14 DAY TRIAL // Paragon is a company with more than 10 years' experience in the world of software development and specialized on software solutions in the field of storage management and data safety. They have managed to create a couple of programs designed for HDD management and they have done a super good job. In November 2006 the company announces the release of Hard Disk Manager 8.0, "a universal solution for partitioning, backup, imaging, cloning and recovery", as they say in the press release document.
The price of the utility is $50 and the trial period available for testing purposes is 15 days. The trial period is more than enough to check out the application and its features. Take into consideration that the Demo version will still have some additional restrictions (deleting the partition is limited). The tool will assist you into creating new partitions, merging the existing ones, create an image from a current partition, wipe them and restore them. You can practically play with the volumes on your hard disk any way you want.
The interface is incredible as usual and it looks very modern. The intuitive buttons doubled by the wizards available for every task you begin will make working with the application a snap. Having all these features and equipped with the wizards for the operation recommends it to be used by every person that can understand English.
Backing up partitions is one tool Partition Manager does not include in the list of features. It is only natural as that disk utility deals only with partition related tasks. Hard Disk Manager Pro, on the other hand, will handle backing up and restoring the partitions and the backup options include both simple backup operation as well as differential backup (updates the previous backup by adding only the new elements).
To skip the backup task which in some cases can be pretty time consuming, the software makes available the scheduling option that will set the program to perform a backup. The programming can be configured on a daily basis or every couple of days at a user specified time (once every week or month). Also, the user can add security settings to the backup in the sense that a password and a user name can be assigned.
When creating a backup, the user can choose as the destination location a CD/DVD disc or a location in the local network. So the program allows you to write your data on a disc or deposit it on another computer in your network. This way you will be sure that if your hard disk should be damaged in any way, you can always restore the data from the safe place.
Hard Disk Manager Pro will give the users all the necessary details the user may need. The information is provided both before applying the changes and during the process.
The greatest feature of this program is that it can perform all the operations without requiring a reboot of your computer. The results can be seen immediately and the partitions can be used on the spot. When merging two volumes of your hard disk, the software will create a folder ("merged_partition_content") on the newly founded HDD slice where you can find all the files from the two united partitions. So no data will be lost.
Volume Explorer lets the user take a look at the folders stored on the available partitions and hidden folders will also be displayed.
Settings menu is rich enough to cover all the sections of the software. Thus you have configuration options for backup image (compression level, image splitting size), partitioning options (confirmations, surface test levels), CD/DVD recording options (recording speed selection, boot options, ISO image folder), wipe options (choose between the two wipe methods available).
To be frank with you, I liked the entire software and I could do everything I wanted with the hard disk without any problems occurring and without restarting. After the settings for all the operations, the user will simply have to go to Changes menu and click Apply Changes. The process will begin immediately and - to tell you the truth - it does not even take long.
The Good
The application is simply extraordinary. The interface is intuitive and modern looking. The operations are completed fast and without requiring a reboot of the computer. After making all the settings of the operation, all there is to do is choose Apply Changes button.
The application can be used by all types of users as for each operation you will be guided by wizards that tell you what exactly you should do in each stage of the job.
The Bad
The only baddie I could find was when changing the drive letters. The operation took very long if you consider the difficulty of the task. Windows' Disk Management tool does this a whole lot faster. However, it will do the job no questions asked.
Another downfall is the fact that you cannot create a backup of certain files and folders from the partitions, as only entire volumes or the entire hard disk can be backed up. Yet, this is not a backup tool and this baddie is not such a big one. And for saving the files from a drive the user can always use the copy function provided in the Copy Tasks (the left part of the application window)
The Truth
The price is good, the options are great and the amount of time taken to complete the job is incredible. A very good HDD management tool. The Wipe tool allows you to wipe out all data or only the free space so that every trace of deleted files is eliminated. This way the data that is stored and the wiped volume will remain untouched. Also, the wipe method can be customized by the user to create a better wiping algorithm than the ones provided by the application.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
