Cost of Data Recovery – Why Expensive?

If you’re an IT or technology professional you’ve likely heard many stories about how expensive data recovery services are.  Perhaps you’ve even experienced a $2000 data recovery nightmare yourself.  In this article we’re going to consider some common mistakes that run up the cost of data recovery, and what you can do to not get slammed with a bill you can’t afford when trying to get back your data.

How to Run Up The Cost of Data Recovery

Let’s look at the example of two actual companies who regularly use our professional data recovery services.  Both companies regularly send us about 2 data recovery projects per month.  For the sake of not embarrassing anyone the names of the companies have been omitted and replaced with “Company A” and “Company B”.

Company B

Rate of Successful Recovery – 40%

Average Percent of Data Recovered – 70%

Average Cost of Recovery – $920

So now you’re probably wondering why Company A has much higher data recovery success rates and lower data recovery costs than Company B has.  It isn’t that Company A just has better cases that come in, both run computer repair shops which have a random mix of customers and equipment arrive.  The real difference comes down to how the companies treat cases that arrive.

Company A, while being a very respectable computer repair business, recognizes that they are not a professional data recovery service provider.  Their technicians have been trained to know that without proper diagnostic equipment and training they aren’t qualified to work on hard drives with hardware/mechanical issues.  So at the very first sign of hardware issues, they shut down and send the project to us.

Company B on the other hand, considers themselves to be “data recovery pro’s” even though they don’t have any of the proper equipment to offer such services.  So when a hard drive arrives with mechanical or electronic issues, they’ll try just about every method (including the freezer) to “recover” it themselves.  While these home remedies may work in a few cases and they get to keep the business local, it more often causes damage.  So when they finally give up and send the project to us, the damage is may be too severe to recover.  Or at the very least, it’s far more difficult and the costs have been driven up.

How to Save on the Cost of Data Recovery

Obviously you don’t want to go to Company B (who will remain nameless).  That having been said, it’s hard for you to know who in your local area may be that company.  Probably only the data recovery provider they use knows about their practices when they have to deal with the fallout.  So how can you cut down data recovery costs?

#1 – Don’t Attempt DIY Data Recovery

While you may have read articles about putting drives in freezers, hitting them, opening them, etc. you shouldn’t attempt this unless you really don’t mind losing your data permanently.  If the data is important, the most likely event is that you’ll just make recovery more difficult and run up the cost.

#2 – Go Directly to a Professional Data Recovery Company

Skip the middleman altogether.  While your local computer repair shop may mention “data recovery” among their services, it’s extremely unlikely they are a full service data recovery company.  Most likely their services are limited to simple logical recovery of deleted data, not hardware failure related data loss situations.

Due to the tens of thousands of dollars required in equipment, nearly all data recovery shops are dedicated to just offer that service.  Your well meaning computer tech may likely just run up the cost by trying things on it while not fully understanding what’s actually going on.  Even just powering on a drive in certain circumstances can be damaging to it.