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TECH |
PRO |
Works With |
Only R-Studio Technician V9+ |
Any Windows Software |
Read Timeout, More Info >> |
Yes, Fixed at 2000ms |
Yes, Customizable |
Every time a read command falls on a bad sector, a typical hard drive will spend somewhere from 3 seconds to over 20 seconds making hundreds of internal read attempts,
then conclude the sector is bad, write to its firmware area (located on the platters) to update various logs, and finally respond with an error message.
This process wastes time, quickly causes further physical degradation of the drive, and risks firmware corruption. By issuing hardware resets, we stop most of this from happening,
which speeds up the rate of error processing, makes the drive develop new bad sectors at a slower pace, and reduces the chance that it will crash during recovery.
The read timeout is how long the device will wait after issuing a read command before giving up and issuing a reset. This is a very large difference between the two product editions.
A read timeout of 2000 milliseconds is quite slow, so it would only provide a slight increase
to average bad sector processing speed, and a moderate improvement to the rate of drive degradation. With the Pro edition, it is typically best to reduce
the read timeout to 500 milliseconds, which would provide a dramatic improvement to the speed and safety of the data recovery process, making it possible
to recover drives which are in much worse condition.
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Hardware Writeblocking, More Info >> |
Yes |
Yes |
Windows automatically writes to mounted storage devices to update/repair filesystem metadata, which can cause permanent data loss,
especially when working with degraded drives. Both USB Stabilizer editions will ensure that this does not happen, protecting the integrity of the data.
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Short Circuit Protection for Source Drive, More Info >> |
Yes |
Yes |
If the connected source drive has a short circuit, USB Stabilizer hardware will immediately cut off the power, greatly reducing the probability of causing further damage.
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Stabilization of USB Connection, More Info >> |
Yes |
Yes |
USB protocol requires the PC and storage device to be in constant synchronization with one another. If the storage device fails to respond quickly enough,
or responds irregularly due to bad sectors or other read instability issues then it may lose its current state and become desynchronized with the PC,
causing Windows to freeze, crash, and/or drop the USB storage device.
USB Stabilizer hardware stands between the PC and storage device, making sure that the connection to the PC is always well-maintained, regardless
of the storage device status. This way even if the storage device becomes desynchronized, only its connection to USB Stabilizer hardware will be reinitialized,
which will not have any impact on the PC, allowing data recovery to proceed. USB Stabilizer hardware maintains a live connection even if the storage device
is physically disconnected during recovery.
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Blocking of Filesystem Mounting More Info >> |
Yes |
Yes |
Prevents Windows from mounting the filesystem (assigning drive letters) of the connected drive, saving time and eliminating the possibility of drive errors
causing Windows to hang during mounting. Windows Partition Manager is blocked, making the drive accessible even if critical file system elements have turned into bad sectors.
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Automatic Drive Repower, More Info >> |
Yes, After 60 Seconds |
Yes, Customizable |
If the source drive suddenly stops responding to all commands, as a last resort USB Stabilizer will automatically repower it to seamlessly continue the data recovery process.
With the Tech edition this will happen only after 60 seconds of non-response and with the Pro edition the timeframe can be configured to any number of seconds.
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Manual Control of Source Drive Power, More Info >> |
Yes |
Yes |
USB Stabilizer allows connecting the source drive to an unpowered USB port, and then turning the power on within the software. This helps ensure that the drive does not spend
time being needlessly powered on and reduces the chance of damage from short circuits and electrostatic shock during connection.
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USB-SCSI Error Reporting Display, More Info >> |
Yes |
Yes |
USB protocol includes an error reporting system which allows the storage device to communicate general issues to the host, which USB Stabilizer then reports in its log.
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Bus Powered, More Info >> |
Yes |
Yes |
USB Stabilizer has very low power consumption, so if the USB3 controller it is connected to provides power according to USB3 specification, USB Stabilizer can work bus powered
with all except the most power hungry USB HDDs, for which the provided 5V power supply does have to be connected.
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Flash Storage Acceleration, More Info >> |
Yes |
Yes |
The interaction of the precise timings of various state changes of USB protocol with the internal timings of each flash storage device being read has a large impact on speed.
USB Stabilizer hardware & driver work together to employ a complex algorithm that automatically adjusts various timings to better synchronize with each flash storage device.
This algorithm allows USB Stabilizer to read quick flash storage devices (like SSDs) on average 30% faster than a direct connection to USB3.0, reaching speeds above 400MBps.
