Overview

Paragon Drive Backup Personal Edition is easy to use drive backup software to safeguard your data.  It also features file backup and transfer along with enhanced recover tools.  The new Professional Adaptive Restore technology allows you to restore an OS and data to any type of hardware including virtual machines.  They offer Recovery Media Builder so you can creat a bootable USB flash drive to recover from a corrupt OS or booting problems.

Walk Through Review

Installation – 7

Installation is straight forward and easy following the Installation wizard.

During the installation process you will be able to select between the 32 or 64 bit version based on your operating system.

A restart is required to complete the installation.

Features – 8

There are a lot of new features to this version of Paragon Drive Backup Such as a Built-in Backup Scheduler for daily, weekly or Monthly backups.

You can create a bootable CD or USB flash drive with the Recovery Media Builder in case you cannot boot to your hard drive.

Another handy feature is the File Transfer Wizard so you can easily transfer individual files and folders to other locations.

Ease of Use – 8

Most of the functions used in this application are achieved through a wizard user interface making it easy to perform tasks.  Here we will look at the steps for backing up a local drive … first start the Backup Wizard from the main interface and click Next.

Now select the drive you want to backup and click Next.

Then you need to choose a location for the backup file which can be a different local drive, network drive, CD or DVD.

In this instance we are backing up to a network drive so browse to the location on the network to save the archive.  Notice in Archive details you can change the name to something more appropriate for you to remember.

In the next step we enter a description for the back up and choose to backup now or at a later scheduled time.

We chose to run the backup right away so next you will get a full summary of the backup job for review.  If something doesn’t look correct you can just go back and change it.

This part of the setup process is done.  Keep in mind that the backup settings have not run yet we need to activate it in the next couple steps.

Now back in the main control panel you want to click on the Apply button to apply the pending operation.

The first time you will see this screen informing you of the operations to be applied and how you can discard, change, undo, or redo them.

When the operation is applied you will get a screen indicating the over all progress of the backup in progress.  When everything is complete you will see the backup archive file in the network or local directory you pointed it to.

Performance – 8

Backups are relatively quick and it doesn’t take up all all of your system resources to run.  While a scheduled backup is taking place you will still be able to comfortably run other applications.  It also does a great job of compressing the archive file to save space and not take up too much bandwidth on a network.

Product Support – 8

Paragon offers several ways to get support through their website including complimentary, per incident, and advanced plans.  Self help users will find FAQ, Knowledgebase, and online request support forms.  There is also phone support available for users who purchase extended support services.

They also have a very nicely laid out internal help file for finding answers on using different features.

Conclusion

This is a very nicely laid out and easy to use backup utility.  Backups are fast and effective, of course the amount of time it takes to backup your system will vary depending on the size of the drive and amount of data you want stored.  Paragon Drive Backup Personal works with Windows XP and Vista (32 or 64 bit versions).  They offer a free 30 day trial and then $39.95 after that for a full license.  If you have a small or medium sized business you will definitely want to look at the Professional Versions.

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Rating

• Installation: 7
• Ease of Use: 8
• Features: 8
• Performance: 8
• Product Support: 8