Data recovery is the retrieval of data lost due to accidental formatting,
deletion of wrong files, or some filesystem failure.
The media being recovered is often a single hard or SSD disk with the average capacity, as of now, from 500GB to 2TB.
Since data recovery software can be narrowly functional, that is specialized for a particular filesystem
or multipurpose when one software can recover many filesystems, I decided to test the chosen programs only for
Windows filesystems, namely FAT, NTFS, and ReFS.
Testbed
I took a 1TB Western Digital internal hard drive connected to a motherboard via SATA as a tested device.
There was a single partition formatted to NTFS and filled with data to about 40%.
I have deleted three folders and started testing. As for recovery results, all programs have coped with the task;
however, there is a set of other differences which you can find in the table.
Parameter |
EaseUSA |
GetDataBackB |
ReclaiMeC |
RecoverMyFilesD |
R-StudioE |
Stellar PhoenixF |
UFS ExplorerG |
ZARH |
User experience and price |
Price |
69.95 USD |
79 USD |
79.95 USD |
69.95 USD |
79.99 USD |
49 USD |
39.95 EUR |
69.95 USD |
Ease of use |
Easy |
Moderate |
Easy |
Moderate |
Complex |
Easy |
Complex |
Moderate |
Refund |
Conditional |
No |
Unconditional |
Conditional |
No |
Conditional |
Conditional |
Unconditional |
Lifetime updates |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
Recovery speed |
Average |
Average |
Fast |
Fast |
Slow |
Average |
Average |
Slow |
User manual |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Supported filesystems |
FAT |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
NTFS |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
exFAT |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
ReFS |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
APFS |
Yes1 |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
Disk images |
Create |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Load |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Files and preview |
Structured folder tree |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Search |
Yes2 |
No |
Yes3 |
No |
Yes4 |
Yes |
Yes2 |
Yes3 |
File preview |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Hex preview |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No4 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Preview during scan |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Additional capabilities |
RAID capability |
No |
No |
Yes5 |
Yes6 |
Yes |
No |
Yes6 |
Yes |
Bootable CD |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Save state |
Yes |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
,
www.easeus.com
,
www.runtime.org
,
www.reclaime.com
,
www.recovermyfiles.com
,
www.r-tt.com
,
www.stellarinfo.com
,
www.ufsexplorer.com
,
www.z-a-recovery.com
Copyright © 2015-2025 Alexey V. Gubin