Recovering data from external drives has a number of specifics.
Unlike other storage devices, external disks consist of three components both physical and logical – the disk enclosure, the disk itself,
and the filesystem on the disk, which is responsible for how the data is stored on the disk.
In case of an enclosure failure, special data recovery software is not required -
just replace the broken one with a new one (watch videos at this site
on how to disassemble an external hard drive).
In case of mechanically damaged disks, data recovery software is generally not required as well,
since it is a job for a special service with its "clean rooms" and technicians with skills in reparing mechanically damaged disks.
But cases involving filesystem failures like accidental deletion of important data or formatting a drive by mistake are just job
for data recovery software.
Testbed
For my comparison I took a 1 TB Transcend drive that has already stored 800 GB of data and created a new folder to which 12 jpeg
files were copied. Then I deleted the folder and started testing different recovery tools. According to the result of my research
I can highlight IСare software as the worst tool since it constantly crashed. Besides, its interface is not user-friendly at all and
I could not even see any recovered files there. The detailed test results are shown in the table below.
| Parameter |
EaseUSA |
GetDataBackB |
ReclaiMeC |
ICare RecoveryD |
R-StudioE |
Stellar PhoenixF |
RecuvaG |
Disk DrillH |
ZARI |
| User experience and price |
| Price |
69.95 USD |
79 USD |
79.95 USD |
69.95 USD |
79.99 USD |
99 USD |
Free |
89 USD |
69.95 USD |
| Ease of use |
Easy |
Moderate |
Easy |
Complex |
Complex |
Easy |
Moderate |
Easy |
Moderate |
| Refund |
Conditional |
No |
Unconditional |
Conditional |
No |
Conditional |
- |
No |
Unconditional |
| Lifetime updates |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
| Recovery speed |
Fast |
Fast |
Fast |
Slow |
Slow |
Fast |
Slow |
Average |
Slow |
| User manual |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
Yes |
| Supported filesystems |
| FAT |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| NTFS |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| exFAT |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
No |
| ReFS |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
No |
| Files and preview |
| Structured folder tree |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
Yes |
| Original file name |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
Yes |
| Search |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| File preview |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Hex preview |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
| Preview during scan |
No |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
| Save state |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
,
www.easeus.com
,
www.runtime.org
,
www.reclaime.com
,
www.recovermyfiles.com
,
www.r-tt.com
,
www.stellarinfo.com
,
www.piriform.com
,
www.cleverfiles.com
,
www.z-a-recovery.com
Copyright © 2015-2025 Alexey V. Gubin