So your hard drive has failed. Or that important report that your boss wanted by Friday has been accidentally deleted, and you need hard drive file recovery fast! Pause… take a deep breath, and recognize that when you have suffered the pain of accidental data loss, there is a huge industry of data recovery service professionals ready to help you.
With High Numbers Comes Choice
The truly huge number of data recovery service providers competing for your hard drive recovery dollar is surprising to most. Each day, it seems like the industry grows by a computer shop or two, each promising solid hard disk data recovery results. This level of choice is a double edged sword, however, particularly because the Internet has made the playing field level for both professional, experienced hard drive recovery providers, and new “services” with barely a recovered hard disk to their name. Differentiating between bandwagon jumpers and experienced data recovery companies is actually easier than you might think, however. Here are a few tips to consider when choosing your data recovery service:
How long? – Experience, especially when it comes to hard drive recovery, is always key. Find out how long the hard drive recovery company you contact has been in business. But don’t take their word for it… Use a state government company search if necessary to determine just how long the company you want to deal with has been in business.
Price And Worth – Using price as a factor when looking for a data recovery service is usually the number one consideration for consumers, an error which can actually make the overall hassle of hard drive repair and file recovery much higher. Recently, a massive group of computer shops have begun to offer full hard drive recovery services for $ 300 or sometimes less. These shops are rarely equipped for an actual all-out physical hard drive failure, of course, and typically just use a high-end data recovery software package to retrieve data. If your drive has failed, sending it to a low-end provider like this is a complete waste of time – without trained technicians and specialized equipment like a clean room, you may be throwing good money after your bad drive.
Time Spent – Depending on the nature of your data recovery service needs, time may be a factor. As an example, some personal photos you’d really like back are likely to be far less urgent than your company’s Exchange server. You may want to choose a low cost longer delay service for the former, but a well-versed professional for the latter. Expedited hard drive recovery is more expensive, but when your business is halted because of a dead mission critical drive, the price may be well worth it.
Location or not? – Some people consider this an important characteristic, and it may come into play when considering a provider. In the end, choosing the shop you feel can do the best quality job is paramount, however, and location shouldn’t even come into it. Whether you’re paying FedEx to ship a drive overnight to an out of state provider or paying a courier to ship a disk across town, the costs are likely to be the same. Consider what you feel to be the best data recovery service – let the delivery service worry about the location.
The hard drive recovery industry continues to grow daily, as inexperienced computer service companies try to break into the market. Choosing the right data recovery service provider is both more difficult than ever, and more important. Considering quality first will save you time and money.
