Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2010 Suite review

The name’s a little vague, but that reflects the breadth of Hard Disk Manager 2010 Suite’s abilities. It offers disk imaging, partition management and resizing, boot repair and configuration, secure deletion and even on-demand backup — all for a comparatively low price.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a good buy if the tools themselves were rubbish, but happily the main features are up to par. Cloning disks is the work of a couple of clicks, and when it comes to imaging you get plenty of options such as encryption, file splitting, and – nicely – filters to include and exclude certain files. New in this version, there’s also support for “hot processing”, using either the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service or Paragon’s own technology, so you can image a drive that’s in use.

And crucially, when you come to restore an image, partitions and drives can be resized on the fly to suit the destination — a feature typically missing from freeware imaging software.

As with Norton Ghost, images don’t have to be of entire disks or partitions: you can create a backup image that contains only specific files and folders. These can be saved to a local or network drive, or, as with previous Paragon products, stored in a hidden partition dubbed the “backup capsule”. It lacks the versatility of a dedicated backup service, but for what it is it works well.

The supporting tools are well-conceived too. Plug in a hard disk containing a Windows installation from a different machine and the “Adjust OS” utility will update the drivers so the drive can be booted on the host PC. If the OS still won’t start up, the boot corrector can fix problems with the MBR, partition table or BCD.

And there’s an unexpectedly configurable secure erase tool, which lets you define your own overwrite mask, including multiple passes of cyclic patterns. For real techies there’s a basic sector editing tool too – though sadly without a search function, or any way to jump to a specific file or table.

You’re even spoilt with the choice of two bootable discs, for occasions when you can’t (or don’t want to) boot from your system drive. A WinPE disc lets you run the full application in a minimal CD-based Windows environment, while the Linux-based disc uses a simpler interface but can be customised with your own files and folders. You can also drop to a bash prompt should you so wish.

There are some things this edition of the software can’t do. It’s not scriptable, nor can it change cluster sizes or work with dynamic or virtual machine volumes. There’s no incremental drive imaging either. If you require these high-end features you’ll have to move up to the Professional edition, available for £60 exc VAT.

And even the standard package offers so many functions that the interface can be a little overwhelming. Right-click on a partition, for example, and no fewer than seventeen actions are offered. Seemingly recognising the problem, Paragon does offer an “Express Mode” front-end, offering single-click shortcuts to various wizards, but its list-based design is arguably even less accessible than the main interface.

A final consideration is that if you’re the sort of person who needs disk imaging software, chances are you already have a system in place. In the absence of a standard format for drive images, this may discourage you from switching into Paragon.

But if you are in the market for a general-purpose hard disk tool, Hard Disk Manager 2010 Suite has a lot going for it. For hobbyists or IT professionals performing occasional imaging, partitioning and boot repair tasks, it’s a veritable Swiss army knife of a program, and so comprehensive and convenient it’s easy to justify the price.

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