RAID recovery software comparison
We tested the most well-known RAID recovery software to see how they perform in an almost real-life environment. The following tools were tested:
- DiskInternals - DiskInternals Raid Recovery version 2.7
- Runtime - Runtime RAID Reconstructor version 4.02
- ReclaiMe RAID - ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery build 301
- R-Studio - R-Studio version 5.1
- ZAR - Zero Assumption Recovery version 8.5
There were a couple of others which did not make it to our RAID recovery review because we were not able to make them work at all.
It should be noted that R-Studio is not a RAID recovery software. R-Studio can only work with healthy arrays or if you provide the RAID configuration parameters. Considering that the RAID-capable recovery tools are few and far between, we still decided to include R-Studio into our RAID recovery software test.
| Parameter | DiskInternals | Runtime | ReclaiMe RAID | R-Studio | ZAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RAID types1 | RAID 0, RAID 5 | RAID 0, RAID 5 | RAID 0, RAID 5 | RAID 0, RAID 5, RAID 4, RAID 6 | RAID 0, RAID 5 |
| Maximum number of disks2 | No data | Up to 14 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Missing disk in RAID 5? | No3 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Delayed parity support? | No data | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Ease of use | Complicated | Easy | Easy | Complicated | Moderate |
| Efficiency | Low. We were not able to rebuild any but the very basic test disk sets. | Good4 | Good | N/A | Good but slow |
| Output capabilities5 |
| Recovered files | Recovered files | ||
| List price | $249.95 | $99 | Free | $79.99 | $69.95 |
Note 1
RAID 10 and RAID 01 are supported in all cases as a special case of RAID 0.
Note 2
Vendor-provided information, not actually tested.
Note 3
Surprisingly true.
Note 4
Requires certain non-default settings to work effectively. It is often required to increase the number of sectors to scan or probe at least by the factor of ten.
Note 5
All the software is capable of creating the array image files, although maybe through a complicated procedure.
Note 6
Runtime RAID Reconstructor provides array parameters as a textual description.
ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery provides array parameters as an XML file to use with ReclaiMe data recovery software, or as instructions to use with either R-Studio or ZAR.