Paragon Software Announces Storage SDKs for Android and iOS

New SDKs greatly simplify the creation of storage management apps for Android and iOS, and make it easy to add USB storage functionality to other apps.

USB storage is generally underused in mobile apps, even though there are various situations where it would be very convenient for users. Examples include on-the-go backup without relying on mobile data or Wi-Fi hotspots, and giving copies of photos or videos you’ve just taken to someone else without having to upload them. If you want to take movies on a trip to watch on the plane or in your hotel, for example, it’s much easier to save large media files on a flash drive, and this also avoids cluttering up the device’s limited internal storage.

Mobile OSes are beginning to incorporate USB storage support, but that support tends to be inflexible. This feature only came to Android in version 6 (Marshmallow), and that implementation only supports FAT32. That’s a problem for developers who want to produce apps that run on the majority of Android phones and tablets, and an even bigger one for those planning to create cross-platform apps. Furthermore, FAT32 imposes file-size limitations that can be inconveniently restrictive when dealing with large files such as HD and 4K videos.

Paragon Software’s new UFSD SDKs help fill this gap. Available for iOS (iPhone 5 and later, iPad 2 and later) and Android (version 3.0 and later), they abstract and implement support for multiple partitioning schemes (MBR, GPT and APM) and file systems (NTFS, HFS+, FAT32, ExFAT and ExtFS).

The UFSD SDKs will be of particular interest to storage vendors, as they can bundle Paragon’s UMS service and other Paragon FS drivers with portable USB storage products to ensure compatibility and interoperability with any OSes including iOS, Android, Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Similarly, ISVs can use the SDKs to simplify the development of Android and iOS apps supporting multiple brands of mobile USB storage.

Since iOS provides a very limited support for external storage and only allows access to images stored on digital cameras via custom Lightning to USB adaptor, storage vendors entering the iOS market need a companion app that would support their storage media’s file system. Naturally, each vendor’s app only supports its own storage brand.

To provide a real-life example of how the UFSD SDK can be used, Paragon Software has developed a plug-in https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paragon.tcplugins_ntfs_ro that adds USB storage support to the well-regarded, 4.5 star average rated, Total Commander file management app for Android. The plug-in has already been downloaded more than 400,000 times, which clearly demonstrates end-user interest in this capability.

A demonstration of a sample iOS app using the iOS UFSD SDK can be seen via YouTube:

Paragon Software Group Releases NTFS for Mac® 14 – the Industry’s Fastest Solution for Full Access to Windows Partitions on OS X 10.11 El Capitan

Paragon NTFS for Mac 14 is the industry’s fastest driver giving OS X full read and write access to Windows-formatted NTFS partitions. The new version is fully compatible with Apple’s new operating system OS X 10.11 El Capitan, which was launched yesterday, and still supports all versions back to 10.8 Mountain Lion. Internal tests show Paragon NTFS for Mac 14 is the only solution on the market to match the file transfer speed of Apple’s native driver on SSDs.

Paragon NTFS 14 for Mac achieved 700MB/sec (write) and 800MB/sec (read) on the internal SSD of a MacBook Pro. It also performs as well as HFS+ with external storage: 250MB/sec write and 240MB/sec read on a two-SSD RAID device, and 210MB/sec write and 210MB/sec read on an ordinary external drive (2TB USB 3.0 Seagate Expansion Drive 3.5″).

To ensure a higher level of security, El Capitan delivers a new protection feature. System Integrity Protection prevents modifications to certain system files, folders and processes. This protects components on disk and at run-time, only allowing system binaries to be modified by the system installer and software updates. Code injection and runtime attachments to system binaries are no longer allowed. Paragon NTFS for Mac 14 is fully compatible with Apple’s new security policy ensuring fast, hassle-free and safe access to NTFS partitions from OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

Once the program is installed, the user can get started right away: conveniently navigate contents and read, edit, copy or create files and folders. The program guarantees advanced support of NTFS file systems and provides fast and transparent read/write access to any NTFS partition under OS X 10.11. Paragon has been the leader in cross-platform storage software for 20 years, delivering proven maximum performance, stability and security for cross-platform work between Mac, Windows and other operating systems.

