleanup on an SSD, TRIM Check tells you whether TRIM is on.
File backup
Back up files
A backup is a copy you can roll back to, kept apart from the drive it protects. The UK National Cyber Security Centre’s 3-2-1 rule is at least three copies on two devices, with one of them offsite. restic, Kopia and BorgBackup make the backup snapshots, and restic, Kopia and rclone can reach cloud storage for the offsite copy.
Back up files
Three copies, one of them somewhere else
| Tool | What it does | Runs on | License | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FreeFileSync | Compares a source and a target folder and copies only the differences, as a Two way, Mirror or Update sync. | Windows, macOS, Linux | Open source | One of my favorites. The project runs on ads and donations. |
| restic | A command-line backup program that keeps encrypted, versioned snapshots on a local disk, a server or cloud storage. | Linux, macOS, Windows, FreeBSD, OpenBSD | BSD 2-Clause | GNOME’s Déjà Dup backup app uses restic underneath. |
| Kopia | Makes encrypted snapshots to cloud, network or local storage, from the command line or a graphical app. | Windows, macOS, Linux | Apache 2.0 | Its developers describe its encryption as client-side and end to end. |
| BorgBackup | A deduplicating backup program with compression and authenticated encryption. | Linux, macOS, FreeBSD | BSD-style | Its developers say its encryption suits backups kept somewhere you do not fully trust. |
| rclone | Copies and syncs files and folders to and from cloud storage at the command line. | Linux, macOS, Windows, FreeBSD | MIT | Its developers call it rsync for cloud storage. |
Cloning and Backup covers the backup tools built into Windows, macOS and Linux.
Bootable USB
Make a boot stick
Clonezilla, Rescuezilla, GParted Live and ShredOS all run from a stick of their own, so a boot stick usually comes first.
Make a boot stick
Ventoy holds many images on one stick, Rufus and Etcher write one
| Tool | What it does | Runs on | License | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ventoy | Turns a USB stick into a boot menu: copy ISO, WIM, IMG, VHD(x) or EFI files onto it and pick one at boot. | Installs from Windows or Linux; boots most operating systems | GPL version 3 | One stick can hold many images at once, and adding one needs no reformat. |
| Rufus | Formats a USB stick and writes a bootable image from an ISO to it, Windows installers included. | Windows 8 or later | GPL version 3 or later | It can build Windows 11 installers for PCs without TPM or Secure Boot. |
| balenaEtcher | Flashes an OS image to an SD card or USB drive and checks that every byte was written correctly. | Windows 10 and later, macOS 10.13 and later, Linux | Apache 2.0 | It guards against writing to a hard drive by mistake. |
Clone and recovery
Copy, image or rescue a drive
A clone copies one drive onto another, and an image saves it to a file you restore later. Macrium Reflect Free got security patches only until January 1, 2024, and Macrium’s support policy says it can no longer be downloaded, so it is not in the table.
Copy, image or rescue a drive
Clone, image or rescue: three ways to copy a drive
| Tool | What it does | Runs on | License | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rescuezilla | A point-and-click disk imager that boots from USB and reads and writes Clonezilla images. | Boots from USB; images Windows, Mac and Linux machines | GNU GPL | It works even when the installed system will not start. |
| Clonezilla | Images and clones partitions and whole disks from its own boot stick. | Boots on x86 and x86-64 PCs | GPL version 2 | On file systems it knows, it saves only the used blocks. |
| Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows FREE | Makes image backups of a whole PC, a volume or single folders, and builds bootable recovery media for bare-metal restores. | Windows | Freeware | Its recovery media can restore the whole PC to bare metal. |
| Atola MultiDrive | Clones, backs up and erases drives and checks each backup by hash. It also works on a drive Windows cannot read. | Windows; a WinPE boot image for cloning the system drive | Freeware, for personal and commercial use | It copies every sector, free space included, and does not resize partitions on a larger drive. |
| Paragon Backup & Recovery Community Edition | Backs up whole disks, the system, or files and folders, and restores from a WinPE boot environment. | Windows 10 (1809 and newer) and Windows 11 | Freeware, non-commercial use only | It cannot copy a system volume, which only Paragon’s Hard Disk Manager does. |
| GNU ddrescue | Copies a failing drive to a healthy one, rescuing the readable parts first when it meets read errors. | Linux; any device the kernel supports | GPL version 2 or later | With its mapfile, you can stop a rescue at any time and resume it later at the same point. |
Cloning and Backup walks through which of these jobs you need and the steps for each. For a drive that throws read errors, start with ddrescue rather than a cloning tool.
Recovery and repair
Recover files and fix partitions
Stop writing to a drive as soon as you notice files are missing. PhotoRec’s developers warn that new files can overwrite the lost ones.
Recover files and fix partitions
Each repair tool works on a different layer of the disk
| Tool | What it does | Runs on | License | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TestDisk | Finds lost partitions and makes a disk that will not boot bootable again. | Windows, Linux, macOS, BSD, DOS | GPL version 2 or later | It can also gather a dead drive’s details for a technician to look at. |
| PhotoRec | TestDisk’s companion: recovers deleted photos and other files from disks and memory cards. | Windows, Linux, macOS | GPL version 2 or later | Save nothing more to the drive once you notice files are missing. |
| GParted | A graphical partition editor for resizing, moving, copying and checking partitions, run from its own live stick. | Boots on x86-64 PCs running Linux, Windows or macOS | GPL version 2 or later | It runs from GParted Live, a boot stick of its own. |
Erase
Erase a drive before it leaves
An SSD keeps spare flash the computer cannot address, so the safe wipe is the drive’s own erase command. Overwriting is not a sure fix. In Wei and colleagues’ tests, two full overwrites usually cleaned a drive but not every time, and every single-file overwrite failed. NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 2 says to avoid multi-pass overwrite on SSDs for the same reason.
Erase a drive before it leaves
Only the drive’s own Sanitize reaches the spare flash
| Tool | What it does | Runs on | License | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nvme-cli (nvme sanitize) | Starts the drive’s own Sanitize command as a block erase, an overwrite or a crypto erase. | Linux | GPL version 2 | Check which Sanitize actions the drive reports before you pick one. |
| hdparm | Sends ATA Security Erase or Enhanced Security Erase to a SATA drive. | Linux | BSD-style | The erase needs a drive password set first, and its man page marks both commands DANGEROUS. |
| nwipe | Overwrites whole disks, and from version 0.43 can also run an ATA or NVMe drive’s own block erase, crypto scramble or overwrite. | Linux | GPL version 2 | Its developers recommend the drive’s own erase first, then at least one full random pass. |
| ShredOS | A small bootable system that starts straight into nwipe. | Boots on x86 PCs, servers and Intel-based Macs | GPL version 2 or later, per its COPYING file | Its README warns to double-check every selected drive before starting a wipe. |
The Secure Erase Lab runs delete, format, TRIM, overwrite and each drive command on a simulated SSD, then counts what is left on the chips.
What the list leaves out
Drive makers’ own tools, such as Samsung Magician, are built for the maker’s drives, so they are out of scope here. Paid tools and trials are out by the rule above, and so are Mac-only apps. Cloning and Backup covers backing up a Mac.
A tool that drops its free version leaves the list when the page is next updated, and a tool that adds one can join it.