Data loss can strike in many forms — accidental deletions, corrupted drives, or even partition damage. In those panicked moments, having a tool like Stellar Data Recovery can be a game-changer. It’s built to help users retrieve everything from office documents to multimedia files, across a wide range of storage types. But how well does it hold up under real use? Let’s take a closer look.
Getting Started: Easy Setup and Intuitive Design
Installing Stellar Data Recovery Professional is a smooth process. The installer is lightweight, and there’s no bundled software or hoops to jump through. Once launched, the interface greets you with a clean, well-organized dashboard. You can select exactly what file types you want to recover — documents, photos, videos, emails, or all of the above—which helps speed things up by narrowing the scan. This tailored approach is beginner-friendly and a breath of fresh air compared to cluttered recovery tools that overwhelm with too many technical options upfront.
Stellar gives you two main scan modes: a Quick Scan and a Deep Scan. The quick scan is ideal for recently deleted files — it’s fast and uses minimal system resources. Deep Scan, as the name suggests, digs into the drive for more elusive data, including files from corrupted or reformatted drives. During testing, Quick Scan recovered most recently deleted files in just a few minutes, with accurate file names and folder structures.
Deep Scan took significantly longer (upwards of 40 minutes on a 500GB drive), but turned up files that had been deleted months prior — a pleasant surprise. It supports a wide range of file systems, including NTFS, exFAT, FAT32, and even macOS’s APFS and HFS+. You can run it on hard drives, SSDs, USB sticks, SD cards, and external drives. The Pro version also handles recovery from unbootable systems and offers disk cloning.
Preview Before You Recover
A standout feature is the file preview pane. As files are found, you can view them—especially useful for images, videos, and documents—before hitting the recover button. This avoids cluttering your recovered folder with fragments and lets you focus on what really matters. The recovered files retained their structure and opened without issues in most cases. That said, not every file made it back in perfect condition—some video files were corrupted beyond repair. This is par for the course in data recovery and more a limitation of the damage itself than the software.
Resource Usage and System Performance
Stellar is generally light on system resources during a Quick Scan. Deep scans, however, can be CPU-intensive, especially on older machines. That said, the software remained stable even when running alongside other applications—no crashes, no memory leaks.
Pricing and Value
Stellar’s free version lets you scan and preview files, but you’re limited to recovering 1GB of data — just enough to test the waters. Paid plans include:
- Standard (around US$59.99/year): Basic file recovery.
- Professional (approx. US$89.99/year): Adds recovery from lost or unbootable partitions.
- Premium (US$99.99/year): Includes photo/video repair tools.
For users needing recovery just once or twice, the pricing feels steep. A one-time license would be more appealing for occasional users. However, for IT professionals or anyone who deals with data loss often, the features justify the cost.
Support and Documentation
The Stellar website offers a decent knowledge base, video guides, and email support. Response times were average—not lightning-fast, but acceptable. Live chat is available during business hours.
It would be great to see more context-sensitive help built into the app itself, especially for first-time users trying to recover from complex scenarios.
What Could Be Better
- Price-to-recovery cap on the free tier feels limiting.
- Deep scans, while thorough, are slow on large drives.
- Recovery results from severely corrupted drives can be hit-or-miss—expected, but worth noting.
Final Verdict
Stellar Data Recovery isn’t the cheapest option out there, but it’s one of the most user-friendly and feature-rich tools in its category. Its interface makes recovery straightforward, even for those without tech know-how, and it delivers strong results across a variety of file types and drive conditions.
If you’re dealing with common data loss issues — from a bad USB stick to a mistakenly formatted SD card—Stellar gets the job done without drama. Just be ready to upgrade if your recovery needs go beyond a gig.
Screenshots: Mikeshouts.
