UFS Raw — The Array Rebuild Engine Behind UFS File Explorer
UFS Raw is the recovery engine that understands every vendor RAID layout in existence. If your NAS array is dead and the drives still are, this is the tool professional data-recovery labs reach for first.
What it does
UFS Raw runs on Windows and Linux. You select the source disks (a USB dock works) and it tries automatic layout detection first — for vendor arrays it matches the disk signatures against the vendor layout database. When auto-detect is unsure (mixed spare sizes, a rebuilt array, a SHR-2 with a hot spare) you rebuild by hand: assign disk roles (data, parity, spare), rotation direction, and stripe size, then UFS reconstructs the logical volume and you browse the file system. This is exactly what a $500 data-recovery lab does, just at your desk.
Pricing and the free tier
Personal edition ~$120 one-time (2026 list). It is the one-time, no-subscription tier; a lab-grade edition for data-recovery shops costs more. For a household, the personal edition is the whole story — buy it once, keep it on a USB stick.
Good at
- Dead NAS arrays (Synology SHR, QNAP, TerraMaster, UGREEN, Asustor) where the OS is gone but the disks survive
- Rebuilding complex RAID layouts by hand (parity, XOR, rotation order)
- The most thorough RAID layout database of any recovery tool
Not for
- Simple single-folder deletion (Recuva/DMDE is faster and free)
- Households that do not want a one-time ~$120 purchase
Key features
- Vendor RAID layout database: SHR/SHR-2, QNAP RAID, TerraMaster, UGREEN, Asustor
- Manual layout rebuild: pick disks, assign order, parity, rotation — the lab workflow
- NTFS, exFAT, ReFS, ext3/4, XFS, Btrfs, ZFS (read)
- Recover to USB, external disk, or a second machine
Frequently asked questions
UFS Raw or R-Studio for a dead NAS array?
R-Studio is cheaper (~$50–$80) and auto-detects common layouts well. UFS Raw is the lab tool: manual layout rebuild for when auto-detect fails, and the deepest vendor layout database. For a first attempt use R-Studio; for a second attempt or a failed first attempt, UFS Raw is the escalation.
Do I need to buy it before I know it will work?
No. UFS offers a free scan tier: the scan runs free and tells you what is findable; you pay only when you recover. R-Studio and EaseUS work the same way.
Can UFS Raw recover a ZFS pool?
Yes — it reads ZFS (read-only) from docked disks. Note that ZFS is checksummed and self-healing, so a ZFS array that is truly dead is rarer than an NTFS/SHR array; most ZFS 'failures' are power loss mid-write, which ZFS snapshots can absorb.
Tools are half the picture — the snapshot and backup layer is the other half. See the 3-2-1 backup guide, the ransomware recovery walkthrough, and what decryption tools actually exist.
Last updated: November 2026 · prices are US list prices at the time of writing. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.