DeepSpar Challenges:
– none that I know of, at the moment
Atola Challenges:
– not very flexible for playing with the configurations
– when updating the firmware, requires the user to be able to push a button on the unit and start the process at the Windows Console (for me, I was across the room and need the assistance of another person)
– when the unit drops its network connection, the process stops and the system needs to be completely rebooted and the Windows application needs a forced quit
– with the cost of annual updates, the up front cost savings will be lost after 4 years, when the price of this product surpasses the DeepSpar Imager price
GNU ddrescue:
– can be a pain to get compiled
– command line can be tough to figure out for a novice user
– without Linux/Unix knowledge, it is easy to get the devices mixed up
| DeepSpar Disk Imager | Atola Imager | GNU ddrescue | |
| Software Interface | DOS (Windows via DRE over a network) | Windows | Linux / Mac OS / Windows (using Cygwin) / BSD / Unix |
| System Interface | IDE (supplied PCI-E1x ATA Controller) | Gigabit Ethernet | n/a |
| SATA Source | Yes (with supplied adapter) | Yes | Yes |
| IDE Source | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| USB Source | Yes (requires Forensic Edition) | No | Yes |
| SATA Destination | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| IDE Destination | Yes | Yes (with adapter) | Yes |
| Image Specific Files | Yes | No | Yes (If file system accessible) |
| Image data areas only | Yes | Yes (NTFS/FAT) | No |
| Head Map | Yes | No | No |
| Image by Head | Yes | No | No |
| Able to switch between specific DMA and UDMA modes | Yes | No | No |
| Set sector range to mirror | Yes | Yes (requires multiple sessions that don’t cross reference the same sector map) | Yes |
| Image to file | Yes (requires Forensic Edition) | Yes (via Network connection) | Yes |
| Skip ‘x’ number of sectors | Yes | No | No |
| Image to network drive | No | Yes | Yes |
| Reverse clone | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Hardware reset | Yes | No | No |
| Visible sector map | Yes | No | No |
| Stored Configuration Data | On the destination drive or on a 3rd connected drive. | Case management database | No |
| Set Max LBA on Destination | Yes | No | No |
| Power Oscilloscope | Yes (Optional add-on) | No | No |
| Time to read sectors Oscilloscope | No | Yes | Maybe (OS dependant) |
| Head and Media Test | Yes | No | No |
| Read Ignoring ECC | Yes | No | No |
| Checksum Calculations | MD5 (Forensic Edition) | MD5, SHA1, SHA224, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512 | No |
| Set Read Timeout | Yes | Maybe | No |
| Log of bad sectors | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| E-Mail Notification | No | Yes | No |
| Force read in PIO Mode | Yes | Yes | No |
| Set read block size | Yes | Yes (the system slows down significantly with smaller block sizes) | Yes |
| Customizable algorithms (Set read response based on individual sector read errors) | Yes | No | No |
| Disable SMART operations | Yes | Maybe | No |
| Turn Off “Read Bad Sector” auto reallocation | Yes | Maybe | No |
| Disable read look ahead | Yes | No | No |
| Reset HPA | Yes | No | No |
| Enable/Disable overwrite unread sectors | Yes | No | Yes |
| System Boot Time | 23 seconds | 2 minutes 40 seconds | Depends on the OS |
| Write protection | Yes | Yes (toggle switch on unit) | Yes (needs to be setup through the OS) |
| Wipe destination sector by sector | Yes | No | Yes |
| Wipe unprocessed sectors | Yes | No | No |
| Wipe unread sectors on the fly | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Set number of sectors to skip | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Live sector view | Yes | No | No |
| Healthy 1TB transfer speed | 80 MB/second | 100 MB/second | 70 MB/second (depends on the system) |
| Price | $3350 USD (world wide shipping incuded) | $2890 USD | Free |
| Annual Updates | Free lifetime software updates | $499/year (1st year free) | Free |
This review was created based on our experiences.
Created: March 17, 2010
Updated: June 2, 2011
Updated: June 2, 2011
Copyright 2010 Recovery Force Inc