Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12

[Vicenarian]

Ok; I'll make this short and sweet.

I do a lot of disk imaging/cloning, specifically with old (some bad sectors) drives onto new drives. Sometimes I'll just run clonezilla, but more recently I've been saving drive images onto a bench PC through my SATA to USB 3.0 dock (very quick) which has 2 drive bays. This way, I always have an image I can hold onto in case something goes wrong, and it's basically almost as fast as a true SATA connection.

A couple key features I need:

- The ability to clone a disk with some bad sectors successfully
- The ability to clone a smaller disk onto a larger disk, and resize partitions, etc.


I've tried Acronis, but mainly used Macrium in the past. As I'm about to purchase some new software for this year, I'm also considering the latest version of Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 (which I have no experience with).

For the purposes I've described above, does anybody have a specific recommendation? Should I stick with Macrium, or go with something else?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I love Paragons products. Signed up years ago to be a reseller....their main tech guy at the time, Tony...he rocked!

Give some of their products a try....they have trials you can download, install..and play with for a while. See how you like it. You probably want one of the biz/IT grade products over a single purchase of a home product.

 

[Disposable_Me]

DriveImage XML imo

the image is malleable afterwards too

 

[Martyn]

Ok; I'll make this short and sweet.

I do a lot of disk imaging/cloning, specifically with old (some bad sectors) drives onto new drives. Sometimes I'll just run clonezilla, but more recently I've been saving drive images onto a bench PC through my SATA to USB 3.0 dock (very quick) which has 2 drive bays. This way, I always have an image I can hold onto in case something goes wrong, and it's basically almost as fast as a true SATA connection.

A couple key features I need:

- The ability to clone a disk with some bad sectors successfully
- The ability to clone a smaller disk onto a larger disk, and resize partitions, etc.


I've tried Acronis, but mainly used Macrium in the past. As I'm about to purchase some new software for this year, I'm also considering the latest version of Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 (which I have no experience with).

For the purposes I've described above, does anybody have a specific recommendation? Should I stick with Macrium, or go with something else?

I've bought Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 Professional and was just starting to use it when I read your post. Previously I have been using Acronis but I have had a few issues lately and spent 2.5 hours on the phone with their support I managed to get things working without them only to have other issues. I have no time to play with software that gives me problems so I'm looking at others now. The Paragon suite looks really good with all the features so i'm giving it some time to try it out.

 

[MobileTechie]

I used Paragon previously but for some reason I got some problems with it being unable to restore some images, which obviously is quite a serious problem. That's when I switched to Acronis. Not that that is without problems mind.

 

[Martyn]

Ok first test. I created a hard drive backup of and Acer Aspire One running Windows 7 Ultimate. All seems ok. From that backup I created a virtual disk for Oracle VM Virtual Box and that went ok, ran just fine.

 

[bertie40]

I had exactly the same quandary as the OP.

Paragon vs Acronis ( and others)

In the end, I went for paragon hard drive suite 12 pro.

I tried to do my homework, but honestly I feel a little disappointed.

Yes it is fully featured with the ability to create win and Linux boot disks and mess around with virtual drives and stuff.

BUT. It is the "bread and butter" aspect of cloning a drive that gets me. Despite reports and reviews, I feel that it is just plain slow.

I was hoping for a quicker turnaround but it seems to take ages. And I've messed around with settings. The predicted completion times are a joke as they are wildly inaccurate. And they don't appear to settle down as the job progresses.

Also, its just "little things" that irritate, where the advanced menu system has plenty of tabs, but a lot if them are almost hidden away.

Backing up a drive, I feel I have to triple check I'm selecting the right drive. And then check again. Particularly if both drives you are interested in are the same type.

This is just my single opinion, so don't base any decision solely on this. Perhaps it's just me and the learning curve.
AGAIN though, why should there be a learning curve ?

Rant over.

I would welcome a counter argument.

 

[Vicenarian]

So this is sort of a follow-up question: Does anybody know if Acronis/Macrium/etc. will re-try copying bad sectors instead of just ignoring them (as instructed). I know ddrescue does this, but it would be awesome if other imaging software solutions also had this option.


PS: I will try the trial version of Paragon when I get the chance.