Key functions:

Full OS X 10.11 El Capitan support.
Ultra-quick read/write access to NTFS files in OS X El Capitan.
No limit to file or partition sizes (within NTFS and OS X constraints).
Supports special NTFS functions in OS X El Capitan such as resource forks, hardlinks, symlinks and file permissions (POSIX file attribute).
The transfer rate during file operations on NTFS partitions is just as good as it is for operations on native HFS partitions.
Unparalleled stability – even during peak system utilization!
Simply install it and go to work. No further system adjustments are necessary once it has been installed.

System requirements

OS X El Capitan 10.11 and back to 10.8.

Availability:

Paragon NTFS for Mac 14 is available for immediate download for $19.99 at http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/index.html All users who purchased NTFS for Mac 12 will get a free upgrade to version 14. They will receive an invitation to upgrade via email or they can view their real-time upgrade status at http://www.paragon-software.com/landing-pages/2015/ntfs-mac-el-capitan-upgrade/index.html

Paragon Announces “Social Appreciation Week” for Social Media Fans

We wanted to do more than just say “Thank You!” to our social media fans. Paragon Software decided the best thing we could do for our fans and followers is to offer a special giveaway to the people that appreciate our products. For the entire week Paragon will be offering giveaways and huge discounts on one product a day for everyone. The Social Appreciation Week will end on Sept. 26th with a great giveaway that you won’t want to miss. All you need to do is go over to our Facebook page or follow up on Twitter to see what we are offering our friends in appreciation for all of the support you give.

This is just the beginning of a much larger plan of connecting with our friends and fans. Be sure to pass this along to your friends and share the news of our special promotion for Social Appreciation Week. Have a Great week everyone and dont forget to check Twitter and Facebook everyday this week for our next gift to you.

Removing Boundaries Between Physical and Virtual Environments

Virtualization is a current key trend across all IT segments. The benefits of virtualization are well known and widely leveraged since data can now be stored and managed over diverse virtual environments in large data centers – or simple standalone servers. Even the most populous segment – home users, can now virtualize their existing software or make cross-platform configurations.

This article highlights how Paragon ConnectVD Technology addresses many data management challenges on diverse virtual and physical machines. ConnectVD allows a myriad of tasks to be performed with ease in a virtual environment – such as partitioning, data transferring, imaging, copying and many other complex tasks.

Virtualization Challenges

One of the key benefits of virtualization is that you can run several virtualized environments on one physical computer using currently available hardware. The number of serviceable systems may widely differ when using a single physical computer/single system approach or when leveraging dozens of virtualized systems. However the capabilities of IT personnel and administrators are not unlimited and expanding number of virtualized systems may cause a significant work backlogs.

Another thing to consider is that there are many different types of virtualization software. The main vendors are VMware, Microsoft, and Oracle, who offer incompatible solutions with many versions: enterprise or home user; bundled to the OS or independent; copyrighted by license or open-sourced. Managing and transferring data between these environments can be highly complex and nerve-wracking if things go awry.

These vendors naturally provide instruments for data management, migration, and conversion on virtual machines, but there are few vendor independent software tools that support all types of virtual machines. Administrators are typically faced with using many different tools simultaneously to perform tasks such as copying files between VM’s or virtual disk conversions.

Additionally, a typical VM is a complex environment that completely copies the physical computer’s partitions, file systems, one or several operating systems, software and data. On each level a special type of management is needed, which may or may not be provided by the VM software. If you recently installed all the necessary utilities, tools and management software to one or several physical machines, now you have to repeat this process with many virtualized clones. Having software that provides tools for the external management of data on dozens of VM’s from an original single copy is quite handy.

In brief, the major virtualized system management issues are the following: efficient management of a large number of virtual machines using a limited number of physical servers; the need to support data transfer and management between different types of VM’s; and the need for universal data management tools that can service as many VM’s from the outside physical world as possible.

Paragon ConnectVD technology addresses today’s compatibility issues and ensures easy data management and transfer operations between different types of virtual machines

Connect to Virtual Disk

View more presentations from Paragon Software Group.

Paragon ConnectVD technology resolves virtualized system management issues by utilizing software tools that connect with virtual disk files or snapshots and treats them as if they were physical hard disk drives – for easy data management, backup, virus removal, server optimization and many other tasks.

