If you’ve used a computer, chances are you’ve deleted a file from your hard drive, or formatted a hard drive or memory card by mistake. UGH! bye-bye files! Or is it? Let’s take a look at uFlysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
Overview
uFlysoft Data Recovery for Mac was developed to do one thing, and one thing only, recover files, whether they’ve simply been deleted, or even if you’ve formatted the drive or storage card they once resided on.
I tried Data Recovery for Mac on an external hard drive, and a 16GB SD card that I use in a digital camcorder. In both cases, I copied files to the card, then deleted them, and then attempted to recover the files.
Recovering files is basically a 4-step process:
- Select the drive, partition, SD card, USB stick, or most any other type of storage attached to your Mac where the data you wish to recover was stored.
- Click “Scan.” (Scanning can take anywhere from a few minutes for a small SD card, to a few hours for a large hard drive. If you’re scanning a large hard drive, you might want to go get a snack, and watch something from your Netflix queue.)
- Preview and select the files you wish to recover.
- Click the “Recovery” button and select the drive you wish to save the recovered files to. (And we’re back to the Netflix queue for more entertainment if you’re recovering a lot of files.)
Scanning and recovery times vary, according to the type and storage size of the media being scanned. A 16GB SanDisk SHDC card inserted into my MacBook Pro’s SD card slot took a little over 9 minutes to scan, and just over 28 minutes to recover all the files.
Testing on a 64GB Solid State Drive attached to my MacBook Pro via a FireWire cable, I recorded a scan time of just over 36 minutes. I did not recover the entire contents of that drive, just the graphics files, which amounted to 5.03GB, and that recovery time came in at 5 minutes, 25 seconds.
In each attempt at recovering files that had been deleted, I was able to successfully recover the files. In the case of the SD card, I even saved photo files to the card from my Mac, ejected the card, inserted it into my digital camcorder, and then formatted the drive in the camcorder.
Upon replacing the card into my Mac’s SD card slot, I ran the uFlysoft Data Recovery software, and less than a half an hour later, I had the photo files recovered to a new directory on my Mac’s hard drive.
I obtained similarly favorable results on my recovery attempts with the SSD drive.
While this application takes awhile to accomplish its task, which is common for a utility of this type, the results are well worth it. In all attempts, I was able to recover the files I had “lost.”
I do wish the utility would allow you to designate the type of files you’re scanning for before starting the scan, as it seems that might speed up the process some. Also, the recovered files did not have the original filenames, so you have to do some digging through the recovered data in order to find the exact files you were looking for. A small quibble.
Verdict
While the price of uFlysoft Data Recovery for Mac may seem a bit expensive for a utility you may (hopefully) use very little, this type of utility is priceless when it is actually needed to recover lost data.
As well as recovering accidentally deleted files from hard drives, the developer says this app will also recover a lost partition on an external hard drive, and even lost music from your iPod (Nano, Mini, Shuffle or Classic). I was not able to test these claims.
I highly recommend uFlysoft Data Recovery for Mac as a tool in any Mac user’s toolbox, as data loss can occur at anytime, and there’s nothing worse than the sinking feeling you get when you realize you just deleted a file, or formatted a hard drive you shouldn’t have.
Rating:4/5[rating:4.0]
Price: $84.95 – Available for download from the uFlysoft website.
Pros:
- Easy to use. Select a drive, scan the drive, select where to save the recovered data.
- Recovers files completely.
Cons:
- Lacks the ability to scan for files of a certain type.
- The price is a bit dear, but it would probably pay for itself if you needed it only once.
*Note: The above review was commissioned by the developer in accordance with our app review policy, and has been written in an objective, unbiased fashion.
