Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2011 Suite Editor's Review

Take complete control of your hard drive with this easy to use Windows utility.

If there's one thing I've learned over the past five to six years of being a Mac, its that hard drive management under OS X is MUCH easier than under Windows.  With OS X, upgrading to a larger, bigger, better, faster, stronger hard drive is as easy as making a copy of your hard. There are some really nice utilities out there that do that very well. With Windows machines, its not even remotely close to being that easy. This is why I really like tools like Hard Disk Manager Suite. It’s a hard drive utility for Windows.

Paragon's Hard Disk Manager Suite is a serious hard drive tool.  Its advanced weaponry for your Windows system and as such, isn't for people that aren't comfortable working under the hood.  It has a completely new engine for all partitioning tasks; and works generically with all modern hard drive technologies, regardless of spindle type, drive size, rotation speed, etc.

You can use it to create, format, delete, undelete, hide or unhide partitions, make partitions active or inactive, set, change or remove a drive letter, change a volume label, etc.  You can separate the OS and your data or different types of data by splitting one partition into two different partitions of the same type and file system.  You can merge or consolidate disk space from two adjacent partitions (NTFS, FAT16/FAT32), into a single, larger partition, redistribute free space, or increase free space on one partition by utilizing unallocated space and the unused space of other partitions.

Hard disk Manager Suite will let you optimize the performance of your hard disk during partitioning/copy operations and restoring a backup image to new hard drives, though not all operations are supported.  You can convert basic MBR to basic GPT disks and enjoy all benefits of the newest partitioning scheme with minimal effort.  The app also allows you to perform NTFS and FAT defragmentation, MFT defragmentation and shrinking, low free space defragmentation and can fix most system boot problems that result from human or program error, or a boot virus activity.

Pro’s: Easy to use, Supports all major drive management and partition tasks, Boot manager for multi-boot drives

Con’s: Partition management is not for beginners

Conclusion: Windows users that enjoyed applications like the now discontinued PartitionMagic will really like Hard Disk Management Suite. It provides similar functionality, plus builds in tools and the capability to work with today's modern hard drive types and technologies.  The application is fairly easy to use, and many moderately skilled to advanced users should be up and running with it directly out of the box. 

Novice users should take care to follow all precautions and instructions found in the software's help system and manuals. Hard Disk Management Suite works with the drive at the hardware level, meaning that it communicates directly with the drive controller and the drive.  The activities that you perform can drastically effect the way the computer works, so you really have to be careful about what you're doing if you're not an advanced computer user, or aren't very technical.  A wrong move could make the computer unbootable, or could wipe all of your data without the possibility of getting it back. A backup of the drive is highly recommended before any partition work is done to insure that you don't lose anything.