Paragon Hard Disk Manager 14: faster, adds Windows 8.1, Bitlocker support

German developer Paragon Software Group has announced the release of Hard Disk Manager 14, the latest edition of its drive partitioning, backup, copying and management suite.

New features this time include the introduction of pVHD, an optimized container format, and its greater efficiency makes for smaller backup files, improved performance and stability.

Improved compatibility sees support for Windows 8.1, BitLocker and Windows Storage Spaces. There’s complete uEFI support, including a bootable GPT/uEFI-compatible Backup Capsule. And if you need to restore a backup to a drive with a different section size (512-byte, 4KB), that’s no longer an issue: it just works.

The Linux Recovery Environment has been enhanced with support for more hardware devices. It works with uEFI systems just as easily as any other, and can now connect to virtual disks as though they were regular physical drives.

The interface has seen an upgrade, too. The old Express Launcher now has a Windows 8 look, but if that’s not your favorite style, don’t worry: the full program is more familiar, the only major change being the introduction of a ribbon.

As before, the package is available in two flavors. Paragon Hard Disk Manager 14 Suite (x64 version) is the starting package, and delivers all the core functionality you need from around $39.96. Paragon Hard Disk Manager 14 Professional (x64 version) goes further with dynamic disk and Bitlocker support, enhanced backup, performance and virtualization tools, and is priced from $59.96.