Active@Disk Image review

Active@Disk Image is the product of LSoft Technologies Inc, a software company based in Canada that specializes in data security, backup, and recovery tools. The company offers well over a dozen standalone products including the disk cloning tool we’re reviewing here.

Disk Image, as its name suggests, is a tool that enables users to create copies “images” of hard disks for backup or duplication purposes.

Active@Disk Image: Plans and pricing

This software has a free version that anyone can download, but it’s pretty limited in functionality, allowing you to only backup and restore disks. Hence, you’ll need to pay for a premium license to make the best of it.

You can choose from three types of licenses; Personal, Business, or Enterprise. For each of these licenses, you can choose the Standard or Professional package. For the Personal license, the standard plan costs $39 for each computer and the professional one $69.

For the Business license, the Standard plan costs $49 for each computer and the professional one $99. The Enterprise plan works differently, as you can use a single license for multiple computers within an organization. However, it’s quite steep, costing $2,595 for the standard package and $5,199 for the professional one.

Each license lasts for a lifetime. The difference between the Standard and Professional packages is that the latter includes advanced features related to Windows Server support, scheduling, and backup types.

You can take advantage of a 21-day free trial period to test each plan before making your final purchase decision. If you decide to purchase, you can also choose to add annual support & updates for a cost of $45 per license.

Active@Disk Image: Features

This software provides access to many valuable features, including;

Disk imaging is a type of backup that copies all the content of a hard drive's data into a single file that you can store on another device. No one is immune to data loss caused by errors or computer viruses. Hence, having such a backup eliminates the fears of losing data permanently if you’re the victim of data loss.

With this software, you can back up the contents of an internal hard drive at the click of a button. Backing up, in this case, entails uploading the content to another storage medium such as a CD, DVD, USB, or another hard drive, from which you can retrieve it at any time. 

You can back up specific partitions of a disk instead of the whole disk. But, this software doesn't let you create backups at the file level, which we consider a disadvantage. On the bright side, having only disk-level or partition-level backups removes the risk of overlooking important files. 

You can also back up external hard drives connected to your computer. For example, you can just plug a USB drive into your PC and back up all its contents by storing them on a local file on your PC or another external USB drive or hard drive. One of the good features we observed in this software is that it lets you back up multiple drives simultaneously, making the process faster and more efficient.

Similarly, you can use Disk Image to restore the image of any disk that you already have even though you didn’t perform the backup with the same software. At the click of a button, you can restore the contents of your hard drive and have it working exactly as before. This feature is a lifesaver if you ever experience data loss.

Active@ Disk Image employs data compression techniques to reduce the size of image files during backup. Doing so saves storage space, and consequently, costs for users. You can choose the level of compression you want during a backup, either Normal, Fast, or High. However, note that compression significantly slows down the backup process as it requires extra computing operations.

You can lock image files with passwords to provide an extra layer of protection and prevent unauthorized access. This way, even if an attacker somehow breaks their way into your system, they have to contend with a password that prevents them from accessing your backup files. 

Active@ Disk Image enables users to set schedules ahead of time for backup tasks and have them run automatically. This way, you can be sure of having frequent backups even though you forget to do them manually or when you’re not close to your PC.  

This software also lets you create image backups of physical servers. However, the server must be running the Windows Server operating system, and you must purchase the Professional package to use this feature.

Active@Disk Image: Interface and use

We found it pretty easy to download and set up the free version of this software during testing. During the setup phase, you can choose from one of four languages; English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese., and it often takes less than a minute to complete the installation. 

The main interface looks pretty outdated but is simple and easy to understand.

Active@Disk Image: Support

On the official website, you can access detailed user guides, a FAQ page, and tutorial videos to help you navigate through this software. If these resources don't satisfy you, you can seek direct customer support through email or telephone.  

Active@Disk Image: The competition

Well-known alternatives to this software include R-Drive Image and O&O DiskImage. Active@ Disk Image doesn’t offer much to place itself ahead of the competition but seems like just another image backup software. 

Active@Disk Image: Final verdict

Active@Disk Image lets you perform image backups and restoration without difficulty. It’s simple to use and navigate although with a pretty archaic interface. It doesn’t have much setting it apart from the competition but is a reliable tool to ensure you never lose data permanently. 

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