Tom’s Hardware: World’s First Apple M1 Data Recovery, Firm Claims

August 3, 2022
Michelle West
Press Coverage

Ian Evernden of Tom’s Hardware scrutinizes a recent announcement by DriveSavers that the company can recover data from catastrophically damaged M1 and T2 boards. He pokes fun at DriveSavers Director of Engineering Mike Cobb’s “excessive hyperbole” when describing his team’s cutting-edge data recovery capabilities. But, in the end, he recognizes there’s good reason for excitement.

Originally published on Tom’s Hardware.

Oratorical flourishes aside, this is an interesting claim because a Mac’s SSD is pretty hard to get to for the average man with a screwdriver. Not only is the data in an M1 Mac encrypted by default, the SSD controller is embedded inside the M1 CPU as part of the SoC design — meaning that if that chip is damaged, there may be no way in. This is where the transplant technique comes in, but there’s another problem: the devices employ high-security protocols in which specific components need to remain connected to each other via the logic board for data to be accessible.