Feature Set:  

Not only does 7tools Partition Manager create an image of your existing hard drive, the program also has the ability to create, format, or delete a hard drive. If you're restoring an image across a network, you can multicast the partition or disk image to several computers as well as change the SID (security identifier) for each. You can also split images, and opt to only copy necessary files. You can even copy a damaged disk with bad sectors.

However, one drawbacks of 7tools Partition Manager is that this disk imaging software does not include a scheduler for backups.

Ease of Use:  

The 7tools control panel is not as simple to use as some of the other disk imaging programs. When you create a backup image of your hard drive, it's not clear that you need to choose the burn icon button if you want to create your disk image on a CD or DVD, and the backup icon if you want to backup to a hard drive or network drive. Then you need to press the apply button to begin the actual backup.

However, formatting a new drive and deleting a drive are simple, one–step tasks. 7tools provides a colorful graphical display of the disk drives that shows your existing partitions. The software also includes many helpful wizards for performing partitioning functions.

Backup/Restore Process:  

Even though 7tools Partition Imager isn't as fast as our higher–ranked disk imaging products, they do provide the tools necessary to give the user the information to keep from guessing how long it's going to take. 7tools displays the time elapsed as well the time to finish the amount of data read so far, written so far, copied so far, and the amount needed to still copy. It took 40 minutes to create an image of our 34.5 GB hard drive.

We had difficulties during image burning when we inserted a full disk instead of a blank one; 7tools was unable to handle the error. 7tools to remained in the same burn process and we were unable to eject the CD. After we straightened this out, we created a full backup to disk, but this took 1 hour 20 minutes, longer than any other disk imaging software took to complete this task.

Help/Support:  

The disk imaging documentation for 7tools Partition Imager is good—the program offers relevant content, a complete index and a search tool—but Paragon Technologie GmbH doesn't offer online support, such as a FAQ page, forums and online tutorials.

7tools Partition Manager is a good partitioning program that also performs imaging functions. If you need both, check this software out. If you do decide to purchase this software keep in mind that they do not offer telephone, email or chat support.