To take full advantage of the high speed offered by USB Stabilizer, we recommend using gen2 10Gbit USB3 controllers, as most gen1 5Gbit USB3 controllers on the market are
poorly designed and will bottleneck the speed to a lower level.
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Degraded Flash Storage Support, More Info >> |
Yes |
Yes |
Degraded flash storage devices, like SATA/NVMe SSDs, require a different read instability handling algorithm than degraded HDDs, relying more heavily on repowering
instead of resetting, which both USB Stabilizer editions can be configured to do.
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Free Software/Firmware Updates, More Info >> |
Yes |
Yes |
Both editions of USB Stabilizer come with lifetime free updates. They work offline and have absolutely no recurring costs. (Please note that R-Studio updates are not free.)
|
Complete Logging, More Info >> |
N/A (provided by R-Studio) |
Yes |
A project folder is generated for every drive which contains the sector addresses of every successful read, failed read, write attempt,
USB-SCSI errors, as well as the drive’s raw ATA DiskID, SCSI Inquiry Data, SCSI VPD Page Serial Number, and USB Descriptor Serial Number.
The drive’s raw S.M.A.R.T. logs can also be saved at any time, for example at the beginning and end of the imaging session to record whether
the number of reallocations has changed.
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Limit Bad Block Read Retries, More Info >> |
N/A (provided by R-Studio) |
Yes |
Many applications and Windows itself automatically perform read retries after failed read attempts. USB Stabilizer can be instructed to
immediately respond with errors when bad sectors or bad blocks are retried. For example, if an application/Windows tries to read a block
of sectors, the drive responds with an error, and then that same block is retried one sector at a time then USB Stabilizer can immediately
respond to each of those single sector retries with errors without accessing the source drive, which greatly speeds up the recovery process
at the cost of losing some good sectors within bad blocks. This option can be controlled at any point during recovery.
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Sector Map & Speed Graph, More Info >> |
N/A (provided by R-Studio) |
Yes |
Shows graphically the status of each read operation on the sector level to communicate whether read commands are successful, timing out,
or being responded to with errors. Also shows the graph of the speed, which makes it easy to identify unexpected speed drops, which points
to physical degradation of the storage device.
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Powerful If/Then Algorithms, More Info >> |
No |
Yes |
Complex read instability cases require a customized approach to achieve results. Pro edition can be configured to do almost anything
by setting algorithms in the form "if X situation happens then do Y action.” For example some storage devices, particularly SSDs, can enter the
so-called “offline state” where they immediately respond to all reads with errors without actually trying to read anything and repowering is the
only way to force them to exit this state. In this situation the read commands are not timing out, so Tech edition will not be repowering the
drive and therefore not handling the case. In Pro edition this problem can be easily solved by setting an algorithm “if get 1 error then
repower drive.” Such algorithms can also be used to anticipate patterns, for example if the live sector map shows that the drive often fails
100 reads in a row then setting an algorithm “if get 10 consecutive failed reads then skip 90 reads” will greatly increase speed and drive longevity.
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Support for Vendor Specific Commands, More Info >> |
No |
Yes |
Vendor specific commands are used by professional data recovery tools like PC-3000/MRT/DFL to perform advanced functionality,
such as firmware repair and head mapping. These commands are sent via SCSI Pass-through, which is supported by the Pro edition of USB Stabilizer,
allowing it to work with professional data recovery tools.
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Turn Off Source Power due to Inactivity, More Info >> |
No |
Yes |
Practically all modern drives start self-scan procedures after as little as 20 seconds of idling. Self-scan is the drive reading its own surface
to find bad/weak sectors to reallocate. This is good for maintenance of healthy drives, but once the drive has bad sectors in the user data area,
this process causes far too much physical degradation and will likely create new bad sectors faster than it reallocates old ones. More importantly,
data will often be lost because most drives will still reallocate sectors even if they can’t first retrieve their contents; in other words,
weak sectors will be losing their contents without any user input. This option allows turning off source drive power after a customizable period
of inactivity, preventing self-scans from happening.
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Access HPA & DCO Hidden Data Areas, More Info >> |
No |
Yes |
Data can be hidden within Host Protected Area (HPA) and/or Device Configuration Overlay (DCO), which USB Stabilizer Pro can detect and remove to regain access.
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Unlock ATA Security & WD Smartware with Known Passwords, More Info >> |
No |
Yes |
Drives which are locked with an ATA Password or a WD Smartware Password can be unlocked by USB Stabilizer Pro, provided the password is known.
If the password is unknown then USB Stabilizer cannot unlock such drives.
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