Since the first hard disk drive (HDD) was invented by IBM in 1953, the capacity of a hard disk drive has been increasingly growing. When hard disk drives first became available for personal computers, they only offered 5MB capacity. The hard disk drives in desktops currently have 1 to 6TB capacity. The capacities range from 500GB to 8TB at present time for 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch standard sized external hard drives.
There is no doubt that the information explosion and the digitalization have driven the capacity increase. More and more people save holiday pictures, work documents, downloaded movies and other files on removable drives for storage or sharing.
Meanwhile, the risk of information loss has been going up too. For instance, when your desktop or laptop fails to start up or the portable hard drives suddenly stop working, you will be facing the threat of permanent loss of the sensitive and valuable information.
To save the files from a faulty hard drive on Mac, either internal or external, you will need a data recover tool that can do a great job in every scenario.
The basics of a hard drive data recovery software for Mac
- Recover accidentally deleted files and undeleted file from emptied Trash..
- Recover files from an external hard drive that is fully formatted.
- Support internal and external hard drives from different manufacturers.
- Support hard drives formatted with different file systems that are supported on Mac including APFS, HFS, FAT and exFAT.
- Work on most and latest macOS and OS X.
You can check those information on software’s official website under its tech specifications. Make sure you read carefully before you download or buy it.
If the Mac data recovery software you want to use to rescue your files on an hard drive meet those requirements, hold on one second. It only means that the program has reached the passing scores but not ranked among the best yet.
So what else should you expect from a hard drive data recovery software for Mac? You can read some reviews of it or dig deeper in its product’s blogs.
Questions to ask when selecting a better hard drive data recovery tool
- Can the software recover files from an unbootable Mac?
A Mac could crash when its startup disk suffers errors. Most times, the solutions will include the factory resetting the Mac or the reinstallation of the operating system. Either of the solutions will delete all stored files on the startup disk. How to get the files off the boot-up disk first? You will be in need of a hard drive software for Mac that can boot up the computer and restore files in non-booting situation, by creating a bootable disk or directly launching the software using commands in Terminal.
- Can the software recover files from a corrupted external hard drive?
Compared with crashed Mac’s internal hard drive, external hard disk corruption happens more frequently. A lot of reasons can cause an external hard disk corrupted and make the external HDD not recognized by macOS. The most common reason is the unexpected interruption during data transferring such as sudden power-off and abrupt unplugging of the disk. Another reason could be the file system or partition table damaged by the virus infections, malware attacked or bad sectors.
- Is the software easy to use?
The usability is one of important criteria for the best data recovery software. So is hard drive data recovery software. We have tested many data recovery software and some of them are very complicated to use. What you should look for is a simple, clean and intuitive interface. A user-friendly interface can reduce your anxiety and work more effectively as well. You definitely don’t want to spend half an hour reading the user’s instructions and to click a dozen of times to find the lost files, do you?
- Can the software recover data from encrypted or lost APFS-formatted external hard drives?
As you know, APFS is the default file system in macOS 10.12 and later, so most of data recovery software have been upgraded to be compatible with APFS file system. To protect the files from unauthorized access, the macOS provides the encryption on APFS volumes. However, not every data recovery app can recover deleted or lost data from encrypted APFS disk. When the APFS partitions are accidentally deleted or lost, the hard drive data recovery software need to be able to salvage files too.
Verdict
Of course you can have your own standards in selecting a hard drive data recovery tool for Mac. For example, many people would like the software developer to offer fast technical support. Hopefully the information in this post can help you find a satisfying hard drive data recovery tool and make the best use of it.
