Disk Drill review

Disk Drill is popular data recovery software that’s available for both Windows and Mac computers. In our Disk Drill review, we analyze it to help you determine whether it’s a good option for your needs.

Disk Drill review: Snapshot

Disk Drill is a popular data recovery program, and comprehensive testing shows that it deserves its reputation. It has options for both Windows and Mac devices, with excellent free plans and competitively priced lifetime licenses.

On top of this, Disk Drill is very easy to use. Quick scans take no more than a minute, and they will generally find any files you need to recover. More difficult recoveries can be completed with a deep scan, which will take longer.

Disk Drill boasts a suite of extra features, including the Recovery Vault, which is designed to make it easier to recover lost files in the future. It supports external drive scanning, and it has a great recovery rate.

When compared to its main alternatives, Disk Drill presents as one of the more affordable options. It sits right up there among the industry leaders, and many would argue that it’s the best data recovery program on the market.

Score: 4.5/5

Read on for our full and detailed review.

Disk Drill’s competitors

Disk Drill: Key features

Disk Drill is a powerful data recovery program that supports both Windows and Mac operating systems. It can be used to recover a wide range of devices, including hard drives, USB drives, SD cards, digital camera memory, and, if you’re using the Mac version, data from an iPhone or Android device. Over 300 file formats are recoverable, which is excellent.

Another excellent feature is Disk Drill’s Recovery Vault. When it’s enabled, it will monitor the drive or drives it’s told to. If any changes are noticed, such as a file being deleted or corrupted, it will keep a record of the file’s metadata.

With this information, it becomes much quicker and easier to recover the files if they are later lost. On top of this, you can recover unlimited files for free if you’re using Disk Drill’s Recovery Vault to protect your data.

Once you’ve run a scan, you will likely be presented with thousands of recovered files. There’s no way you’re going to want to restore all of them, so Disk Drill lets you filter and search for the files you want. When you’ve found ones that you think could be right, you can preview them within the Disk Drill file explorer.

Although it’s not available as a mobile app, Disk Drill does support mobile data recovery. If you have the Mac version, you will be able to search for and recover lost photos, texts, documents, and other data from your iOS or Android device. The process is similar to the recovery of any other external storage device, and you shouldn’t have any problems working through it.

Last, but not least, Disk Drill comes with a load of extra tools to help you maintain your device’s health. The Disk Health and Mac Health tools are designed to monitor your device and alert you of any issues. The Duplicate Finder enables you to search for and delete extra files that could be slowing your device, and the Data Backup tool offers backup options for Mac users.

Disk Drill: What’s new in 2022?

Disk Drill provides regular new releases for its Windows and Mac data recovery programs. The latest Mac release was as recent as the 2nd of March, 2022, and it improved the program’s detection of certain file types. It also boosted its ability to recover unstable disks.

The latest Windows update, from early November 2021, was much more comprehensive. It added full Windows 11 compatibility, various user interface improvements, and boosted scanning speed. It also enabled more configuration options for those wishing to fine-tune their scans and data backups.

Regardless of your operating system, you can rest assured that the Disk Drill team is working hard behind the scenes to ensure it remains at the forefront of the data recovery industry.

Disk Drill: Pricing

Disk Drill has slightly different options for its Windows and Mac data recovery programs. The free Windows option enables you to recover up to 500MB of data. The Pro version (£86.99, one-time payment) enables unlimited data recovery for a single user. Lifetime upgrades are available for an extra £28.34.

The Enterprise version (£487.74), one-time payment) supports up to 10 users and adds priority technical support. Lifetime upgrades here cost an extra £96.77.

The three Mac plans are priced identically to the Windows ones. However, the free plan doesn’t include any free data recovery, although it enables you to scan and preview the items that are available to recover. You will need a premium license to restore these.

Discounts are available in specific circumstances, including for those upgrading from previous versions (50% off) and for education and non-profit customers (20% off).

Testing Disk Drill

To test Disk Drill, we downloaded the Windows version, ran a scan, and restored a small number of files. The download and installation process was very straightforward, and you shouldn’t have any issues getting started.

How easy is it to run a scan with Disk Drill?

To start a basic scan with Disk Drill, you simply have to select the Start Scan option, then select the type of scan you want to run. For starters, we ran a quick scan, which took under a minute and found 423746 files totaling 22.6GB. Among these were a large number of image and document files, which was good to see.

Once the scan is complete, you can click through to view the recovered files. If you know the file type you’re looking for or when it was deleted, you can filter by these metrics. Alternatively, you can view the location of lost files to determine whether the ones you require are there. Disk Drill has a great recovery rate, and it took just seconds to recover 244MG of image files.

The deep scan feature took significantly longer, but it could be worth considering if you’re having trouble finding the files you want to restore. On our Windows computer, it took just under an hour to perform a deep scan, but it recovered just short of 600,000 files—almost 50% more than the quick scan did.

Alternatives to Disk Drill

DiskDrill is an effective and widely used data recovery and restoration program, but it’s by no means the only option worth considering. Two other popular options are EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and Stellar Data Recovery.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is a basic yet effective option. It’s tailored more towards beginners than advanced IT technicians, and its user-friendly interface is clearly a result of this. EaseUS is a little slow, but its scans are effective and able to recover a wide number of file types.

Like DiskDrill, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard can be used with Mac and Windows devices, as well as to recover external storage drives. On the downside, it’s very expensive. The cheapest plan costs £79.59 per year, compared to Disk Drill’s £86.99 one-time license fee.

Stellar Data Recovery is a slightly cheaper option that can also be used on Windows, Mac, and external storage devices. On top of this, it has an iOS version that supports iOS data recovery.

Depending on your requirements, Stellar could be more affordable than Disk Drill. If you need a simple one-time recovery program, its £43.99 annual fee is almost half the price of Disk Drill’s lifetime license.

Disk Drill: Final verdict

Disk Drill has a reputation as one of the best data recovery programs on the market, and this is well deserved. It supports the recovery of lost and accidentally deleted files and data from Windows and Mac devices, and its deep scans are extremely effective.

A range of external devices are supported, and with the Mac version, you can also recover files from connected mobile devices. Disk Drill is also quite easy to use, and the built-in file previewer is excellent.

Restoring files is very quick, and there is a range of extra tools to help you maximize your device’s performance. The Recovery Vault is a standout, making it much easier to recover accidentally deleted files in the future.

There’s even a free version that enables you to scan your computer before upgrading to a premium license, and the Windows version enables you to restore up to 500MB of data for free. The premium licenses are competitively priced too, so we’d recommend testing the platform if you’re looking for a reliable data recovery solution.

Further reading

If you would like to find out more about the best data recovery programs on the market, check out our guide to the best data recovery software.