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Turning Loss Into Gain: Business Data Recovery Services
October 12, 2004
By Ian Gould
Of all the consequences of temperamental IT, data loss is perhaps the most feared. If a once dependable hard drive turns bad, or other hardware is spoiled, the first instinct may well be to panic. Unless a back-up plan is in place, precious records or client research may seem gone forever. But the prognosis may not be so bad, thanks to data recovery services.
With the assistance of a professional provider, a business can often recover seemingly lost data, even in the absence of a back-up arrangement.
Seemingly failed hard drives and laptops, as well as media including memory sticks, CDs and floppy disks, are all candidates for data recovery, according to Robert Harding, General Manager of HDDRecovery, which offers data retrieval services in Brisbane.
"There’s no storage media available that I’m aware of at this point that we can’t, if we get to it early enough, recover all or most of the data [from]; CDs, tapes, DVDs, memory sticks, floppy drives - they’re all fair game," Harding says.
The nature of the data recovery and the likelihood of success depends on the medium in question - and the extent of the damage - but Harding says there are a few different scenarios in which the process occurs.
First there are so-called logical failures, where a hard drive has a programming error but no physical damage. In this scenario, Harding says, software is used to retrieve lost data in a so-called logical recovery, with a some 98 per cent success rate.
In the case of an electronic fault, as long as the hard drive can be repaired, the success rate is also high. Another scenario, physical damage, can be more tricky. Prospects of data recovery depend on what parts have been affected, to what degree, and how quickly the owner seeks help, Harding says.
Yet except in the most extreme cases of physical damage, hopes may not be dashed.
Vicky Brauner, Manager of CBL Data Recovery Technologies, which services Brisbane, says her company has an 85 per cent success rate across the range of data loss scenarios. That includes hard drives that have been dropped in salt water as well as fire-damaged hardware.
As chances of successful data retrieval depend on the nature of the damage, so too does the cost.
As a guide, Brauner says a logical recovery costs between $500 and $1000, recovery in case of electrical fault from $800 to $1450, with higher costs involved to recover data following physical damage. One week will probably be enough to complete the recovery process, but this can increase if spare parts need to be located.
That may seem a small price to pay for precious business data. But there is an even less costly option that is consistently reliable: an ongoing data backup plan.
Robert Harding says inefficient backup of data is probably the primary contributor to the need for recovery services. But proper backup procedures before data loss occurs are simply achieved.
"A lot of companies do not understand, or do not see the value in, backing up their data," Harding says. "It is not until they actually meet that [data loss] scenario that they suddenly realise just how important that data is to them."
His advice: invest in an ongoing backup solution such as tape drives or, if budgets are tight, more affordable CDs or DVDs.
"A lot of people who can’t afford to buy the tape drives, can afford to buy a DVD burner or a CD burner, and they can back up a lot of their documents, a lot of their financial records, to DVD media."
Additionally, make sure backup procedures are regularly monitored under what Vicky Brauner labels a 'fire drill'.
"We call it a fire drill, and suggest to everybody on just any one given day, go back and see if you can recover data from last Friday [for example]."
About CBL Data Recovery Technologies Inc.
Founded in 1993, CBL Data Recovery Technologies Inc. is a leading international provider of computer data recovery services for clients experiencing data loss. CBL employs experts from varying disciplines coupled with proprietary techniques to retrieve data quickly and effectively from a wide array of affected media for customers ranging from large enterprises to home users.
CBL offers data recovery services worldwide through its network of labs, offices and authorized partners, located in 10 countries on six continents including Brisbane, Australia; San Diego, California and Armonk, NY, USA; Toronto, Canada; Newcastle, United Kingdom; Kaiserslautern, Germany; Beijing, China; Barbados, West Indies; Ponta Grossa, Brazil; Tokyo, Japan; and Singapore.
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