It is rare to see two data recovery cases that are the same. It means that each case is different from the other. This is why the cost of data recovery service might vary from one case to another. It depends on the hard drive’s size and intensity of the damage it has suffered. The more severe it is, the more hard work is required to recover your data.
For instance, a clicking hard drive will only require the replacement of its magnetic write/read heads to recover the data from it. In other cases, it might also need repairing the firmware. It can need various sets of parts to be replaced; also, the platters might need some burnishing so that the engineer can easily recover the data.
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What Are The Factors That Affect The Cost Of Data Recovery?
Hourly Expertise
The size of the data recovery industry is still small; also, the talent pool is not so big. Hence it is very competitive. In the US, the hourly rate for data recovery can vary from $100 to $300. However, the rates also depend on the location, educational background, and skills.
Replacement Parts
A reliable data recovery lab must have a huge library fully stocked with hard drives in order to play doners. Nevertheless, cases that involve new or rare models might require the engineer to arrange donor parts. Bear in mind that ordering donor parts means that he will have to arrange a whole new hard drive. It is like buying a whole new car just because you could not get only a muffler.
Research and Development
To stay effective and competitive, a reliable data recovery lab will have to invest a lot of time, money, and effort into research and development (R&D). There are no proper manuals that describe how you can fix a hard drive. It requires a skilled computer scientist and different techniques and tools.
Internal Media
There is a proper way to work no matter what you are doing. You make sure you do all the things right. Thus, it is better not to work directly on the customer’s drive. Making a copied image of their drove via write-blocked and fault-tolerant forensic imaging technology is the best option. Keep in mind that the copied image will be kept somewhere. It means the data recovery engineer or lab as responsible for temporary data storage requirements. It is very common for RAID arrays to occupy dozens of terabytes and that too for a number of weeks during a data recovery process.
Replacement Media
Once a hard drive’s data is salvaged, the engineer should make no delay in extracting the data onto a new and healthy hard drive and send it to the customer. They could also save the data to an external hard drive that the user can conveniently bring over in the future if the need for external hard drive recovery arises.
Quality
Some hours of data recovery QA must ensure that the hard drive is in safe hands, and the customer will get accurate data and the best customer service.
How Can Companies Manipulate Data Recovery Prices?
When you talk to them over a call, they will not give you their flat-rate price instantly. Most of them will ask you to make a visit.
The data recovery industry is competitive, and because of this, most of the companies charge hourly rates.
There are hidden fees. They will charge you for transferring your data to the recovery media.
Data recovery companies have their ways to make money, and hence they also charge their customers by the size of the data recovered.
In most cases, they will exaggerate by saying the case is severe and that they will need time to analyze and evaluate your drive for the cost of recovery. The next thing you will know is that the price is a thousand dollars more than you expected.
Some data recovery labs might use cheap tactics such as quoting you very low rates for data recovery, but once they the drive, they will keep increasing the rate by complicating the case and adding so many reasons why you need to pay them more.
You will receive a very low to high data recovery cost range, such as $400 to $2400. However, you will be told to expect a rate that is, minimum, 75 percent, or the given range.