You can only lose all of your computer’s contents in two ways. And they require two different types of backup. A drive can go completely – the hardware just dies, and the operating system, programs, settings and everything else that was installed on the drive is gone. To recover from that you need a full disk image . A full disk image is a complete copy of the drive which can be written to new hardware to restore the machine exactly as it was. The other one is smaller and more common – some important files are deleted, corrupted or overwritten. That requires file level backup, which is the copying of individual files and folders to a safe location, and then restoring them one by one when necessary. That’s what Paragon Backup & Recovery does, it does both.
Nuremberg, Germany-based Paragon Technologie GmbH has been in the disk and storage management software business for decades. Backup & Recovery can be downloaded for free as a Community Edition for personal use, or as a higher-featured part of the commercial Hard Disk Manager suite. The Community Edition is 100% free. There are no time limits, no feature trials, no core functions behind a paywall. That is to say, it is not just a teaser of the paid product, it is a viable option.
Types of Backup
Paragon backs up the three types of backup that constitute any serious backup strategy. A full backup will create a single copy of all of the items you selected: a disk, a partition, or a set of files. A differential backup will only backup the changes made since the last full backup, saving space and time on subsequent backups. Incremental backup copies only what has changed since the last backup of any type. These make the smallest and fastest backups . The smart approach is to use a mix of them: a complete backup every so often, and incremental or differential backups in between, depending on how much storage and time you have to invest in the backup.
System and Disk Imaging: Create a backup of your system or disk.
Disk Imaging function: It takes a complete snapshot of a drive or partition, including the operating system, boot files, applications and data. If the user selects to backup the OS partition, Paragon automatically includes the boot partitions necessary to create a bootable restored system as a system image without the boot data will result in an unbootable machine. The image can be restored to the original drive or to other hardware. The bare-metal restore feature will install a system image on a blank drive to restore the machine to a “from scratch” state.
Back Up Files & Folders
File-level backup preserves specific files, folders or file types, not drives. A user backs up his or her documents, photos and Outlook email without imaging the entire disk, and restores individual files from the backup without restoring the entire system. This is the granular approach and is suitable if you want to protect a few files, but not the entire disk image.
Automation and scheduling
Backups are on demand, manual or scheduled, automatic. The scheduling engine arranges for recurring operations (daily, weekly, or event driven) to be backed up without the user having to remember to start them. Custom backup strategies can be set up, such as type of backup, interval and the number of old backups to keep before deleting the oldest, and scenario-based jobs that specify what to back up and where to store it.
Storage Locations
Backups can be saved to local disks, external USB drives, SD cards and network attached storage on the local network. Backups should be stored on a separate physical device or network location to prevent loss of the drive being backed up – if it is on the same drive that fails, it is not a backup.
Media Builder Recovery
The Recovery Media Builder generates a bootable WinPE environment as a bootable USB drive or as an ISO image. This recovery media can be used to boot a computer that has failed or is not booting an operating system and to provide the environment to restore a system image and bring the computer back. A bootable recovery drive is a must for complete system recovery as a machine that won’t boot can’t run backup software from its own failed installation.
File Format and Protection
Paragon supports the proprietary PVHD format that supports splitting the backup to multiple files, password protection and compression to reduce the size of the backup. It also can export to industry standard virtual hard drive formats VHD and VHDX that can be mounted directly by Windows and virtual machine software – this is important for long term access as a VHD backup will still be readable without having to install Paragon’s software.
