“Disk Drill Pro is a powerful data recovery app that doesn't require a subscription, yet comes packed with plenty of options and extras.”
- Excellent recovery of HDD files
- Restored files from a damaged thumb drive
- Quick file previews even with a slow drive
- One-time purchase with no subscription
- Low-cost lifetime upgrades
- 500MB limit in free version
“Why you can trust Digital Trends – We have a 20-year history of testing, reviewing, and rating products, services and apps to help you make a sound buying decision. Find out more about how we test and score products.“
Disk Drill Pro data recovery software can help restore files you’ve accidentally deleted and get data back from damaged drives. The developer, Cleverfiles, offers it as a free app and an affordable paid version that lets you recover more.
I reviewed Disk Drill Pro’s speed, quality, and ease of use to test whether it can help get back lost photos and other files from external hard disks, internal SSDs, partitions, and thumb drives. I also checked Cleverfiles’ customer service and researched costs to find out how good Disk Drill Pro measures up to the best data recovery software.
Tiers and pricing
Disk Drill is available as a free app, but you can only recover 500Mb worth of lost files. That’s enough to get a sense of how well the software works but could fall short of what you need.
Most drives hold several gigabytes or even terabytes of data, so if your budget is tight, you might want to check around. The best free data recovery software could restore more files without paying anything.
Where Disk Drill Pro wins is the lack of subscription fees. When you buy the app, you own the current version and can keep using it as long as you like. That makes the $89 price incredibly affordable. Cleverfiles lets you use it on three computers, adding more value.
Leading data recovery apps like EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro charge $70 for one month of use and $150 for lifetime use with ongoing upgrades. To keep Disk Drill Pro updated to the latest version, you can add lifetime upgrades for another $19, a total of $108 to match EaseUS’ lifetime plan.
Disk Drill Enterprise supports 10 users and unlimited activations for a one-time cost of $499. For $99 more, you can get lifetime upgrades.
Design
Disk Drill Pro opens with a list of all connected storage devices. Subcategories in the left sidebar let me narrow the list to hardware disks, logical volumes, RAID drive arrays, and network storage. A menu bar at the top left lets me access preferences, activate my purchase, and contact support.
After I select a drive, the right sidebar shows its details, including the device model, capacity, available space, number of partitions, filesystem, storage protocol, and more. A big blue button at the top right starts the search for lost data.
During a scan, Disk Drill Pro has buttons at the top to show lists of files or thumbnails. The list view has columns for each file’s name, recovery chances, modification date, type, and size. In image mode, a slider lets me adjust the thumbnail size.
I can see a medium size preview in the right sidebar or open the preview in a resizable window. A pin button locks the window on top so I can select another file to see in the preview window.
It’s a very well-designed app with obvious controls for the main functions and little extras to refine the experience as you become more familiar with how it works. For example, there’s a button that shows the raw data of a file in hexadecimal and text form. You might not need that capability, but it’s nice that Cleverfiles includes it.
Disk Drill Pro also includes extra tools like a drive clean-up app that identifies the largest files on drive and in folders and a Recovery Vault feature that stores metadata for any files you delete, increasing the chances of file restoration.
Features
I started testing Disk Drill Pro by scanning my external USB hard disk drive (HDD). It’s a cheap, slow drive that’s great for overnight backups. I had loaded it up with a batch of AI images and music in nested folders, then ran a quick format with Windows File Explorer.
The app immediately found several files and showed cards for different filetypes that I could select to start previewing what might be restored. I could already see plenty of thumbnail images in the early stages of the scan and open large previews.
As with other data recovery software, scanning a large, slow drive takes time. After about an hour, the scan was complete. Disk Drill Pro found all the files and folders I lost and most had a high chance of recovery. An alert advised me that I could do a deep scan for more files.
Since the previews looked good, I started restoration without a deep scan. Disk Drill Pro recovered every file. I chose to recover reconstructed files, which resulted in the loss of the names and folder structure. It might have restored those details with another option I started using.
The next HDD test began the same way, but I deleted every file instead of running a quick format. The scan found a large number of files, many more than I recently copied.
Instead of reviewing reconstructed files, I looked at lost files that had names and folders. Everything had a preview, indicating restoration was likely. I found a music file and was surprised to find Disk Drill Pro let me open a preview and play the sound.
Since the number of files was more than I wanted, I filtered the results to show those with high recoverability. Disk Drill Pro restored all my files, including the names and folders.
Disk Drill Pro performed well with HDD recovery but even the best solid-state drives (SSDs) are nearly impossible to restore. After copying my test data to an SSD partition, I did a quick format and started a scan. No storage miracles occurred, and the app only found three system files that weren’t worth restoring.
As usual, I did a full format to erase all data, then went ahead with the second SSD test, restoring deleted files. Disk Drill Pro found 338 files, many with names, but all showed low recoverability and no previews. I couldn’t open any of these files.
For the final test, I plugged in an old, damaged thumb drive that Windows couldn’t read. Disk Drill Pro found and recovered several files that I had lost.
Support
As a Disk Drill Pro subscriber, I was able to get quick help via live chat with a customer service agent. Support is available 24 hours a day, every day.
I’d chatted with support briefly before I started testing the app and received a reply in about a minute. The wait time varies, of course. During my review, the response time was six minutes. That’s still much quicker than the 24-hour turnaround that’s common for support from low-cost data recovery software like Recuva Professional.
I asked my standard question about SSD file recovery. Disk Drill Pro support correctly told me that the TRIM feature leads to quicker loss of data. If I couldn’t see a preview, file restoration is unlikely.
The website also has support documents if you prefer to search or browse for answers on your own.
Privacy and security
Disk Drill Pro doesn’t collect or store any of your file data and doesn’t upload files for cloud processing. The Cleverfiles website collects information necessary to process your order and assist with customer service. The company might use third-party services for these purposes.
I couldn’t find any records of a Cleverfiles breach. Your privacy and security should be safe when using Disk Drill Pro.
Is Disk Drill Pro right for you?
Disk Drill Pro offers great value for data recovery. It passed my HDD and thumb drive tests with no trouble. While it couldn’t restore SSD files, that is difficult for every app.
The free version lets you test performance and recover up to 500MB of data. If you like it, the one-time fee of $89 to buy the current version and use it on three computers is a rare bargain in a world where subscription software is becoming common.
I like Disk Drill Pro and recommend it as one of the best data recovery apps available.
