Disk Drill vs PhotoRec
Disk Drill
cleverfiles.com
PhotoRec
cgsecurity.orgSide by side
| Figure | Disk Drill | PhotoRec |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $7.42/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 8 | 1 |
| Spec score · Data recovery software | 9.1 (#2) | 8.7 (#11) |
| Spec score · Photo recovery software | 9.2 (#2) | 8.6 (#8) |
| Spec score · Photo Recovery Software | 9.1 (#2) | 8.3 (#12) |
| Spec score · SD Card Recovery Software | 9.0 (#3) | 8.2 (#16) |
| Spec score · SD card recovery software | 9.1 (#4) | 8.6 (#8) |
| Spec score · File recovery tools | 9.1 (#1) | 8.4 (#4) |
| Founded | 2011 | 1998 |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Memory card recovery | Yes | Yes |
| Operating systems | macOS 10.15+; Windows 10+ | Windows; Linux; macOS; DOS; FreeBSD; NetBSD; OpenBSD; Solaris; other Unix systems |
| RAID recovery | Yes | Yes |
| Recovery sources | Internal and external hard drives,SSDs,USB flash drives,SD/CF cards,memory cards,digital cameras,virtual hard drives,RAID arrays,disk images | hard disks; CD-ROMs; memory cards; USB memory drives; DD raw images; EnCase E01 images |
| Support | CleverFiles says its technical support team operates in CES and EST time zones and provides do-it-yourself recovery support worldwide. | Users can seek help on the PhotoRec forum, send suggestions to the developer, or submit a bug report. |
Plans
Disk Drill
- BasicFree
- PRO Subscription$89 a year
- PRO Lifetime License$149, paid once
- EnterprisePrice not published
- Disk Drill BasicFree
- Disk Drill EnterprisePriced on request
- Disk Drill PRO Lifetime LicensePrice not published
- Disk Drill PRO One-Year SubscriptionPrice not published
In their own words
Disk Drill
Disk Drill scans storage devices to find and recover deleted, lost, or damaged files. It runs on macOS 10.15 or later and Windows 10 or later, and supports internal and external drives, SSDs, USB drives, memory cards, cameras, RAID arrays, virtual disks, and disk images. The free Basic edition scans storage and previews recoverable files; Windows users can recover up to 100 MB without upgrading. PRO provides unlimited data recovery and recovery methods including Quick & Deep Scan and Lost Partition Search. It also covers both supported operating systems under one license, with activation on up to three devices by one user. The free edition includes Recovery Vault metadata protection and byte-level backups. PRO costs $89 a year for an annual subscription or $149 as a one-time purchase for a lifetime license. PRO is for personal use, while Enterprise is listed for multiple users and includes priority technical support and forensic data export. PRO purchases are non-refundable except where consumer protection laws require refunds.
PhotoRec
PhotoRec is a free file recovery program for retrieving lost videos, documents, archives, and pictures from storage media and disk images. It searches the underlying data instead of relying on the file system, which can help after file-system damage or reformatting. It recognizes more than 480 file extensions across about 300 file families, and listed file systems include FAT, NTFS, exFAT, ext2/ext3/ext4, and HFS+.
Supported sources include hard disks, CD-ROMs, memory cards, USB drives, raw disk images, and EnCase E01 images. PhotoRec runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, DOS, several BSD systems, Solaris, and other Unix systems. It accesses the recovery drive or card in read-only mode; recovered files should go to a different partition. The portable download runs after extracting its archive, without an installer. QPhotoRec provides a graphical interface, while PhotoRec can also run from scripts or batch files with command-line options. The maker says it usually cannot recover original filenames and does not work well with ReiserFS.