PC-3000 flash SSD Edition vs Soft Center Flash Extractor

[craig6928]

which one do you think works better for recovery work
and is more powerful for most flash recovery




soft center flash extractor sells at £1,217.87 GBP 1 year license


pc-3000 flash ssd edition sells around or less £2,000 GBP 1 year license



which is the best for Tech support and download modules





it be good to know which tool you prefer to use for most of your recovery
and why you use this tool the most.

[HaQue]

You need to add the cost of the NAND reader to FE around US$210 I think

[craig6928]

yes i forgot that your correct.

thanks

[digitalferret]

Craig:
i'm sat at the same point, and would also welcome feedback.
maybe check the update fees too.

iirc
PC3000Flash is high initial cost, but the renewal fees are a fraction of that at around 400+Euro

FE is the same $1870 per year, so yr 2 1870 yr 3 1870 (unless price goes up or he closes) The gear still works after a year but if you need updates or tach support you need a valid key.
Serg isn't too hot on answering emails it would seem, altho i hear his remote support is good.

Both have first year support with the purchase.
imho you also have to account for the companies too.

Softcenter has published a warning he can stop support for his "project" at any time.
It's hard for a 1 man (and a few occasional extras) to cover all the bases in terms of a company operation.

Ace can throw loads at it and continue to develop.

Last casual feedback i have says tha the FE is more versatile, covers more chips, but harder to use.

Ace is a tad easier, more automated.
They also offer training which is an important factor for companies that want to land running, not hobbyist level and find out as you go along.

For larger companies the choice is insignificant, just buy one each

The other consensus is the SD flash tool is crap, but has recently announced updates. For me it wouldn't be worth the risk even for pennies.

Besides, Russians are the worlds best engineers... (after the Brits ofc )

Now ... where's my pencil?

[HaQue]

There are other tools as well. There is something called Dump Picker from http://www.nrteam.ru/en Though I don't know much about it. I heard there was a tool that the Russians wouldn't sell to foreigners maybe this is it? Also I would be interested to know if there are any other solutions available, regardless of your views of it.
Good Evening..

[digitalferret]

Nice find dude, i looked for that too, to no avail.

russian:
So far i haven't insulted anyone to the point of a thump, despite having a typo in my sig for weeks #facepalm

Still learning. might join a russian game server to see text in real time.
The only significant word i get on russian radio is "Google" =)

Kern

[HaQue]

I cant believe there are only 4 tools in the whole world for nand recovery?!?


I still don't get it:
"When you want to eat - eat everything.
Hunger is not an aunt!"

cheers,
HaQue

___________________________________________
I would never have a signature - don't believe in em.

[digitalferret]

Its an idiom, like a slang phrase.

Hunger is not your friend.
When you are hungry, you will eat anything.

Making choices based upon desperation will get you to a bad place.

Like a PC tech wanting to break into DR, having little in the way of money, wanting Acelabs but buying Salvation.

or the single guy ... you know the rest.

Kern

[HaQue]

Yes I know the rest.. its called "experience" unfortunately

[craig6928]

russia is strict on what they sell to the outside world

so keep it in russia never sell to anyone else

we come across that a lot

i suppose its to do with the russian goverment
keeping there techology in russia and not exporting it
dont blame them in fact.

so after a lot of views and not a lot of people saying which is good

i come to conclusion that most members who do data recovery work on usb or ssd.

have the pc-3000 flash ssd edition unit
for recovery work.

[craig6928]

[quote="HaQue"]I cant believe there are only 4 tools in the whole world for nand recovery?!?

every tool is russian

so they know what to do in reverse engineering

and acelaboratory know what they are doing

so hats off to acelaboratory for bring out a ground breaking ssd edition recovery tools

hopefully salvation data flash tool will improve
but i think that mainly for the asian market only

[HaQue]

I cant believe there are only 4 tools in the whole world for nand recovery?!?

<-- (my patented auto quote repair technology, Australian Pride )

every tool is russian

so they know what to do in reverse engineering

and acelaboratory know what they are doing

so hats off to acelaboratory for bring out a ground breaking ssd edition recovery tools

hopefully salvation data flash tool will improve
but i think that mainly for the asian market only

Isnt the Flash Doctor Chinese?
I Don't think there is any special skills involved in NAND recovery, well flash drives at least apart from dedication, persiverance and a knowledge of filesystems and growing on your previous successes.

