Why are large files so hard to recover?

Even with all of Disk Drill’s advanced algorithms, there are still some things that lessen your chances of a successful file recovery. One of those things is large file size — files like high resolution videos, presentations, graphic files, etc. Why is it that the large files are harder to recover? The answer is disk fragmentation.

Basically, when you first start using a hard drive, the free space is in one nice large chunk. But as you save files and then delete them over time, the chunks of free space get separated, or fragmented. Imagine if your hard drive got completely full, and then you deleted eight 100MB files. This would leave you with 800MB of free space, but it would be spread out over 8 different locations on your drive. If you try to save a 200MB file, your computer will split the file in half and store it in two of those slots. Your computer then “remembers” where those pieces are and collects them as needed.

So, when you use Disk Drill to recover files on your hard drive, the large files are almost always in bits and pieces. In some cases, Disk Drill can locate the “index” for the file system that will tell it where to find each piece, but in other cases, that index is lost and the pieces become unrecoverable.

So, what can you do to protect your large files? Luckily, Disk Drill provides two ways to protect them: Recovery Vault and Guaranteed Recovery. These two features can be activated when you first install Disk Drill Basic, or they can be activated at a later time. Once enabled, Recovery Vault will index all the files on your drive and make a note of where each file “piece” is stored. That way, if you need to recover a file, Disk Drill will know just where it is. Guaranteed Recovery works a little differently: it makes a complete copy of any file you send to the Trash. You can use both features together or just one of them, depending on the level of protection you desire.

So if you have a lot of large files, be sure to take advantage of Disk Drill’s data protection features!