Any situation of data loss creates panic and in that moment of dismay, most people call a data recovery expert. During this stressful situation, the first question on everyone’s mind is whether their data is recoverable. Luckily, in most cases, the experienced data recovery companies can recover lost data from almost every device. If you’ve also lost data from your hard drive or SD card then possibly you’ll call a data recovery professional and explain your specific situation. Once the professional confirms that your data is recoverable, you will jump straight to the next big question- how much it will cost?
Almost every user who contacts a data recovery company is keen to know what the price of data recovery will be. Users expect to know the cost instantly but typically, offering a price quote right away is not possible. This is because data loss can happen due to various reasons and the cost of recovering that lost data depends on some factors. To offer an exact price estimate, the data recovery professional will need to analyze your device to understand the real cause of data loss.
How to Know the Cost of Data Recovery?
Whether your hard drive has failed or your memory card has corrupted, there is no fixed cost of data recovery. The cost of recovering lost data depends on some factors. And that’s why most data recovery companies offer a free no-obligation assessment to provide their clients with a price quote. The process of diagnosis or device evaluation helps in finding out the exact cause of data loss to determine what actions are needed to be taken to retrieve lost data. However, to make sure that the company is not overcharging you, it’s good to know the factors that affect the cost of data recovery. So, let’s check out the primary factors that determine the cost of data recovery.
Factors Affecting Data Recovery Cost
In simple words, the cost of recovering data depends on the complexity of the case. Unlike simple cases of data loss, complex cases require more advanced tools, expert knowledge, and a controlled environment such as a Class 100 Clean Room lab. This means that the higher the complexity, costlier will be the data recovery service. Here is the list of factors that are used by data recovery companies to estimate their charges.
1. Type of Data Storage Device
The cost of recovering data depends on the storage media. Several storage devices are used to store huge volumes of data such as hard drives, SSDs, MicroSD cards, RAID servers, NAS, and much more. This means that the cost of recovering data from a damaged HDD is different than corrupted CF card data recovery. Even the hard drives used in PC, laptops, and servers differ in terms of size and type. For instance, a small 2.5” SATA drive is found in the laptop while a PC comes with a bigger 3.5” hard drive. So, the cost of retrieving lost files depends on the type, size, and interface of the device.
2. Cause of Data Loss
The main purpose of the media diagnosis process is to find out the causes of data loss. Data recovery companies first identify the cause of device failure/data loss to provide their clients with an accurate picture of the damage and the costs associated with data recovery. Depending on whether he drive making clicking sounds or files are missing from external drive, the causes of data loss can be divided into three broad categories. This includes mechanical/physical damage, logical error, and malware attack. As compared to logical errors like accidental formatting, data recovery is more complex in cases of mechanical failure. Retrieving lost files from a physically damaged or mechanically failed hard drive requires specialized tools and Class 100 Cleanroom lab. On the other hand, issues like human error and file corruption can be handled with specialized software. So, depending on the complexity of the case, the cost of data recovery varies.
3. Storage Capacity
Some data recovery companies charge a per-gigabyte recovery cost. This method may look reasonable but it may not be the ideal way. This is because if two identical hard drives have suffered the same type of data loss. One drive contains 50 GB of images and other files while other has 300 GB of movies and episodes of TV series. Even if the amount of data differs significantly, the time taken by the data recovery engineer to make the data salvageable will be the same in both cases. However, once the drives get back to the running mode, the machine time needed to pull the data off will differ. So, the cost will depend on the hours spent on your case and how much time a data recovery engineer allocates. If you need to get back many terabytes worth of data, you should expect to pay more.
4. Other Factors
The cost may also depend on other factors like the turnaround time and the need for replacement parts. The cases of physical damage may need spares such as actuator arm, or read/write head that can affect the cost of data recovery. Also, the charge of emergency data recovery is higher than normal services.