ConnectVD mounts a virtual disk file or snapshot in a read and read/write state, and depending on the desired outcome and the state of the original virtual machine – allows the user to either read data while it’s running or write data after it stops.

Mounted virtual disks or snapshot are not visible to the OS because special drivers are used to give virtual data a higher level of security that is inaccessible to third-party or malicious applications.

Software developers can enhance their own solutions using Paragon’s ConnectVD technology to give users easy workflows for virtualized systems of many different types. Using VIM SDK – a special version of ConnectVD for embedded software, you can manage data on VMware ESX/Workstation/Fusion, Microsoft Hyper-V/Virtual PC, Oracle VirtualBox machines.

Paragon Software uses ConnectVD technology in many of its products. By merging this technology with partitioning, backup, copying and optimization solutions, these tools have evolved into robust and advanced solutions for virtual data management. Our virtual migration technology combined with ConnectVD-enabled applications are the answer for anyone interested in virtualization, but put-off by the attendant complications for single users and companies alike.

Paragon’s ConnectVD technology can take your virtualized environments to the next level with these easy to implement scenarios:

Utilize one universal virtual disk file application from diverse types of VMs. You can easily perform sector and file backup operations over partitions, whole disk and files to resolve data security issues. You can also easily restore data from archives or convert archives directly into virtual machines. In connection with mounting snapshots, you will be able to maintain data version policies of any complexity.
You can easily perform different partitioning operations: create, move, resize, merge and split. Reconfigure your partitioning scheme to obtain the perfect volume configuration alongside the file system. Convert file systems of different types and change their properties.
Perform rapid volume and data copying: create empty virtual disks and copy volumes to them, clone volumes, transfer volumes between virtual drives of different virtual machines and physical computers. This feature allows you to rapidly move specific partitions from physical disks to virtual and vice versa.
Easily copy files and folders between physical and virtual volumes with NTFS, FAT, Ext3, HFS+ file systems. Maintain the required versions of files and preserve any important data. Secure data on file level with sector imaging.

Conclusion

Each solution with Paragon ConnectVD technology is a fully independent solution. There is no need to install it on VMs directly, thus you not need a great number of similar solutions spread across each virtual machine in one company. Support all of your virtual environments with one simple universal solution.

Virtualize Your PC with Go Virtual

Are you looking for an easier way to virtualize your PC? Paragon’s newest product Go Virtual is the answer to many customers looking for an easy way to virtualize their PC.

Here are just a few ways Go Virtual can be of use to you. You can see all of the scenario’s here

Scenario 1: Safely evaluate new software

New software can be unintentionally harmful to your computer. Avoid negative system conflicts by creating a virtual clone of your current physical system using Paragon’s Go Virtual. Try new software in a safe environment and decide whether it works and is exactly what you need before making it a permanent addition to your collection. If the changes made on the virtual machine were successful, you can migrate your updated system from the virtual environment to your PC.

Scenario 2: Put your PC in your pocket, use it anywhere and anytime

It is very convenient and handy to use your favorite software with all data at any computer. Now it became possible with wide implementation of virtual environments. All that you want to do is migrate your system into a virtual machine, place it on any removable media and run this machine at any computer, which has virtualization software installed. Just obtain an external USB hard drive and use it as storage for your virtual environment – your computer is in your pocket.

Scenario 3: Combining Windows and Mac

All Apple solutions are very interesting and popular. But what if the Windows solution you have to work with does not have an analogue in the Mac world? Today you may not bother regarding the search of the compatible software; you may just run your favorite Windows-native programs on Mac’s inside of the virtual environment. Use Paragon Go Virtual to create a virtual machine with all software and data, then copy it to your Mac and run inside VMware Fusion.

Get a FREE copy of Go Virtual today

Full Windows OS Support – Guaranteed support for any Windows operating system since Win2K (excluding server editions).

P2V Migration – Migrate a physical system to a virtual machine or convert a backup image to a virtual disk.

Migration without rebooting Windows – Hot processing of locked (in-use) hard disks lets you migrate a computer without rebooting and interrupting Windows.

