Best Free Data Recovery Software 2021

Data recovery is nothing but retrieving data from failed, accidentally deleted, or corrupted storage.

The data-recovery process varies, depending on the software used, the data loss circumstances, the recovery software used to create the backup, and the backup target media.

Here we are going to review the best data recovery software available for free.

What Is Stellar Data Recovery?

Stellar Data Recovery is called Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery, Stellar Phoenix Data Recovery, etc. People use it for restoring and recovering files from Mac, Windows, HDD or SSD, USBs, CDs, or DVDs.

It is perfect for those people who want to retrieve their lost files like documents, images, videos, etc. The software comes with a lot of well-designed features that work flawlessly.

Features:

Generally, retrieving lost files is very hard, but don't worry, as this top data recovery software can do an excellent job for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It can recover files in less than four minutes.

Plenty of file formats:

It is useful when you delete your data accidentally, or your device is damaged. This software can recover any file format such as documents, photos, and videos.

USB Recovery Media:

If your operating system has crashed, the software can start up your PC, creating a bootable USB recovery media, accessing your drive, and recovering lost data. Users can get this feature available only with the paid versions like Stellar Data Recovery Professional.

Corrupted Photo & Video Repair:

Using the Repair Toolkit, the tool helps fix your damaged image files. It can work great even for distorted, grainy, blurry, pixelated, or grayed-out pictures.

It doesn't matter if your video file is in 4K, 8K, or VR video, as the software can recover all of these corrupted video files.

Missing Partition Recovery:

When you access the corrupted partitions, you may need to reformat them sometimes. The Stellar data recovery toolkit can be helpful in this case as it helps to recover those files before accessing them.

The partitions from where you can retrieve your data are as follows:- APFS, NTFS, FAT, exFAT, HFS, HFS+, Ext2, Ext3, or Ext4 partitions. Additionally, the software comes with a “Can’t Find Drive” option and a Deep Scanning feature that helps to find out lost or deleted partitions on your storage drive.

It helps access and recovers data from any crashed or unbootable Windows PC or Mac also. The software creates a bootable media and then scans the hard drive or start-up disk for searching the data and recovering them. The Stellar Data Recovery is capable of recovering data from the BitLocker encrypted drive.

Advanced RAID Recovery:

The Toolkit allows you to reconstruct inaccessible RAID arrays with the help of parameters like disk order, start sector, and block size. It offers support to the users for anything from RAID 0 to RAID 5. This software is compatible with RAID and virtual drive recovery.

Cloning:

The tool comes with a cloning feature that enables you to duplicate a disk to another drive. Using the cloning feature, you can make a copy of a failing drive before you deteriorate. With the help of this software, you are capable of recovering data from 4K drives. It comes with dual monitor support that makes it very special.

Speed:

This software is tested for scanning lost/deleted files, file recovery, etc. According to our testing, it takes merely around 45 minutes with the deep scan to retrieve 15GB of deleted files for SSDs. HDDs( Hard Disk Drives) can recover 10 GB of files in only 15 minutes when it comes to HDDs. Besides, it takes around 25 minutes for 8 GB on the USB drive. Apart from these testing, it is also seen that the tool can recover 1TB from a hard disk drive in two hours.

During testing its efficiency in file recovery, the tool can “read” files from ZIP archives. Users can retrieve their contents from any compressed file for sure. But the quick scan merely recovers those files which you have deleted recently.

User Interface:

You can see seven primary tabs on the home screen of the software that is:

• Office Documents 
• Folders 
• Emails 
• Photos 
• Audio
• Videos 
• All Data 

The interface of this tool is well-organized and user-friendly.

System Requirements:

This software is compatible with operating systems of Windows 10 / 8.1 / 8 / 7 & Mac OS X 10.8 and up versions. It requires a minimum of 2 GB RAM and 250 MB free space on a Hard disk.

Customer Support:

Users can get support through telephone and email with quick replies that will help them to fix problems within minutes.

Free plan:

The free plan of this software allows you to recover deleted files from a PC or external hard drive. Besides, you can recover files that you have lost after formatting a USB stick or an SD card. If any file is trapped on your malware-infected drive, it also allows you to recover the files. This free plan can be used for recovering 1GB of data and files of up to 25 MB size. Whether you want to have more features, then you should upgrade any of these paid plans:

• Professional ($89.99): This paid plan enables you to recover lost files, data from formatted systems, non-booting OS, lost partitions, etc.
• Premium ($99.99): Along with all the features of the professional plan, you can repair corrupted, distorted files here. 
• Technician ($199): This plan enables you to recover data from RAID and provides all the necessary features of the Premium plan. 
• Toolkit ($299): This advanced software allows you to recover data from physical and virtualized storage, unbootable OS, or those operating systems that are crashed using file signature scan options.

Advantages:

• Easy-to-use interface. 
• 24/5 customer support.
• Multiple file formats.
• Repair corrupted image as well as video.

Drawbacks:

•  Not too many scanning options are available. 
• ZIP archive supporting facility is not available.

Verdict:

The latest version of the tool enables the user to recover almost all types of tools from any disk. It is an ideal file retrieval tool for business purposes. The paid plans of the software are a little bit on the costlier side, but their excellent performance can justify the price.