Paragon Drive Backup vs ShadowProtect Desktop Edition

Between the two, which would you recommend? As I've stated earlier in previous threads, I'm tired of these hassles with Acronis True Image every time I need to restore my system.
Concerning these two products, I have some questions:

1. Do their boot cd's support the newer external USB drives? In other words, if I should need to restore my system from a boot cd, is it going to see my WD My Book external drive? Acronis and Bart's PE Builder do not so I have a backup that I can't use.
2. How are they in speed? Does it take a long time if and when I need to restore using a boot cd like Acronis (if it works at all)?
3. Do you get a lot of errors like Acronis gives you telling you it is an "invalid" backup or "there is an error in this file, etc."? But, if you access it from within Windows it works like it should. It only happens when you really need it.
4. In other words, are either of these programs more reliable than Acronis? If they're reliable at all their more reliable than Acronis!!!!
5. What are their user review ratings?
Thanks for your time and help!

 

both products are fantastic.
i brought paragon because i got it cheaper with a discount code.
both are very reliable and i have tested them loads.
i test software alot,i backup with paragon install software then restore the image. i can restore any paragon image and it works 100percent every time.

shadow protect desktop is faster

btw just so you know the standard recovery disc you get from paragon is based on linux.
paragon also have a bartpe plugin
my external usb drive wasnt seen with the linux based cd so they created a vistape recovery cd for me.
i would happily use eiether product but since your using an external usb drive its better you get shadow protect desktop since the standard recovery environment is vistape where as from paragon you have to ask for it specialy.

i used to use acronis and got corropt image errors on all images created right at the end.
so i ditched it

 

I don't know if I got a more updated version, or what; but the Paragon Recovery CD works for me under Vista and sees my USB drive with nothing special requested or done.

 

Just curious to know what you think of the PCmag review of Paragon?

 

I just went and looked at the Paragon review at PC Mag.

I thought it was pretty fair and accurate; but there were a couple of "inaccuracies" or just clarifications:
The article says:
Drive Backup Personal uses the Backup Capsule area for backups only; .....
That is stated a little misleadingly. You can place a backup (archive) anywhere: Internal or external Hard disk; CD; DVD; USB drive...
And you can move the Archive files around to any media just like any ordinary file. If you optionally choose to use a backup capsule, then you can have that area on your drive reserved for backups only.

Then, it says:
You'll need some experience with networking and an understanding of basic Linux to use all the features on the full-fledged Paragon emergency CD, and some of the disc's menus—especially in its networking setup—aren't for the fainthearted.
I have very light experience with Linux, yet I could use that recovery CD with no problem at all. Admittedly, I don't do anything over a network; but for a single-user PC it works exactly like anyone with windows experience would expect.

 

shadowprotect is quicker at doing backups then paragon drivebackup when using the default normal compression settings. It's about twice as fast (very similar in speed to true image) .

shadowprotect frontend interface is very similar to "true image" theres not too much learning curve to use it. Paragon drivebackup interface is very confusing and cluttered (not very user friendly).

If you are using windows xp, paragon drivebackup boot cd has a built-in "boot corrector" which will repair most problems that can occur that will prevent a restored drive from booting(drive letter changes/boot.ini editing) . I've found the "boot corrector" very useful and actually use a similar version of that utility to fix my true image restoration problems.

I've tried the demo of both of them, and decided to just stick with true image. Since I only use windows xp, I found true image and a "boot corrector" utility provides me with a 100 percent recovery. Shadowprotect is promising but at it's current price point it is on the expensive side, Paragon drive backup "slow backups" was a deal breaker for me, I could deal with the confusing interface but the slow speed was not to my liking.

 

can you give me a link to the review i havent read it yet
thanks

 

Here you are. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2259186,00.asp

 

not a bad review.
but i dont think its as hard to use as they are making out.
since most computers have all there data stored on one hard drive all you do is tick the top box to back it all up. like i do with my old computer.

plus what the reviwer doesnt know is that you can get a vistape recovery cd for paragon. it may be slower than shadow protect destktop but it has three different recovery environments and is just as reliable. plus you can tell it to restore a system partition and it wil reboot to a blue screenmode restore and then reboot back to windows.

the shadow protect desktop review was good.
one of the cons should of been have to use recovery cd to restore.



has anyone else got confused with the schduling in shadow protect desktop?
the options are
backup now
or schdule like every 15mins incrementals or every hour.
couldnt find an option to just do one backup a day.
im sure it can be done.

 

Pretty simple but, admittedly, not really intuitive.......just select "Weekly" and then check the day(s) and time.

I think the addition of a "Daily" option would help there but it's not a huge issue once you know to select "Weekly" for that purpose.

