Vantage Data Recovery

Data gets lost.  It’s a fact of modern life.

We all store lots of data.  Photos, financials, our latest novel, customer accounts, emails, new product development ideas, genealogy records, engineering specs, tax returns, term papers, spreadsheets, programming code, business plans, music.  You name it, we save it, both for personal and for business use.  The best safeguard against losing it is a good, consistent, verified backup system.  Unfortunately, even the best backup plans can fail, and even more unfortunately most of us backup our data either sporadically or not at all.  While most data losses are minor (a deleted or corrupted file here or there) the big ones do happen and eventually will happen to all of us.

There are two types of value to be placed on data, tangible, quantifiable, monetary value, and intangible, emotional, or sentimental value.  The latter is difficult as value can only be determined by the person who owns the data.  No one else can decide the worth of family photos and documents or those “trip of a lifetime” pictures.  Data such as this that cannot be rekeyed, recreated, or otherwise reproduced is truly invaluable.  But what about other data?

If you lose all of your customer account information or company financials, what would it cost to rekey or recreate the data?  What about engineering drawings or ad copy or programming code?  How long would it take?  What are the costs associated with being without it for that period of time?  How much revenue would you lose by not having access to your data?

Data recovery provides the means to get back data that for whatever reason has become inaccessible.  It is not foolproof.  There is no such thing as a 100% recovery rate.  Depending on the many variables involved it can be moderately expensive.  So how do you decide if your data is worth recovering through a professional data recovery company?

Obviously, some types of data are more quickly and easily recreated than others.  For businesses, time is one of the largest factors in determining the value of data and the impact of its loss.  The man hours needed to recreate and rekey the data, and the impact of lost productivity and revenues can be staggering.  Consider these statistics:

A 2004 study by the accounting firm of McGladrey and Pullen estimated that one out of every 500 data centers would have a severe disaster that year, and that 43% of those companies that would never reopen, with 29% of them closing within two years. 

In his book, “Disaster Recovery Planning: Managing Risk & Catastrophe in Information Systems”  Jon Toigo wrote that half the companies that experience a computer outage lasting more than 10 days go out of business within five years and that most never fully recover financially.

A survey conducted in 2001 by Contingency Planning Research reports that the majority of companies estimate the average cost of computer network downtime to exceed $50,000 an hour, and for some companies that figure rises to over $1,000,000 per hour.

According to the book “Telework: a Critical Component of Your Total Rewards Strategy“ the average loss per hour of downtime for a Fortune 1000 company is $78,000 and these companies on average suffer one week of downtime per year.  The potential business impact resulting from a business disruption includes a 62% loss in employee productivity, a 40% reduction in profits and a negative 38% impact to customer relationships

On the more personal side, Brad Slavin of TechTalk has estimated his personal data to be worth approximately $20,000, not including emails and letters to his wife he says are “priceless”.

When time is of the essence and the restoration of data is critical, data recovery may be the best alternative.  Many recoveries can be completed within just a few days, and barring major physical damage are generally successful.  Down time can be minimized and costs may be small when compared to data recreation.  Using a commercial software recovery utility in an effort to recover the data yourself may destroy what was once recoverable.  Restoring from less than current backups still leaves you recreating up to date information.  Professional data recovery services will safely return your most current data.

Certainly each data loss situation is unique.  The time to develop a data recovery plan is before you experience a loss.  Think about how you would recreate your data, or even if you can.  Research data recovery companies. Talk to them and develop a “short list” of 3 or 4 who you might use if the need arises.  Professional data recovery services can and should be a part of your disaster recovery plan.  Finally, develop a sound back up plan and use it.