Modifying, copying, and backing up hard drives and partitions is a common task for PC technicians and desktop support personnel. Paragon Partition Manager 10 Professional is a tool designed to make these kinds of tasks easy for these IT pros. There is a lot to like in this package.

Note: This review was performed based on the publicly available trial edition of Paragon Partition Manager 10 Professional.

Specifications

  • Operating System: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and 7, 32-bit and 64-bit editions of all OS’s
  • Supported Disk Types: IDE, SATA, eSATA, SCSI, RAID (SCSI, IDE, and SATA), FireWire, USB, PC card storage
  • Supported Removable Media: CR-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R DVD+RW, BD-R, BD-RE, Zip disks, Jazz disks
  • Supported File Systems: NTFS, FAT16, FAT32, Ext2FS, Ext3FS, Linux swap (limited), HPFS, HFS+ (limited), all other file systems in sector-by-sector mode
  • Hardware: Pentium 300 MHz, 256 MB RAM, 100 MB disk space, IE 5 (or better)
  • Cost: $63.95
  • Additional Information: Product Web site
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Who’s it for?

IT professionals who support desktop computers will appreciate the functionality in Paragon Partition Manager Professional. For those who need to support servers, Paragon makes a version that supports them. Enthusiasts/hobbyists will also like the functionality, but the price tag may be a bit steep for something that will not be used frequently.

What problems does it solve?

While the standard partition and drive management tools that come with Windows have steadily improved over the years (such as the relatively recent addition of partition resizing), they still lack much of the functionality that desktop technicians require, such as drive and partition copying. Paragon Partition Manager addresses these shortcomings with a full feature set and an easy-to-use interface that helps ensure that costly mistakes are not made.

Standout Features

  • Full Feature Set: Paragon Partition Manager has all of the functionality that one could want for managing their drives and partitions.
  • Good User Interface: A mistake with a tool like this could wipe out critical data or wreck a machine; the user interface is easy to use and to understand, which helps to reduce mistakes.
  • Good Wizards: The application has useful wizards which step you through some of the processes and highlight potential problems along the way.

What’s wrong?

Cost: Enthusiasts or hobbyist users will want to look at the less full featured Personal edition due to the cost of the Professional version.

Competitive products

Bottom line for business

Paragon Partition Manager 10 Professional is a Swiss Army knife when it comes to drive and partition management. You would be hard pressed to find a need that it cannot fulfill. In contrast to earlier versions, the user interface is much improved and easier to use. All the same, if you have an attachment to the old user interface, you can change back to it through a simple setting. This application is incredibly configurable as well, with sensible defaults selected out of the box.

The feature set is much deeper than just copying, resizing, and creating/deleted partitions, though. There is the ability to install a boot manager which allows easy partition recovery at system startup, for example. There is built-in defragmentation and disk integrity checking utilities. You can also use a WinPE recovery system to try to resurrect a dead system, as well as a boot CD to work with. Overall, the package is an outstanding combination of features.

Another great feature is the “virtual mode” where operations are queued up but not performed until the user gives the final OK; this is a great way to avoid mistakes and to make sure that you are really doing what you need to be doing on multi-step procedures. While the cost is a bit high for a home user, it is a fair price for a high quality, professional grade tool like this.

User rating

Have you encountered or used Paragon Partition Manager 10 Professional? If so, what do you think? Rate your experience and compare the results to what other TechRepublic members think. Give your own personal review in the TechRepublic Community Forums or let us know if you think we left anything out in our review.

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Main screen

When first started, Paragon Partition Manager Professional allows the easy launching of various wizards.

Full application

By choosing “Full Scale Launcher” from the main menu, you can enter the full application. This is a more advanced screen with many more options and details available.

Backup wizard

The backup wizard allows you to choose exactly what you want to copy, with varying degrees of granularity.

Options

There are a huge number of settings throughout the application to make it work exactly the way you want it to; this is one example of these options, from the backup wizard.

Virtual mode

Paragon Partition Manager 10 Professional can use a “virtual mode” where operations are not actually performed immediately. This is the default, and it is a great way to catch mistakes before they are made.

Volume Shadow Copy

The application can also use Windows’ Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) to take “snapshots” of data. This is a critical feature if you have certain applications running in the background while operations are being performed.

User interface

This is another example of the UI, this time for a partition resize operation. As you can see, it provides you with all of the information you need to make the right decision, while being clear and easy to understand at the same time.