P2V Adjust OS to recover the startup ability after unsuccessful virtualization with a 3rd party tool and to make Windows Vista/7 backups bootable on virtual hardware.

Smart Driver Injector – Makes the process of adding new drivers smooth and easy.

Performance – Paragon Go Virtual performs approximately 20% faster (your results may vary).

P2V adjust OS – Freeware tools will not adjust the OS to virtual hardware, leaving the user unable to boot their virtual machine. Go Virtual adjusts the OS so the virtual machine will boot successfully.

Selection of virtual hardware – Go Virtual offers the user a selection of virtual hardware types. Freeware tools typically do not.

Migration of offline systems – Freeware tools support the migration of operating systems currently running, but they have problems migrating offline operating systems, especially when there are more than one OS on the disk. Go Virtual performs these operations with ease.

We are very excited about this new release. Making physical to virtual migrations as easy as possible for people is a focus for Paragon. We would like you to download this product for free and leave us a comment here letting us know what you think about it. We value all of our customer feedback.

Go Virtual – New Product Release

Enjoy Working in a Virtual Computing Environment – Even if You’re Not Technically Savvy – with Paragon Software Group’s Go Virtual

Home users can now enjoy hazard-free benefits of virtualization; migration from PC to virtual machine is easy, reliable and free!

IRVINE, CA, July 12, 2010 – It’s time to upgrade to a new operating system, but the thought of all the unknown issues may hold you back. What if your favorite applications haven’t been updated to work with the new OS? There may be unintentional software glitches or bugs that will damage your host computer. One solution would be to create a virtual clone of your current computing environment to test any changes or upgrades before going live on your own PC, but migration to a virtual machine might be too complex and expensive for an average home user. How do you even begin to go virtual?

Paragon Software Group (PSG), the technology leader in innovative data security and data management solutions, invites you to Paragon Go Virtual with the new easy-to-use, free migration tool created for PC users who want to work in a virtual environment without technical risk. How does it work? Paragon Go Virtual allows you to make a virtual clone of your PC in three easy steps: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/go-virtual/how_it_works.html

Working in a Physical to Virtual (P2V) environment has benefits. Avoid negative system conflicts by creating a virtual clone of your current physical system before migrating to a new computer – try new software in a safe environment and decide whether it works and is exactly what you need before making it a permanent addition to your collection. Or save your virtual environment to a USB hard drive and use it from anywhere at any time, just as if you’re working from your own PC. With P2V, you can also take advantage of an up-to-date powerful computer while still having access to favorite applications from an old computer. And, if your old computer is corrupted or you lose data in a transfer, but you have a backup image of your old system made with Paragon software, you can virtualize it using Paragon Go Virtual installed on your new PC.

Previously available only to businesses and advanced users, migration to a virtual machine — because of its complexity and high cost – could be time consuming and complicated for an individual PC user. Individual users were often required to search for several third-party software tools, and then ensure that these tools were compatible with their new machine before completing the process. Paragon Go Virtual quickly and efficiently solves these problems by providing a complete solution compatible with all major formats of known virtual machines, including Microsoft (Virtual PC), VMware (Fusion, Workstation, Player) and Oracle (VirtualBox). Further, Go Virtual requires no additional tools for and after the migration process.

“Since most existing migration tools are aimed at businesses and professional users, Paragon came up with a quality solution for everyone to suit a wider range of users with simplicity, efficiency and the most reliable performance results.” said Konstantin Komarov, CEO.

Key Features & Benefits:

Full Windows OS Support – Guaranteed support for any Windows operating system since Win2K (excluding server editions).
P2V Migration – Migrate a physical system to a virtual machine.
Migration without rebooting Windows – Hot processing of locked (in-use) hard disks lets you migrate a computer without rebooting and interrupting Windows.
P2V Adjust OS to recover the startup ability after unsuccessful virtualization with a 3rd party tool and to make Windows Vista/7 backups bootable on virtual hardware.
Smart Driver Injector – Makes the process of adding new drivers smooth and easy.
Performance – Paragon Go Virtual performs approximately 20% faster (your results may vary).
Selection of virtual hardware – Go Virtual offers the user a selection of virtual hardware types. Freeware tools typically do not.
Migration of offline systems – Freeware tools support the migration of operating systems currently running, but they have problems migrating offline operating systems, especially when there are more than one OS on the disk. Go Virtual performs these operations with ease.

