Partclone is a great tool that is basically like dd only it does not waste space, it doesn't take the whole partition, yet it does the same thing as dd, only with huge space/cost savings. Clonezilla uses partclone and is more of an integrated/easy to use suite I guess you could say. I've personally only used partclone but I wish there was an easy way to mount partclone images. I believe with Clonezilla you can do that, so I will probably give it a shot next time.........