 Hello everybody! Here is our rating of top tools for data recovery from RAID systems. RAID is a technology that makes it possible to combine several hard disks into a single array to increase performance and improve data protection. But even if a RAID system is used, data can be lost due to various failures, errors, or damage. In such situations, what you need is a good data recovery tool. Today, we are going to explore the best and most popular solutions designed to recover information from RAID systems. For our test, we have selected six of the most popular utilities. Their developers claim that these apps are perfectly capable of restoring lost data or retrieving it from a crashed disk array. In this video, we'll test such products as Diskinternals RAID Recovery, EZUS RAID Data Recovery, Hetman RAID Recovery, Reclaiming Free RAID Recovery, RStudio, and UFS Explorer RAID Recovery. Official webpages of every tool claim their ability to recover data from RAID systems. Unfortunately, some of the products don't support data recovery from RAID 6 and combine systems like RAID 10, RAID 50, and RAID 60. In the chart below, you can see specific RAID levels supported by each utility. The situation with file systems is similar. Some products only support a few most popular file systems, which should be taken into account when choosing a good utility for your recovery needs. The first step on the list is Diskinternals RAID Recovery. It can recover data from RAID 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, and J-Bot, and also from combined array types like 50 and 60. The utility supports the following file systems NTFS, FAT, RFS, XFAT, HFS, XT2, 3, 4, XFS, and UFS. It also supports both manual and automatic identification of main properties such as array type, RAID controller type, stripe size, and disk order. Talking of advantages, it identifies and rebuilds RAID systems automatically. It supports a wide range of RAID types. There are two scan types available – fast recovery and full recovery. Talking of disadvantages – low scan speed, compatibility with Windows only. The free trial version offers the file preview feature, but it doesn't recover any files. For the first test, I have built a classic RAID file with three hard disks and a better FFS file system. But since this tool doesn't support it, I had to skip this test. The RAID is based on a Synology Nest device. What is more, the better FFS file system is widely used for creating RAIDs in many network attached storage devices, so lack of support for this file system is a serious drawback. The second utility – ESUS RAID Data Recovery is another popular data recovery tool for RAID arrays. It can recover files from various RAID types, including RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, and RAID 10. It also supports a multitude of file systems, among them NTFS, FAT, HFS+, RFS, and EXT234. However, just like the previous utility, it offers no recovery options for better FFS file system. One of the key advantages in ESUS RAID Data Recovery is its simple interface and the preview before recovery option. Besides, this utility lets you recover data from damaged disks and restore data from formatted partitions. Anyway, it failed to rebuild the disks into RAID system. If the disks are scanned separately, the utility won't be able to recover files in full, so most of them, or even all of them, can be damaged. The matter is that when files are saved to a disk array, they are written in parts to each of the disks within the array, and several parts of the same file can easily be written on all disks of such array. While reading only one disk at a time, the Recovery tool can only restore a part of the file. Also, some users complained about the long time required for scanning a new covering data, as well as about some files which were never recovered. Our number 3 is Hetman RAID Recovery, a powerful tool for restoring data from RAID systems. It lets you recover data from all popular array types, RAID 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, as well as from combined RAID types such as RAID 10, 50, 60, and so on. The utility is able to scan physical disks, recover data from damaged or deleted partitions, including removed logical volumes. Hetman RAID Recovery inelves you to recover data from arrays which have been formatted, damaged after an array controller failure, syncing arrays or other problems. This utility supports various file system types, NTFS, FAT, XFAT, RFS, HFS+, EXT2, 3, and 4, and others, including better FS. Hetman RAID Recovery has a user-friendly interface which enables you to start data recovery immediately without having to study huge manuals. It is equally easy to use for beginners and advanced users, who possess certain experience in data recovery. This tool includes a feature to create disk images for further recovery, which helps to protect the original data from additional damage. This lets you preview any identified files and decide which ones to recover. With this utility, you'll be equally able to recover data from a crashed RAID system and restore files accidentally deleted from physical and network drives such as ISCSI. Hetman RAID Recovery works on Windows operating systems and supports most disk array types. You can also use this tool to recover files from other operating systems since it supports most file system types. As you can see, rebuilding a crashed RAID is an easy task for this app. It managed to identify the RAID type, its file system, and other properties of the disk array. To search for data, you have two options – file scan and full analysis. Full analysis includes searching for files by their contents. The utility displays data as soon as the file scan is over, which saved us a lot of time, since full analysis takes much longer. With all that, the disk array structure is retained as well as all folders and file names. This tool has performed really well. Talking of advantages, the utility is easy to use but offers a lot of functions. It contains a number of presets representing array combinations often used by popular controller manufacturers. This is one more feature to save your time. It supports all main RAID levels. You can have it as a portable version if necessary. There are also some disadvantages. It can only be installed on a Windows computer. The free trial version only lets users view the files, but recovery is locked. Another utility in today's video is reclaiming free RAID recovery. This free utility can recover data from any RAID types, and it supports all main file systems. Data recovery is fully automatic, which makes this tool easy to use and convenient. However, you'll have to take some effort to get your data recovered. The program can't rebuild a crashed RAID automatically, so before I start my scan, you need to select the disks it used to include and click on the corresponding button for a specific RAID type. You can't choose the scan type, and you can't preview disk contents either. Disks and takes quite a long time. Most likely this utility runs as search-by-file contents, and it means you'll have the scan