ShadowMaker 3.6 review: Fast imaging, sync, and disaster recovery

Best Prices Today: MiniTool Shadowmaker 3.6

MiniTool ShadowMaker, a first-rate backup program with a reliable free model has developed fairly a bit since our take a look at version 2.0. It’s additionally now out there as a subscription or a with a perpetual license. A fairly dear $79 three-seat, perpetual license is up $50 from the final time we appeared. There’s lots of competitors at this worth level. Just saying.

Note: This overview is a part of our roundup of the best Windows backup software. Go there for particulars about competing merchandise and the way we examined them. 

ShadowMaker 3.6: Interface and options

ShadowMaker 3.6 occupies roughly 225MB of disk area, and is a very clear set up, leaving solely a single course of working within the background—its scheduler. The interface is on the darkish facet and makes use of the squarish Zune design metaphor of Windows 8/10.

All main classes of capabilities can be found from the primary web page, and this system is basically intuitive when you’re even considerably accustomed to the backup course of. I might argue among the labels and language, however that might be niggling—this system steps you thru most operations in a logical, pleasant method.

ShadowMaker 3.6: Free options

As I hinted at, ShadowMaker is without doubt one of the extra competent backup freebies on the market. For primary imaging, file and folder copy, folder sync, and disk cloning it’s going to get the job achieved rapidly and simply. The main omission is catastrophe restoration, except you depend a cloned disk you can swap in for a failed drive. That’s definitely a viable various. Otherwise, you’ll must reinstall Windows then run ShadowMaker Free to get your knowledge again.

To be trustworthy, on these super-rare events Windows has gone belly-up on me, I’ve at all times taken benefit of the chance to do away with all of the collected junk with a recent set up. Just a thought.

ShadowMaker 3.6: Pay options

There are a number of extra options out there within the $79 ($6 a month/$36 a 12 months) Pro Ultimate model. First and foremost is the Windows PE-based catastrophe restoration media. PE permits this system to function identical to the put in model. Other additions embrace help for command-line backups, incremental and differential backups, automated culling, community PXE booting, in addition to SSL encryption.

But my favourite pay characteristic is backup of distant computer systems. Enter the IP tackle (see under) of the distant pc working ShadowMaker, this system reboots, and all of the disks, partitions, and information from the distant pc are actually out there as backup decisions. You can entry and again them up utilizing the identical wizards you utilize to again up the native machine.

This means I can maintain my lazy toukus at my principal machine, and again up another PC on the community. Sweet, and probably the rationale you’ll wish to pay for the three-seat licenses. Now if solely ShadowMaker had been out there for the Mac and Linux.

ShadowMaker 3.6: Performance

ShadowMaker 3.6 was exceptionally quick in any respect regular operations: creating photographs, syncing folders, mounting photographs, and many others. It was unbelievably quick backing up the primary partition (with 75GB of stuff) on my check rig. Indeed, I believed it was failing till I mounted the pictures and checked the consequence. The compression price was fairly excessive as effectively, with the backup weighing in at a mere 18GB.

On the opposite hand, the clone disk perform lacks any resizing/restore to suit functionality, and even once I offered an identically-sized SSD, it balked. The course of with ShadowMaker requires a larger-capacity disk.

To be honest, not restoring or cloning to smaller-capacity drives is a standard problem (Windows’ personal backup received’t do it). But this was the primary time I’ve seen a like-sized drive disqualified. If you wish to modify sizes of partitions throughout backup or restore, look to the Mac daddy of imaging: R-Drive Image.

Also, whenever you’re backing up a whole disk, be sure you’ve manually chosen all of the partitions. ShadowMaker received’t choose all of them by default, even omitting the primary knowledge partition in a single case.

The competitors is stiff

The free model of ShadowMaker is a really competent free backup program with few friends on the “price” (there are advertisements). However, with regards to paying for ShadowMaker….

I can perceive (if not like) subscriptions for software program that’s regularly evolving and buying new options. But it’s tough to fathom the logic in month-to-month funds for backup software program that’s largely characteristic full. If you solely use it yearly, a month of rental might make sense, and the free model can entry the pictures it created ought to you must restore sooner or later. Or you can hire it once more when you must restore.

But largely I’m left weighing the worth of the $79 (three-seat license) ShadowMaker Pro Ultimate. There’s stiff competitors from merchandise equivalent to Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office and the aforementioned R-Drive Image, which price much less. I really like ShadowMaker’s distant backup trick and it’s a potential deal-maker, however this system continues to be a tough promote on the worth.

Irrespective of financial outlay, ShadowMaker has matured properly since our earlier appears. It was very dependable in testing and it’s very quick. Download the 30-day trial of Pro Ultimate and provides it a whirl. It may simply fit your wants.