- 2015
Overall Product Rating: 3.5
Good file recovery performance, with decent results in finding RAID 5 parameters. On the other hand, localization support and data recovery performance have slightly degraded compared with the version tested in our previous review.
Strengths: Very good file previewer. Shows hard drive’s S.M.A.R.T. attributes. Pseudo-automatic RAID parameter finding. Network data recovery.
Weaknesses: Poor localized file name recognition, limited number of supported file systems. Only supports proprietary disk images created by the software. Unlike other pro software, doesn’t support common byte-by-byte images.
Supported Interface Languages: 4.0Compare
Languages supported: English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish.
Language management: Separate version for each language.
Localized File Name Recognition: 4.0Compare
Characters recognized: Russian, French, Arabic.
Characters unrecognized: Japanese and Chinese (changed to the underscore character). These characters were correctly recognized in the previously tested version (Version 5).
Demo version restrictions: 4.0Compare
File preview (no file size limitations). No time limit for the demo version.
File preview: 4.5Compare
The built-in previewer can show graphic, audio, and video files, Microsoft Office documents, Adobe pdf, some WWW files, most popular archives, and some other file types.
Deep Analysis of Disks (Disk Scan): 2.0Compare
The file system is the only scan parameter that can be selected. Scan results can be stored in a file and then loaded later.
File Recovery Using File Signatures (Raw File Recovery): 3.0Compare
Supports raw file recovery. User selectable file signatures to be included in search and custom file signatures are supported. However, there are only two parameters: a file signature and its offset.
Disk Imaging and Copying: 4.5Compare
Only supports images created using Stellar Phoenix. No support for common byte-by-byte image typically supported by other data recovery programs. Disk objects can also be copied.
File Search, Mark For Recovery, Sorting: 4.5Compare
Search parameters: “Show only deleted files”, “Show only existing files”, individual file search, , file search for date, file search for size, file sorting by file extension, file sorting by file time.
RAID Recovery Features: 2.5Compare
Direct access to a virtual RAID. Only disks can be added to a virtual RAID.
Standard RAID Level Presets: 4.0Compare
RAID0 (Stripe Set), RAID4, RAID5, RAID6 (Reed-Solomon), with all their variants and parity delays.
Automatic RAID Parameter Detection: 2.0Compare
Pseudo-automatic RAID parameter finding. The program tests variants specified by the user.
Network Data Recovery: 4.5Compare
Full-featured network data recovery. Recovered files can be saved on the local computer only. Recovery agent on remote computers runs under Windows.
S.M.A.R.T.: 5.0Compare
Shows hard drive’s S.M.A.R.T. attributes in a special S.M.A.R.T. tab in Advanced Options. Difficult to find this feature.
File recovery performance
Deleted Files (NTFS): 5.5Compare
All files, except the avi file, were immediately found in correct folders and successfully recovered upon opening the partition. The avi file was found but appeared damaged.
Deleted Files (FAT32): 4.0Compare
For the both partitions, only the following files were found and successfully recovered by scanning for file signatures: ¬jpg, png, tiff, mpg, doc, xls, pdf, mp3. The following files were found and recovered, but appeared damaged: avi, zip.
Emptied Recycle Bin (NTFS): 5.0Compare
All files were found in the $Recycle.Bin folder with altered names after scanning the partitions. All files, except avi, acc, and mp3, were correctly recovered. Folder and file names in the second level could be recovered (i.e. if the files or folders were in a folder, the names were recovered).
Emptied Recycle Bin (NTFS): 5.0Compare
Most files were found in the original folder with original names and successfully recovered upon disk scan. For the 500 MB partition: We could not correctly recover the avi, mp3 and acc files.
Disk Reformat – NTFS to NTFS : 3.5Compare
We could find only a few files in raw files and even fewer were successfully recovered after disk scan.
Found and successfully recovered: avi, jpg, zip.
Found with incorrect file size: pdf.
Disk Reformat – FAT32 to FAT32 : 3.0Compare
All files were found among raw files without their file names. The previously tested version (Version 5) didn’t find anything.
Disk Reformat – NTFS to FAT32 : 6.0Compare
All files were found in the original folders with original names and successfully recovered after disk scan.
Disk Reformat – FAT32 to NTFS : 3.0Compare
We could find only a few files in raw files after disk scan.
Successfully recovered: zip, jpg, mp3
Found with incorrect file size: pdf.
Damaged Partition (NTFS): 0.0Compare
We could not find anything even after a disk scan. The previously tested version (Version 5) could find the partition and files.
Damaged Partition (FAT32): 5.0Compare
All files were found in the original folders with original names and successfully recovered after disk scan.
Damaged Partition (FAT32): 5.0Compare
All files were found in the original folders with original names and successfully recovered after disk scan.
Damaged Partition (FAT16): 5.0Compare
All files were found in the original folders with original names and successfully recovered after disk scan.
Deleted partition: 3.5Compare
We could not find the deleted NTFS partition. The previously tested version (Version 5) could find the deleted partition and all files For the FAT32 partition, all files were found in the original folders with original names and successfully recovered after disk scan.
RAID level: 0 consisting of 2 disks: 5.5Compare
All files were found in the original folders with original names and successfully recovered after disk scan.
RAID level: 5 consisting of 3 disks: 4.5Compare
We could not find correct RAID 5 parameters automatically, but they were the third ones among suggested. All files were found in the original folders with original names and successfully recovered after disk scan.
