Recently, I was asked to review some new data recovery software from Clever Files called Disk Drill, so I amiably went ahead and downloaded the latest beta release of the software from the website free of charge and put it through its paces. Disk Drill can not only deep scan your hard drive and recover lost data but can apparently help protect data via a tool called Recovery Vault which keeps a record of file data locations when deleted.
The Disk Drill interface is simple and cleanly designed, and helpfully explains what certain functions are and why they are required. It is obviously designed for the average Mac user and not data recovery experts. But that is not to say that the software isn’t powerful. It is divided into two sections, protection and recovery and I’m sure than anyone would put either to good use.
First, looking at the recovery function. By using the Deep Scan function, it is easy to find files that were deleted a long time ago but were still recoverable. Obviously, over time, some files can be overwritten by other data and are no longer recoverable, but on the whole the Deep Scan was impressive on both the hard drive (SSD) and a removable SD card. Files could be recovered easily and quickly.
The protection function is the other killer feature in this application. The Recovery Vault feature monitors your hard drive and keeps a record of file locations whenever a file is deleted. Being preconditioned to dislike anything that ‘monitors’ as frequently badly written software can cause slowdowns. This was certainly not the case with the Recovery Vault function although the MacBook Air that the software was tested on does laugh in the face of most software. The software simply keeps a record of the file location meta information rather than the file data itself so it does not take up a lot of space or resources. It works well.
Overall, I’m happy to recommend Disk Drill to Mac users, especially since the public beta version is available free of charge. There were no bugs that popped up during testing and the software does exactly what it says, and does it well. It is designed for the majority of Mac users, not data recovery professionals, and for that reason, you should definitely give it a try.
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