R-Drive Image review

R-Drive Image is the product of R-Tools Technology Inc., a software company based in Canada. The company develops software tools for individual and enterprise use compatible with Windows, macOS, or Linux. R-Drive Image is one of its most popular products, alongside others like R-Wipe & Clean for privacy and security and R-Studio for data recovery.

You can use R-Drive Image primarily to create disk image files for backup, disk cloning, or other duplication purposes.

R-Drive Image: Plans and pricing

R-Drive is premium-only. There’s no free tier, but there’s a 30-day free trial period you can take advantage of to test the software. You can choose from five plans; Standalone, Corporate, Technician, Commercial, and OEM kit. 

Standalone costs $45 for a license for a single PC. It provides access to basic features such as file/disk imaging and partition management. The Corporate plan costs $189 per license per PC and is compatible with Windows servers.

Technician costs $299 per license per PC and unlocks unlimited data transfer and custom rotation schemes. The Commercial plan costs $499 per license per PC and, as its name suggests, allows administrators to backup, restore, and deploy multiple machines in commercial settings.

The OEM kit plan costs $399 per license per PC. As its name suggests, this version only comes with a fully assembled computer. You can’t download it directly from R-TT.

You can pay directly on the official R-Drive Image website using PayPal or credit/debit cards. Note that the company often gives significant discounts to first-time buyers, so you may end up paying lower prices than what we mentioned. 

R-Drive Image: Features

R-Drive Image gives users access to many valuable features including;

A disk image, in computing, refers to a computer file that contains all the contents and structure of a particular disk or entire data storage device. This software lets you create such images easily without needing to restart your computer. You can store the image files in any place visible by the host system, including on removable drives.

You can create images of entire hard drives, individual partitions, and individual files. In the process, you may choose to compress the size of the images to save storage space and, consequentially, costs. You can also choose to lock image files with passwords to provide extra protection and ensure that no unauthorized person can access them.

This software also lets you scan image files for errors and alert you immediately to anyone it detects. If you're using the Corporate, Technician, and Commercial licenses, you can create image files in the VMDK file format adopted by virtual machines.

What’s the need for creating image files? For backup and duplication. An image of your entire PC is effectively a backup that you can restore in case you lose your data. If you ever lose data due to errors or viruses, you can simply restore an image of your entire hard drive and have your PC working as exactly as before.

Duplication implies when you want to copy the whole contents of a PC to another, often when you get a new PC and want to transfer all files from the older one to the new one. In such a case, simply create a hard drive image of the old one and restore it on the new one, and you can continue using your PC like you never ever changed it.

After creating an image of a hard drive, partition, or specific files, R-Drive Image lets you restore them at any time. You can restore to their original drives, new drives, partitions, and even free hard drive space. For example, you can restore the hard drive images from one drive onto another drive in case the former one has been damaged and is no longer suitable to use.

If you're using the Corporate, Technical, or Commercial license, you can restore images in the VMDK format, which is significantly faster than other file formats the app supports, including NTFS, FAT, and HFS.

This software lets you perform common disk management operations thanks to its flexible Partition Manager. You can create, wipe, delete or resize partitions at any time. You can also use this feature to wipe entire hard drives before disposing or transferring them to avoid sensitive data leaks.

You can set automatic schedules for R-Drive Image to back up your computer regardless of if you're present or not. This feature helps users to maintain frequent backups without much manual input. To always remain in the loop, you can set the program to send you automatic emails for any backup task that completes or fails.

R-Drive Image: Interface and in use

For a long time, R-Drive Image had an interface notorious for being archaic and old-school. However, that changed in June 2022 when the company behind it dropped a new update with a modernized interface much easier to navigate. 

R-Drive Image: Support

The official R-Drive Image website has a lot of support resources. You can visit the FAQ page to find solutions to frequently encountered problems or the Knowledge Base containing comprehensive tutorials and user guides for the platform. There’s also an official forum where users interact and exchange tips and problem solutions.

Users who want further support can also contract R-TT's support team through email or telephone. Email support is available 24/7 but phone support is limited to 9 AM to 6 PM on Monday to Friday except on public holidays.            

R-Drive Image: The competition

Popular alternatives to R-Drive Image include O&O DiskImage and the Paragon Hard Disk Manager. We think R-Drive Image is the better option because it provides more features for similar prices to these competitors. 

R-Drive Image: Final verdict

We consider R-Drive Image an excellent software for backing up your computer and managing files in such a way that it works faster. However, the software is limited to Windows users only and we observed a pattern of customer complaints of slow backup and recovery speed. 

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