To buy a good Mac data recovery software, the user needs to shed around US$100 to have one. But is 100 US dollar a small amount? Perhaps No, and paying this much of amount without even considering few good points would be completely waste of money. Hereby, I have managed to arrange few but valuable points which a user must consider before choosing to opt for an Mac data recovery software. It took me some time to gather all the necessary points at one place but I will feel good if a user benefits from them. Here they go:
Internal Hard Drives: As a Mac supports file system like HFS, HFS+, HFS Wrapper and FAT file system. The data recovery app must be compatible with the above mentioned file systems and even Ex-FAT in few cases.
External Hard Drives: Detecting an external hard drive media on the fly. External media these days are common so as the data loss from them. Needless, to say, a Mac file recovery software needs to detect them quickly on connecting and recover every single piece of formatted, lost and deleted data from volumes.
Firewire Connected Drives: In case of the Mac system going inaccessible, the user is left with a choice of connecting its hard drive to another healthy Mac OS X through firewire cable. This is called Target Disk Mode and data recovery is now possible through running the software on the healthy Mac and retrieving the data from the dead system/hard drive.
USB Connected Drives: Being portable and easy to connect, USB flash devices are easier to carry, store and access bulk amount of data. On the other hand, the components of the USB devices being sensitive are much prone to malfunction. This may lead to another case of data loss and another opportunity for a Mac file recovery tool to regain the damage via scanning and searching for the lost files.
Memory Cards: Make sure to select a recovery software which supports recovery of deleted, formatted and lost files from different memory cards as well as digital cameras and recorders of various brands. Among them comes the memory cards and cameras manufactured by:Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax, Kodak, Minolta, Sigma. The recovery software should be like one which can easily recover HD video and RAW images from SLR cameras.
iPods: Apple’s iPod is a hot and happening device and an iPod user at no cost can bear the loss of valuable collection of music from it. So why not consider a tool that supports iPods as well, both classic and shuffle? Connecting the iPod to a Mac and recovering the data from it is as simple as that.
RAW File Recovery: Signature based file recovery is an advance option available to recover files and data which are either corrupted or present in the bad sectors of the hard drive. This is must have feature present in a data recovery software. So make sure to find this feature whenever you choose Mac recovery software.
CD/DVD: May be CD/DVD are now out-dated but many users still read/write their important data on to them. And with the concept of Blu-Ray disc the optical media is very much alive.
Data Recovery: This is the most prominent feature of any recovery software that assures to recover the files irrespective of their loss. E.G. data lost due to viruses and malware, formatted volumes, accidental deletion of files, inaccessible Mac, recovery from external media etc.
Deleted Files: Recovery of files that are recently deleted, accidentally deleted or removed permanently from the trash. Many user come across the trouble of emptying their trash without restoring the files that are important to them. A recovery software make sure to recover the deleted files even from the empty trash.
Corrupted Files: Not only the corrupted files but recovery of files from a corrupted media. This has to be ensured by a good Mac recovery software which using its powerful algorithms can regain the corrupted files or files from a corrupted media.
Formatted Drives: Mac drives and volumes that are either formatted or lost are recognized by an efficient Mac file recovery software and data/logical volumes are searched for recovery.
Damaged Partition Recovery: Partitions whose file system got corrupted and data inside them became completely inaccessible. The recovery software must be potent to identify such damaged partitions and scan them to find the valuable data from them.
Unmountable Drives: Does the chosen tool supports recovery of data from an unmounted drive. If not then, it is not worth to pay US$100 for it. Volumes can get unmounted by a mere malfunction in the file system etc. But a genuine recovery tool locates the unmounted volumes and help the user regain its inaccessible data.
Quick Scan: The Quick Scan feature enables fast scanning of the partitions in order to save time and produce results.
Deep Scan: Contrary to quick scan, deep scan takes longer time to search for the lost data and it does it by scanning each and every sectors of the hard drive. Might be time-consuming but result generated are more efficient than the quick scan.
Disk Imaging: The disk image feature of the recovery tool creates an image of the drive and respective volumes in case their exists bad sectors. This way, the user makes the back-up copy of the hard drive which can be later accessed in case of the OS X failure.
Recovers from Unbootable Drive: The system fails to boot up and user fears the loss of its data. In such case the recovery software job is to recover files and folders from the unbootable drives.
System Requirements & Support: Before buying a recovery application you have to double-check it whether it supports your Mac OS X. because many tool may or may not support either the latest Mac OS X versions or the above.
