BalenaEtcher (also known as Etcher) is a popular and very efficient utility for creating bootable installation media on an SD card or a USB stick. It offers a great and simple user experience, supports the common file types, and performs checks to guarantee you get correct results.
What is balenaEtcher?
Creating bootable devices to create an installation media can sometimes become a headache if you don't find proper software solutions that mix simplicity, security, and versatility. That is precisely why BalenaEtcher (or Etcher) has been created to provide a simple and reliable solution to make bootable media by flashing SD cards and USB sticks.
What are the key features of balenaEtcher?
- Interface: Thanks to the modern interface, you are fully guided from the first step. Everything is transparent so that anyone can use it.
- Create bootable media: balenaEtcher is able to create bootable media like USB sticks and SD cards from various files like ISO, IMG, and zipped folders.
- Validated flashing: Ensuring everything went fine during the burning is an essential part of the process. Hopefully, balenaEtcher can confirm your flashing process has been completed so your card will boot and isn't corrupted.
- Hard drive friendly: As a security measure, balenaEtcher hides your system drives so you avoid accidentally whipping all your data.
- Simultaneous writing: Even though this is a pro feature, you can flash up to 16 drives at once.
- Command line: As you can drive balenaEtcher from the command line, you can integrate it into your pipeline.
How to use balenaEtcher?
- Once launched, click on Select Image. Next, select the image file you want to flash on your media.
- Then, click Select Drive and select the media on which you want to flash the image.
- Click on Flash and wait for the process to finish. Once done, balenaEtcher will tell you if everything went correctly.
Is balenaEtcher free?
BalenaEtcher is free to use and full-featured with your first ten devices. If you want to use it with additional devices, subscribe to one of the available plans.
Is balenaEtcher safe?
BalenaEtcher is considered safe and ensures the burning process is correctly completed.