I can only imagine the amount of people we never hear from because the bomb out of flash recovery very early due to a few factors:
1. It looks very easy 2 chips 1 pcb a standard USB - false sense of security.
2. Limited easy to follow path from newbie to pro.
3. limited Docs from manufacturers.
4. Limited number of Pros, even more limited number of pros willing to talk.
5. pretty much 2 major tools available.
6. When starting out murphys Law is you get a diffucult case or two straight up, or bad dumps, bad chips etc so you sit around working on a case that will only make your beard greyer.
7. variables. in HDD, you have a pretty good idea the model of the drive, the PCB and the Firmware.. they stay the same for the most part in similar models. For flash, you can have a standard looking case for 3 or 4 years(Verbatim Store-N-Go, Sony MicroVault, etc) with varying PCB/Controller/NAND combinations. You can have a series of controllers with differing mixes, but same or similar models(Phison 2251-03, 2251-02 2251-50 etc) and different values for Xor and ECC in each. Different mem chips with all other variables exactly the same can have different mix as well. basically the more you do, the easier it is to know where to look for these differences, but still a MASSIVE time sink.
8. Real life - we don't all have 20 hours a day to work all this out.
9. The very small profit margins early on when you are starting because of the ratio of small amount of cases you solve:time
10. being really only 3 tools realistaclly available, a percentage is going to choose the wrong tool for him/her. One may choose FD, well thats wrong for most everyone. One may choose SC FE, but may not be the right fit for the interactive nature of the forum, uploading to container for help etc. cant comment for ACE but same idea. so cull another 33% or 66%

As for which tools is best, a percentage of people probably wouldnt tell. $2000 is probably relatively small biccies to some people. If I thought FE was the bees knees, a brilliant tool, would I want to spread that and potentially have competitors around me buying it?

Anyway, I am possibly going off topic, but I also do agree with craig6928 that the russian do have some good RE skillz, must be the cold, they just stay in and study

[craig6928]

hello well it suppose to be english software but the issue is

translating from Chinese to english and others language cost a lot of money.

but i did talk with someone in asia and they told us there a new version out
but only for there market only
and no where else.

[HaQue]

No, the new version is out on their site. I have it, but havent tested it.

And English translations have been offered to SD for free with no response.
SD problem is not interacting with their customers, and not being open and honest.

If you look at their forum, there are countless examples of questions by customers and either no response fronm SD or useless answers like "check your connections"

yes that was a real answer.

[bubaleh]

There are other tools as well. There is something called Dump Picker from http://www.nrteam.ru/en Though I don't know much about it. I heard there was a tool that the Russians wouldn't sell to foreigners maybe this is it? Also I would be interested to know if there are any other solutions available, regardless of your views of it.
Good Evening..

I want to reassure you, I've never heard about the tool that the Russians wouldn't sell to foreigners. Seemed that Dimp Picker would become another good solution for data recovery, but unexpectedly guys had stoped developing of it. Now no one could contatct to the developers from nrteam. And no one could buy it, even in Russia
So guys, i dont think the Russian Government wants to make you unable to recover data from the drives based on nand flash. Sorry if i understood you wrong!

[digitalferret]

Bubaleh
Thanks for the heads-up on nrteam. i noticed the forum has been dead for quite some time.

Russian Govt? Nah, craig likes conspiracy theories rather than factual evidence.
If it's not time locked hard drives, it's russians that won't export, or that Acelabs that blackmail you.

Any emails i have directed at Ace have always been answered quickly and politely by well trained staff, and well informed sales team. Same goes for the guys at Deepspar, superb customer service.

As far as i know, no one has bugged the line, there are no
КГБ men in dark coats and there is no спецназ helicopter outside dangling ropes .... yet. hang on ... where are these russian words coming from .... oh no! the russian virus!!! The Russians has me!

Attachments

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[HaQue]

Shame about nrteam, looks like they made some good progress while it lasted. seems last post was jan 2013, so maybe they are deep in R&D or needed a break.

[Touchclarity]

Shame about nrteam, looks like they made some good progress while it lasted. seems last post was jan 2013, so maybe they are deep in R&D or needed a break.

Would be nice to know either way tho!!.....

[Izualim]

I have the Dump Picker and the NRT reader, the equipment it's very advanced and customizable, alot of manual work, but they have a good translated manual, anyway their tech support is dead, ACE equipment are the most stable, reliable and the tech support is great, they keep improving the software/hardware.

[labtech]

Maybe many people have various expectations of what support should be like. For me, both ace and soft-center are good.