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Price: £65
($129.95)
Supplier: Paragon
Software Group
Sales:
sales@paragon-software.com
Web:
http://www.paragon-software.com
System
requirements:
Pentium Processor 300MHz or higher, 128MB RAM, 40MB free Hard Disk
space, Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Server 2003
As the windows
operating system becomes ever more complex, its disk space
requirements get ever larger. Gone are the days when a 10GB hard
drive was considered large. Now drives of over 160GB are becoming
the norm and, as drives get ever bigger, the available software code
expands in an ever increasing rush to fill them.
From this
perspective it is obvious that, at some point in the not too distant
future, you are going to be looking at increasing your hard drive
size. While the hard drive upgrade is not necessarily a problem, the
main major hurdle is how to get the operating system and all the
associated software applications off your old hard drive and onto
the new drive without having to physically re-install the whole lot.
The answer to this question lies with Paragon Drive Copy 8.0
Fig 1: Drive Copy’s Main
Interface
Drive Copy
Professional consists of a Windows installation file, and an image
of a bootable Linux based Copy CD, providing an XP like interface
and functionality should your system fail to boot. Drive Copy
provides a simple and effective way of, not only cloning a hard
drive but, for those that need it, also copying specific partitions
from one hard drive to another.
Off To See The
Wizard
The main copying
applications within Drive Copy are wizard driven, making the
software exceptionally easy to use. The one button copy wizard, for
instance, quickly guides you through the process of cloning a hard
drive. There are even easy to use wizards for copying partitions and
scheduling hard drive and partition copying.
Fig 2: Selecting a disk to copy
is easy using the Clone Hard Disk Wizard
The easy to use
wizard interface allows you to select the drive/partition you want
to copy. It is then simply a matter of clicking on the drive title
bar on the destination disk map, clicking the NEXT button and away
you go. When copying, say, a partition, you can also perform, using
the wizard’s slider scales, minor tweaks of the copy parameters; for
example, re-sizing the copy partition or adjusting the free space at
the beginning and end of the available disk space. While these
options are a God send, it is somewhat disappointing that they are
not available to the user as a default option. Instead the user
needs to enable the ‘Copy the partition with re-size’ option
otherwise Drive Copy will simply copy the partition at its full
size.
The length of
time taken to copy a drive or partition does not only depend upon
disk size, but also upon whether all sector copying - enabling an
exact copy of the drive/partition to be created - or the skip
auxiliary files option is selected. By skipping Auxiliary files, for
instance, copying time can be somewhat reduced by ensuring that
files such as pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys are not copied over to
the new destination.
The More the
Merrier
While Drive Copy
is simple to use, it actually has more strings to its bow than
simply being able to copy the contents of a partition or hard drive.
Right clicking on a block of unallocated or free space on the disk
map, for instance, will bring forth a drop down menu. From this menu
a host of other options become available. One such option being
Create a new partition. Disk Copy’s Create Partition adheres to the
standard DOS partitioning scheme so, unfortunately, it isn’t capable
of creating partitions on dynamic disks.
Fig 3: A variety of other
options are available simply by right clicking the mouse on the disk
map
The Right Format
Formatting a
drive or partition is also straight-forward with Drive Copy. Once
again the right mouse click comes into play. Simply select the
relevant partition, right click on it, and then, from the drop down
menu, select Format partition.
File systems
available in Drive Copy include: FAT12; FAT16; FAT32; NTFS; EXT2;
EXT3; ReiserFS; Linux swap v.2 and HPFS.
On Schedule
An imaged copy of
a hard drive or partition is not much use unless it is kept bang up
to date. Drive Copy’s scheduling option enables you to arrange for a
copy of the hard drive or partition to be created subject, of
course, to the necessary free space being available, on a daily,
weekly or monthly basis, simply by setting a date and time within
the scheduling wizard.
Fig 4: Scheduling Drive Copy is
really easy
Some Like it Hot
Hot copy mode
enables real time cloning of server disks without the need of
re-starting the PC. This is a user defined option accessed from the
Edit settings option window. Hot copying does, however, require the
use of a temporary drive.
Fig 5: Hot Copy needs a
temporary drive to work well
By default this
is the C: drive; although, if sufficient free space is not available
on the C: drive, the user can easily designate an alternative
temporary drive.
Variety is The
Spice Of Life
Partitioning and
formatting aren’t the only tricks Drive Copy has up its sleeve.
Other options include: Deleting partitions; Undeleting partitions;
Mounting partitions; Changing partition attributes, i.e. hiding/unhiding
a partition; Changing the partition ID (SID); Updating the Master
Boot Record and Setting the label of a partition.
Verdict
Drive Copy
Professional is really easy to use, gets the job done quickly and is
packed with a wide range of disk managing option. The downside is
that you are restricted to copying partitions to unallocated or free
space, as opposed to being able to over write a particular partition
with data from an earlier back up copy of your drive/partition. A
further disappointment is that shrinking a partition prior to
copying is not a default option, the user having to enable the “copy
the partition with re-size” option prior to starting the copy
process. Sadly, this option can easily be missed.
These slight
drawbacks, however, don’t detract from the usefulness and simplicity
of Drive Copy, making it a must have addition for every system
administrator.
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Ease of use:
9.0
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Features: 10.0
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Value for
Money: 9.0
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Overall: 9.0
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