results in an hour or two. In our rating, this tool takes the last place. Well, it does have one considerable advantage of being free, but it's up to you to decide whether your time is worth it. In the end, you might have to look for a better tool, though. Finally, the scan ended in another era. The disk set cannot be processed. Better-if file system is not supported either. Another tool to be tested is RStudio. This utility can also work with any RAID type and supports all main file systems. It has a convenient user interface and provides vast opportunities to search and recover data, including deleted and damaged files. However, the utility failed to rebuild the RAID from hard disks with better-if file system, probably because it doesn't support it. Here is one more candidate – UFS Explorer, a powerful and reliable tool designed to recover data from RAID arrays as well as from other storage devices such as hard disks, solid state drives, flash drives, CDs, and DVDs. It supports many file systems including NTFS, FAD32, EXT2, EXT3, RyzerFS, XFS, HFS, APFS, BetterFS, and many others. UFS Explorer lets you recover data from damaged RAID systems and disks, as well as to recover deleted files and partitions. It offers many options for scanning and searching for files, which allows users to recover their lost data in a most effective way. Besides, UFS Explorer includes a feature to create disk images and array images for further recovery, which helps to protect original data from additional damage. This time, the utility displays the volume and it managed to identify its name and file system, BetterFS, but the volume is not recognized as RAID files. Let's try to view the volume contents. As you can see, it managed to rebuild the crashed RAID from the disks and to find all files, while retaining disk structure as well as file and folder names. All files are shown in the preview window. Summing up, after the first series of tests, we can select only two products capable of recovering data from RAID files with BetterFS file system. They are UFS Explorer RAID Recovery and Hetman RAID Recovery, while others don't support data recovery with such disk configuration. We will perform another test with EXT4 file system, which all products claim to support. Let's see if all of them can rebuild the RAID system and retrieve its files. Well, we start with disk internals, and you can see that it managed to create a RAID, identify its type, and as you click on the disk, you can see the data volume. There is an option to preview the disk contents. If the data has not been removed, using it will be enough to see all the files which still remain on the disk. So, all the information is where it should be. All files can be previewed. Now let's check how it handles deleted files and how effectively it can find them. Let's run a quick search, Unraiser. The program managed to find the deleted files, but their size is displayed as 0, and they can't be previewed. Such files are unlikely to break out. What we see is that this program can recover files with a quick scan, while a proper in-depth scan is going to take up much longer. As a result, the program managed to find the deleted files after a full scan, but they aren't displayed in the preview window because their size is still 0 bytes, there is no hope to recover them. Now it is time to test the ESUS product. As you can see, this tool doesn't rebuild the RAID system, and there is no option to do it manually. However, the program suggests scanning the disk separately. Well, in that case, data recovery from RAID is doubtful. Summing up this tool is unable to recover data from RAID, but its website says exactly the opposite. Another tool on the list is Hetman RAID Recovery. It has rebuilt the crashed RAID automatically at startup. It has also identified its type, file system and other properties. In order to view the files it has found, you need to analyze the disk contents, so run a fast scan. With this type of analysis, the program scans the disks very quickly and displays the files it has found. As you can see, it shows you all the data which still remains on the disks, as well as deleted files which are marked with a red cross for your convenience. The contents of all files can be checked in the preview window. And it's also true for deleted files. In this situation, we don't need to run a deep scan, which really saves us a lot of time. Now let's see what reclaiming can do as a free tool. Select the disks and start looking for RAID 5. Here we go again. Another error. The utility says that disks have been removed. It can't rebuild the RAID, and we have never reached the recovery stage. The chances for data recovery from RAID systems with this utility look very doubtful. Well, it's got a huge advantage of being free, but I wouldn't be paying my data recovery hopes on it. At least, it was unable to cope with this discovery. Finally, here is our studio. Curiously enough, this tool failed to rebuild the RAID automatically, although it supports this array type and its file system XT4. Talking of advantages, it's got very good functionality and it supports most RAID configurations and file systems. Yet the downside is that it doesn't support the configuration used in this particular test. The last utility for testing is UFS Explorer. As you can see, it succeeded in rebuilding the crashed array from the available disks. The only disadvantage is that the RAID type isn't displayed, only the volume name. In the Browse mode, you can easily see the files which remain on the disks, but their contents cannot be previewed because they are not displayed. Files in other folders are shown properly. Deleted files are not displayed in this mode. Let's check the quick scan results. The scan is over, but nothing has changed. The program was unable to find the deleted files and some of them are not shown in the preview mode. To find the deleted files, you should run a full scan, which takes much longer to complete. However, as a result, this utility can't find any deleted data even after a deep scan. Well, talking of advantages, it's got very good functionality and it supports most RAID types and file systems. But the downside is that it couldn't find any deleted files from the RAID used in this test. Alright, today we have tested six different utilities and you've seen their performance with your own eyes. Now you can decide which of them would be the best choice for your particular situation. As it appears, each tool has its peculiarities, pros and cons, but the final choice should depend on your needs and preferences. Regardless of which product you have chosen, it is important to remember that there are certain rules to be followed in order to avoid making things worse than they already are. Don't forget to backup your data regularly and contact professionals if you encounter problems in data recovery operations. And that is all for now. We hope that this video was useful and helped you to choose the best tool to recover data from RAID systems. Remember to click the Like button and subscribe to our channel. Thank you for watching and good luck.