Availability:

Paragon Go Virtual is available for immediate download, free of charge: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/go-virtual/index.html

SSD Storage Demands Proper Partition Alignment

Storage system performance is dependent on many factors, one of which is a properly aligned partitioning scheme. Misaligned partitions cause a significant reduction in the I/O performance of a disk drive through redundant read/write operations and a subsequent reduction in an SSD lifespan by as much as one-third. The introduction of 4K sectors in the latest disk drives creates even more alignment problems for a large proportion of IT administrators. Implementation of enterprise virtual environments and the use of different RAID technologies are also susceptible to misalignment. In most cases, a mismatch between actual physical and logical representations of data causes a significant decay in overall system performance and hardware longevity.

What is Partition Alignment?
A hard drive can be dissected into different sections or partitions for many reasons – such as to segment data or because an operating system typically sits on one partition while applications and files sit on others. These partitions are positioned on the hard drive to optimize the way data is read and written to them. With new hard drives that rely on a different sector base than legacy drives, computers may not be able to recognize this change, effectively reducing the performance of hard drives and in some cases decreasing the lifespan of the drives dramatically.

Read the entire article in Computer Technology Review Continue reading SSD Storage Demands Proper Partition Alignment

Enabling Hardware Independent Data Security Policy

Paragon Software has a new article available on the popular Disaster Recovery Journal that was written by Sergey Solomatin.

Today, IT specialists have a wide range of options available to make the data security policy more composite and comprehensive. There are many tools and instruments presented for any level of demand on the IT market. Some of them are intended to be simple and convenient, others have to fit well into the larger enterprise infrastructures.

In this article, two important aspects of all-encompassing data security and management plan are described in more detail. First, I would like to discuss a hardware independent system recovery (HIR) and migration to virtual environments options. Even if you decide HIR is not your solution and do not attach much importance to it, HIR enables you to significantly increase a number of possible recovery, data migration and copying scenarios. In the light of the progress of modern virtualization technologies, HIR gets another great value – smooth system transfer between physical and virtual platforms.

Data Imaging and Virtualization

Creation of images is still the best way to get the maximum level of security for any computer data. It is the oldest and the most popular method of data backup. Despite the fact the technology principles are rather classical; the sector imaging continues its progress.

Nowadays, sector images are commonly used to protect important data and system as a whole. They make possible to store full software environments and system copies in one or several files. With the introduction of high-capacity storages in SOHO segment, imaging technologies break the limit of large enterprises sector and are now affordable to any PC user.

Sector imaging evolution yielded such methods and instruments as incremental and differential images, CDP, granular recovery, hot processing and much more. Another important technology is hardware independent restore that is one of this article’s topics.

Data imaging and virtualization intersect in many IT segments. Both of them come from the enterprise market and are now available everywhere, on any platform. Both of them operate by large containers with data. Recent developments have introduced a merging of the two technologies there more and more data management solutions support data imaging and data management in both physical and virtual realms.

Read the entire article on www.drj.com

Tekzilla Talks about NTFS for OS X

When working with media files or documents in Mac, you need access to the high performance of your system regardless if the files are located on the Mac’s HFS+ formatted volume, or in Window’s NT File System. Paragon NTFS for Mac® OS X 8.0 is the only NTFS driver on the market that provides full read/write access to NTFS with the same high speed as native HFS+ files. The built-in “HFS+ for Windows” completes an effective two-way communication channel between Mac® OS X and Windows.

As always, thank you Tekzilla, Patrick Norton and Veronica Belmont for showing our products to your viewers!

How to Perform a Bare-Metal Backup and Recovery (video)

Thanks to the group over at Windows 7 Forums for putting together a great video tutorial on Drive Backup. Windows 7 Forums uses Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 to demonstrate why it is always better to perform a bare-metal backup, as opposed to a live backup using Windows Backup or other products. This demo explains how to perform a bare-metal backup and restore in a two part series.

PART 1

PART 2

It’s very exciting for us to see fans creating videos of our products. If you have created a video let us know in the comments section and we may highlight it in a new post or in our Facebook page.