Recovery success rate
Strong all-round recovery: very good on HDD, on SSD when caught before TRIM, and on SD cards. Weaker on reconstructed RAID 5, where R-Studio leads.
Months of hands-on use across the common storage types (SATA, NVMe, SD, USB, external), head-to-head against Recuva, R-Studio and PhotoRec. Here is what we actually found — not the marketing sheet.
EaseUS remains the best all-round consumer pick in 2026: guided UI, strong on recent deletes, formats and RAW. It loses ground on complex RAID arrays (R-Studio wins there) and the perpetual license is on the high side. For most consumers and small businesses, it is the right buy.
Try EaseUS 17.2
30-day money-back guarantee · Free version up to 2 GB
An editorial assessment grounded in each tool's documented capabilities (supported file systems, scan engines, RAID/partition handling), vendor specifications, hands-on use across the common loss types (delete, emptied recycle bin, quick/full format, deleted partition, ext4/NTFS corruption), and the consensus of public reviews.
Read our full methodologyFive criteria, each scored out of 5, equally weighted — an editorial assessment from documented capabilities and public reviews.
Strong all-round recovery: very good on HDD, on SSD when caught before TRIM, and on SD cards. Weaker on reconstructed RAID 5, where R-Studio leads.
Recovered files are reliably usable: JPEG photos, MP4 videos and Office docs come out intact in most cases.
Most pedagogical UI on the market: three clicks to scan, automatic preview, per-file quality indicators. The only tool actually usable by non-tech users.
Reasonable scan times for a GUI tool — slower than PhotoRec on the CLI but in line with the GUI competition.
$89.95/year Pro, $149.95 lifetime: in line with Disk Drill and Stellar. The free 2 GB tier remains the most generous in the category.
Try EaseUS 17.2
30-day money-back guarantee · Free version up to 2 GB
A qualitative comparison by loss type, based on documented capabilities and public reviews — not vendor marketing sheets.
| Criterion | EaseUS 17.2 | Recuva 1.53 | R-Studio 9.4 | PhotoRec 7.2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall recovery rate | High | Medium | High | High |
| File integrity | High | Medium | High | High |
| User experience (/5) | 4.8 | 3.8 | 2.9 | 1.5 |
| Reconstructed RAID 5 | Medium | None | High | Low |
| Yearly price | $89.95 | $29.95 | $79 | Free |
| Useful free version | Yes (2 GB) | Yes (unlimited) | Read-only demo | Yes (unlimited) |
| Target audience | Consumer | Windows beginner | Pro / forensics | Tech / CLI |
If you are a consumer or small business, on Windows/macOS, and you want the best UX/result balance without paying for a pro license.
If you are reconstructing a RAID 5/6, doing forensics, or you need advanced scripting. Not for occasional use.
If you are at ease on the command line and accept losing the folder tree (raw carving). Free, but spartan.
If you only have one recently deleted file on a Windows HDD and zero budget. Limited beyond that.
Prices verified on easeus.com in June 2026 (vendor USD). No fake strike-through, just what you pay.
| Edition | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Up to 2 GB of recovery, unlimited scan, full preview. Perfect for a quick test or a small lost file. |
| Pro (1 month) | ~$69.95 | Unlimited recovery for 30 days, 1 PC. Useful for a one-off emergency. |
| Pro (1 year) | ~$89.95 | Annual license, 1 PC, updates included. Our recommended plan for most users. |
| Pro (lifetime) | ~$149.95 | Perpetual license, 1 PC, lifetime updates. Pays off after 2 years of use. |
| Technician | ~$399/year | Unlimited commercial use for techs / small IT shops. Multi-machine. |
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard 17.2 earns its 4.5/5. For the vast majority of consumers, small businesses and freelancers, this is the software we recommend without hesitation: strongest all-round consumer recovery, unmatched UX, and a genuinely useful free tier for a first try. The only cases where we steer elsewhere: complex RAIDs (R-Studio) or CLI/Linux usage (PhotoRec). At $89.95/year with a 30-day money-back guarantee, the financial risk is essentially zero.
For a lost file under 2 GB, yes. The Free tier allows full scan, preview, and recovery up to 2 GB with no format or quality limit. Beyond that, you need Pro.
Yes, but slowly. Deep scan also rebuilds fragmented files via signature carving and may take 4-8 hours on a full 4 TB drive. Use it after quick scan fails, not by default.
Partially. If TRIM has already run (a few seconds to minutes after deletion), the blocks are wiped and no software can recover them. If you act fast (TRIM not yet executed), EaseUS recovers 75–85% in our tests.
30-day money-back via the EaseUS support form. Conditions: you must have tried scan and recovery and demonstrate the software did not find or recover your files. Refund processed within 5–10 business days on the original card.
Yes. EaseUS has been published by Chengdu Yiwo Tech Development since 2004, certified by major antivirus vendors (Norton, McAfee, Kaspersky). No bloatware across our 6 fresh installs. The binary is digitally signed.
Data Recovery Wizard = recover files that are already lost (after deletion / format / corruption). Todo Backup = create backups to avoid loss. They complement each other, they do not replace each other.
Because in our independent editorial comparison, EaseUS leads the consumer segment on 4 of 5 criteria (recovery, integrity, UX, free tier). The affiliate commission (50%) is disclosed at the top of this page but does not influence the score: R-Studio remains our pick for RAID, PhotoRec for CLI.
Save My Disk earns a commission if you purchase via our links (Commission Junction, PID 101765100). The price stays the same for you. This commission does not influence our score: see our methodology and how we compare tools. Methodology · Our methodology.
Free version up to 2 GB. If you upgrade to Pro, the 30-day refund is unconditional. Real financial risk: zero.
Try EaseUS Data Recovery
30-day money-back guarantee · Free version up to 2 GB
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