 

I also tried Paragon in the past and its GUI is indeed confusing. If I have to stare at a screen too long to figure out what I have to do, that is for me already a good reason to ditch a software. After all a BASIC backup is simple, any software that makes it more difficult than it is, doesn't get my vote.

ShadowProtect's GUI looks indeed like True Image, but SP doesn't need so much screens as TI to do the same job. If my memory is good SP uses 5 screens, while TI used 10 upto 15 screens.

Paragon doesn't have a read-to-use Recovery CD, you have to ask for it.
ShadowProtect has a read-to-use Recovery CD, which is also an installation CD for SP under Windows and it always recognizes my USB Seagate external HDD.

Terabyte was a disaster in userfriendliness. A typical programmer's product with no respect for average users.

So my choice was very easy : ShadowProtect Desktop.

 

Erik, interesting comment. Have you tried version 2 of IFW and IFD. I found them very intuitive.

But BING, that's another matter. I really like it but it took ages to learn.

 

btw what is the adverage time for the vista pe reccomended environment to boot up from when you press enter on the start screen with text vistape environment reccomended?
i timed it and on my pc 7.5minutes.
thats without networking support.
seems like a long time to me.

by that time paragon could of nearly finished its restore on the times when i need to use the recovery cd.

i wouldnt be without my two windows based paragon recovery cd's
disc 1 windowspe recovery cd for hard disc manager 8.5 which includes partition management
disc 2 vistape recovery cd for drive backup 8.5 pro.

paragon only takes 5 steps to backup.

i tryed image for windows and that was fine but the image for dos rescue cd is far from easy to use.
bing is another story lol.

 

lodore,

From memory, my VistaPE took less than 2 minutes. WinPE took a minute or so longer.

 

wow if thats accurate then why does shadow protect desktop take 7.5minutes to lanch the environment on my pc.

 

lodore,

I was referring to the load times of ShadowProtect in my computer.

 

i know. i just wonder why it takes 7.5minutes on my pc.

 

How long does BartPE take to load on your computer? Mine takes around 4 minutes and ReatogoXPE takes around 5 minutes.

 

@Lodore,

I have the WinPE recovery disk for HDM 8.5 but do you know if they are now offerin any VistaPE version of this. Would lvoe to have that option because at least on my laptop it would load the CD much faster. All does seem to work under WinPE disk though. Thanks.

Gary

 

No I didn't try version 2 of IFW and IFD, because I already made my choice.
It's possible that the GUI has been improved, but the fact that IFW and IFD and BING still exist, doesn't make me enthousiastic either.
Terabyte needs a good application analyst in order to create ONE application with a good GUI, instead of a creating a bunch of little softwares.
Terabyte is very reliable according my readings, which means they have very good programmers, but the way they created it, is abominable.
Programmers aren't application analysts and even analyst-programmers isn't a good combination, they are good analysts OR good programmers, but seldom both. The problems of an analyst are not the same as the problems of a programmer. An analyst has direct contact with users and knows how to talk with users. Put a user and a programmer together, they don't understand eachother or not good enough to get results.
At work we have pure analysts and pure programmers and since then our applications are much better.

 

Erik,

Thanks for those logical comments.

I like TeraByte's modular approach. You don't have to mix products if you don't want to. IFW can image and restore. IFD can image and restore. BING can image and restore. TeraByte has a dozen or so other modules which only enthusiasts would use. They are not essential for the average user. Hardly anyone would use TBOSDT but it has been extremely useful to me in managing unattended image restores. We each have our favourite apps.

 

I don't know if that is something that has changed, or what; but it is now wrong.
You get both the ability to burn recovery disks from within the program, and a downloadable ISO image of a Recovery disk that includes more drivers.

You said the interface seemed confusing. Maybe it is visually to you, but if you just click on any of the buttons pertaining to your topic, a wizard guides you through the process. It is almost as if they made it TOO easy, so the various ways of initiating the wizard makes it seem "confusing". After you realize that all roads lead to the same wizards it is much friendlier.

 

The "Recommended" (Vista-based) WinPE environment of the ShadowProtect bootable CD recovery environment can take a while to boot if you have a floppy drive enabled in your BIOS setup, but no physical floppy drive installed. This is actually an issue with Microsoft Vista-base WinPE itself. The fix is simple - just disable those non-existent floppies in your BIOS setup.

 

In those days, I could create a Recovery CD within the program, but the CD didn't work. I couldn't get an ISO-file either, unless I could prove I bought the software. I wasn't planning to buy it, so that was not an option.
I consider Image Backup (SP) and Immediate System Recovery (FDISR) as a finished chapter on my computer. I have what I wanted and I'm not planning to change this in the next 5-10 years, unless a miracle occurs.