New Paragon Hard Disk Manager 14 Gains a Host of New Features Including Windows 8.1 Support and an Enhanced and Faster Disk Imaging Technology
Freiburg, Germany (PRWEB UK) 19 November 2013 -- Paragon Software Group (PSG) a leader in data protection and backup and disaster recovery, today announced the release of Paragon Hard Disk Manager (HDM) 14 Suite and Professional editions. HDM 14 is the all-inclusive data management tool for Windows users to maintain and administer PCs and work stations with minimal effort over their entire life cycle. HDM 14 is compatible with the Windows 8 streamlined, tile-oriented interface, offering a Metro-style express launcher and a ribbon-based full-scale launcher. Hard drives can be partitioned and data can be backed up using a variety of backup routines no matter whether they are in physical or virtual environments. HDM 14 supports dynamic drives and presents users with the ideal solution for modern hard disk management.
Providing support for Windows BitLocker, HDM 14 Professional edition allows users to protect valuable or private data not only from accidental loss but also from unauthorized access. HDM 14 delivers faster data protection than the native Windows feature, as well as data recovery of BitLocker encrypted partitions.
HDM 14 introduces the pVHD format optimized for storing backups of virtual and physical machines. Now users have the option to backup data either as PBF files or in the new pVHD (Paragon Virtual Hard Drive) format. pVHD is very efficient in handling incremental chains, data deduplication and synchronization. With pVHD, backups may be up to four times smaller than the original objects. The introduction of pVHD has also made incremental imaging work ten times faster and with greater stability compared with the traditional PBF format, thus allowing easy and efficient backup to network storage.
HDM 14 allows data transfer to SSDs. The software offers source partition size reduction and the option of excluding some data from the transfer. Previously not allowed, the contents of a 512-byte hard disk now can be easily copied or restored to a 4K hard disk.
HDM 14 offers complete uEFI support under Windows, WinPE, and Linux, including a uEFI-compatible backup capsule. P2V Assistant also supports physical uEFI configurations allowing users to migrate from physical systems to virtual environments with just a few clicks.
“Hard Disk Manager has been helping Windows users manage and back up their storage for almost 15 years. HDM 14 keeps pace with current practices through full support for Windows 8.1, faster backup to network, and features to assist migration to solid state drives,” says Konstantin Komarov, CEO of Paragon Software Group. “Paragon Software looks forward to meeting its customers’ evolving storage management needs in the years ahead,” he added.
Major New Features:
• Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2 compatibility
• Redesigned user interface, including Windows 8-style GUI
• BitLocker support — for volume backup, restore, copy, hide/unhide, delete, and much more (available in the Professional editon only)
• Windows Storage Spaces support — easily manage large storage pools
• Windows 8.1 compatible Adaptive Restore
• New pVHD backup container format — Paragon´s proprietary image format is a better approach for desktop virtualization and disaster recovery. The platform-independent format helps reconstuct a Windows or Linux-based PC, including partition layout, partition data, and boot data. An image can be mounted as a virtual hard drive for use with a virtual machine. pVHD images can easily be converted to VHD, VHDx, or VMDK formats
• Updated Universal Image Mounter (UIM) — enables mounting of pVHD and PBF backup images (full and incremental) to browse their contents and retrieve data via HDM 14 or directly from Windows. Also provides a convenient way to mount archives as virtual hard drives or virtual partitions for use with virtual machines.
• WinPE 4.1 based recovery environment
• Two ways to create WinPE-based recovery environment: either create a ‘white label’ WinPE recovery environment using AIK/ADK or build your own private recovery media using Windows recovery image.
• Updated WinPE Recovery Media Builder — prepares either Linux- or WinPE-based bootable environment on a flash drive or in an ISO file without requiring the Windows ADK or WAIK be installed
• Complete uEFI support in Windows, WinPE, and Linux, including uEFI compatible backup capsule
• Updated Linux-based recovery environment — now based on SUSE 12.3, with an updated user interface and support for all varieties of modern hardware configurations including uEFI and legacy BIOS computers
• Copy/Restore to dissimilar sector size — easily copy or restore contents of a 512-byte hard disk to a 4K hard disk with no additional actions required
• ReFS support to take images of ReFS partitions
• Supports VMware Workstation 10.0
System requirements:
OS: Windows 8.1/8/7Vista/XP.
VM: Oracle VirtualBox, Microsoft Virtual PC, VMware Workstation/Fusion,
Intel Pentium III CPU or its equivalent, with 1000 MHz 1 GB RAM (1.5 GB recommended)
250 MB of available hard disk space; additional space is required for installation (up to 1 GB)
Disc drives: CD/DVD drive (Blu-ray Disc-R and -RE are supported).
Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher.
SVGA graphics card.
Pricing and Availability:
Hard Disk Manager 14 Suite is available for $US49.95 (€39.95) via download from http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/. Hard Disk Manager 14 Professional is available for USD 99.95 (EUR 79.95) via download from http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-professional/.
Katia Shabanova, Paragon Technologie GmbH, http://www.paragon-software.com, +49 76159018 Ext: 181, [email protected]
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