Paragon Image Backup For Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Supports ReFS

Windows 8 comes with its own built-in backup function, titled, File History. File History automatically backs up your Desktop, Libraries, Contacts, IE Favorites, and Microsoft SkyDrive. If you ever lose data due to some mishap or change any file content stored in one of these locations, you can use File History to restore back the data. We’ll discuss more about File History in another dedicated article. Today, we will look at Paragon Image Backup for Windows 8.

As the release of Windows 8 is coming near, Paragon Software has released Image Backup for Windows 8, a simple backup software, which is probably also the first of its kind to support Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft’s new Resilient File System, ReFS.

Paragon Image Backup for Windows 8: Features, Usage and Download

The user interface of Image Backup for Windows 8 is similar to what we have seen in other Paragon products. If you’ve used any of its products recently, you will feel right at home. The new backup software uses the same standard menu, which quickly points you to all the functions you need to use.

Image-Backup-for-Windows-8

The software being a freeware does lacks a few things which are available in other Paragon freeware. You’ll not find any “advanced view” or a “full program interface” to explore things. In all it does feels very basic from the user interface perspective. You just the front end menu from where you can only access the four main wizards. But for most users it might be more than enough for a backup software interface, simple and easy to use.

Paragon Image Backup for Windows 8 lets you backup single partition or complete hard disk. All backup tasks are created using wizards. These wizards help you with step by step instructions to set up backup tasks. When you check  the “Change backup settings” in the Backup Wizard then you’ll lot of advanced options.

Paragon-Image-Backup-for-Windows-8-Wizard

You can also compress backup data to reduce its size. You can also protect backups with a password. You can use the include and exclude filters to exclude one or more file types from the backup. You can split backup into equal-sized files for easy archival. With support for VSS (Volume Snapshot Service or Volume Shadow Copy Service), you can back up system locked files You can save the backup locally, burn it to CD, DVD or Blu-ray discs, or transfer it on the network to another drive.

At a later date, you can easily restore individual files or folders or the entire backup from the image. The program also allows you to create a bootable Linux/DOS-based recovery environment. The recovery environment is easy-to-use and includes tools to partition and format hard disks.

Paragon Image Backup for Windows 8 do have some limitations. As discussed earlier, the user interface is too basic. Along with that, you will not find any scheduler, which in our opinion is a must for any backup solution. It also doesn’t support backing up to FTP, or any other online destination. When cloud storage solutions with large amount of free online space is abundant, the lack of saving backup online is another negative point.

Overall, Image Backup for Windows 8 is probably one of the first third-party backup solution for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 with ReFS support for free. Even though it has some limitations, but its a good backup solution for taking one time backups.

You need to register with Paragon Software to receive the product license along with the download link.

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