As a sidenote, I have a computer in-shop today that has a drive with a few bad sectors; I'm cloning it onto a new drive. Clonezilla disk-to-disk came up with a bunch of IO errors, which wasn't very comforting. A Macrium image (using "intelligent sector copy" which only copies sectors that are supposed to have data in them) saved ok, and restored ok, but the machine BSODs with "File System" errors, even after running an offline chkdsk /R. I just imaged the drive again in Macrium, turning off the "Intelligent Sector Copy" function (so it will copy the drive exactly as is, I guess?) and the image saved sucessfully. I'm restoring it now, and will post back with the results.

 

[Martyn]

So this is sort of a follow-up question: Does anybody know if Acronis/Macrium/etc. will re-try copying bad sectors instead of just ignoring them (as instructed). I know ddrescue does this, but it would be awesome if other imaging software solutions also had this option.

I will check later but I think Acronis Backup and Recovery has an option to retry x amount of times.

Bertie

Yes I'm disappointed with my first backup with Paragon. As you say the time displayed at the start and during the process is way off the mark. Acronis was very quick and this is important as I use it a lot as a safety factor.

 

[Martyn]

This is the screen i was thinking of Bertie.

 

[lcoughey]

One thing to consider when trying to find a tool for imaging drives with bad sectors is how they deal with those sectors. In most cases, the programs are set to read fairly large block sizes (ie, 1024 sectors) at a time and if a single sector in that block has a read timeout, that entire block is skipped, losing all 1024 sectors. This is where ddrescue is helpful, as it will start with a larger block size and adjust the size up and down, as needed. It is still not perfect, but it is better than most other software programs out there.

If this is a frequent problem for you, I recommend forking out the cash for the best hardware imager on the market, DeepSpar Disk Imager.

 

[NYJimbo]

If this is a frequent problem for you, I recommend forking out the cash for the best hardware imager on the market, DeepSpar Disk Imager.

The only problem with this is the price difference.

DDRESCUE = $0

DDI = $3500+

I think we need a thread on mid range priced hardware/software options for techs who would like to do advanced data recovery but not spend thousands of dollars to get better results than what they get for free.

 

[lcoughey]

The only problem with this is the price difference.

DDRESCUE = $0

DDI = $3500+

I think we need a thread on mid range priced hardware/software options for techs who would like to do advanced data recovery but not spend thousands of dollars to get better results than what they get for free.

Thus why I said, if this is a common issue.

 

[bertie40]

Paragon hard disk manager 12 pro.

Performing an incremental backup from a 120gb partition.

Only using about 40 gb.

Time to completion : 4 hours 37 minutes.

Unless I am missing something, or clicked something inadvertently.....

this is not acceptable. .

 

[Frick]

The estimated time the program lists is never really accurate. That is my only real complaint with it.

It will probably be done in less then an hour (unless the drive has bad sectors). Obviously the time also varies on how the drive you are saving to is connected, sata, usb, etc

 

[bertie40]

Yep. That's what I thought.
So I waited 15 mins......And it continues to crawl.

Time to completion?
Barely changed.

And it's an incremental of a 40gb set of files ffs. !

Sorry, this has really hacked me off. I tried the trial and it seemed ok.

I'm trying to get a refund. Even if its me hitting a wrong key or something, I've lost confidence in it.

I'm looking at shadowprotect as a replacement, but the prices are too high. Its a bad sign when they offer you a 2 week license.

I need to get this machine finished so I can go to bed and deliver it first thing tomorrow morning.

Expletives, expletives, expletives. .....

 

[bertie40]

I've dug out redo backup. Ok, I'm backing up the entire drive as opposed to a small partition, but its still quicker than the paragon.

 

[smashedbotatos]

Is there any reason you won't use Clonezilla? I am just curious. I normally use Clonezilla to create most of my images.

 

[bertie40]

I've used clonezilla myself numerous times.

I'm just after a backup product which can image and perform incremental and differential backups.

Something I can use of customers machines with a degree of confidence.

Also something where I don't have to sell my family off to the slave trade would be nice. ( then again ....... . )

I'm willing to buy software, but unwilling to pay exorbitant prices. Yep. I'm tight fisted. Deep pockets and short arms.

 

[smashedbotatos]

Ah ok! Thanks for the answer. I was just wondering if I was "doin it wrong" by using Clonezilla. It seems almost everyone uses something else. Be it Acronis, Paragon, Shadowcraft, or REDO.

Incremental makes sense though for customers. Does Ghost do incremental backups? I have not touched Ghost in a long time.