When James Howells accidentally threw this item away, he didn’t know that he was throwing away 7,500 bitcoins.
And $280 million.
That was the asking price for that amount of bitcoins. And they were on a hard drive that, through unfortunate fate, found its way into the trash. How can your company avoid the same, sticky fate as James’ stash of virtual cash?
By investing in data recovery for your company. But to dig our claws into how data recovery services can benefit your company, we first need to understand what it is exactly, to stop your records from being one of the 4.1 billion that were compromised in 2019 … in only six months.
Let’s save your precious data from the rank trash heap of the digital void.
What is Data Recovery?
Data recovery is the process of pulling your data from that trash dump, before it’s hauled off to be incinerated. In this race against time, enlisting in the aid of data recovery software or services can help pinpoint the location of your data, even after it has been “deleted.”
There is one scenario where not even data recovery can swoop in and save you.
And that’s where the files were never created to begin with. Let’s say you are working on a vital quarterly report. It’s late, your eyes are stained red, coffee drained, and a storm rages outside your lonely office window.
Flash! A lightning strike darkens your screen. After you get over staring at your screen, your stomach starts to slowly drop with a crippling thought – you didn’t save your work.
In this case, not even the data recovery gods can save your 30-page report, because the data must be present somewhere within the storage of your device. Sorry to say, but that report is gone. But, if you had accidentally wiped away a valuable document while doing some digital housecleaning, then there lies some hope!
These instances are usually the majority of data recovery cases, as they’re divided into two categories:
- Software-based
- Repair or replacement of damaged hardware components
There are many different reasons why companies like yourself might enlist the aid of data recovery services to aid in the search for lost data. What are the usual suspects when it comes to causes for data loss?
The Most Common Causes of Data Loss
They range from our unfortunate gaffes to things that are out of our control. The first one is an error that we have all committed at least once in our lives, if not as a desperate excuse to use in the place of “the dog ate my homework.”
Accidental Deletion of Files or Folders
We have all wiped data in a desperate attempt to free up space, and when it comes to the thousands of gigabytes of information that flows within a company, space is a vital ally. But when there is no more left, decisions must be made. That can come at the risk of ripping up a file for the sake of space.
Is the file entirely gone? No, at least not until that space on the hard drive is used up by something else. Until then, the actual file content is floating in the void of your hard drive. Once you create a new one in its stead, it fades away into oblivion beyond any hope of being found.
File System Formatting
This can happen when you accidentally tell the system to partition the wrong disk, or just simply by mishandling the storage. In this case, the formatting procedure takes control and overwrites information on the disk to which you partitioned the formatting. Should any unlucky file systems coincide with the new ones, then they are crushed by the new ones.
Sometimes, the damage is more subversive, as it is in the next case.
Damage To The File System
Outside of massive wars within the formatting battlefields, sometimes all it takes is a little bit of content that’s written to the wrong location on the storage disk, warping and twisting the file system structures, and destroying file system object links.
After the damage is done, the file is declared unreadable.
No matter the cause, there is hope for you and your business.
How can data recovery save your data from the empty spaces of digital oblivion? Let’s peel back the process on how it works.
How Data Recovery Works
This point was brought up, but it is important to repeat it until it’s ingrained into your memory: nothing can be saved if it’s overwritten. If you suspect that a file has been deleted, then tie your hands behind your back until you squash your urges to save images from your social media to your hard drive.
Once you do, your file may be crushed underneath the feet of those new files.
Until you recover that valuable data, don’t go about creating new ones. Most of the data recovery services use a tried-and-true method for scouring and locating your precious files: metadata.
Metadata is the hidden information that’s held within the file system. Your hard drive is a vast jungle of raw data, but each file has a unique signature to it. That’s its metadata!
By locating the metadata, the file’s system can be recovered and restored. Sometimes, not even this works, due to the metadata becoming corrupted or missing.
Still, there’s another weapon that data recovery services deploy in their hunt for files. And that’s by locating them through their “known content.”
This isn’t done by reading the entire file’s story, but only the beginning and the end. By hunting for those “signatures,” data can be identified and saved from its impending doom.
Cans on the storage disk can employ both of these techniques as it scores through your disk hunting for data. But remember – if you have created something in place of the deleted, or lost, data, then nothing can be done.
Your data has been relegated to nothingness.
Benefits of Data Recovery Services
But you aren’t as interested so much in the nitty-gritty, but how it benefits your business. Let’s open up the benefits box, and see how your company can thrive by enlisting in the aid of data recovery services.
Lower Costs
In the age of USB and cloud storage, data can be a dizzying mix of passwords and mountains of subfolders, all of which not only increases the chance for bone-headed human errors, but also the payment for that extra storage.
This is something of human nature, as we – or someone we know – have had that closet or drawer full of the newest and latest trends in fashion or electronics.
But when that extends to your business data, then that leads to upfront costs that must cover management of that data. It’s just a massive headache.
So, how do you fight back on those nights of throbbing headaches, while making your data more accessible and protected than ever before? Invest in a fool-proof data backup plan, which makes it much easier to locate any lost data that was flushed down the digital drain.
But by having a trusted data recovery service, you can cut down on the costs of the “hunt,” since you might be caught chasing a red herring if you don’t have a reliable service or software. Imagine if you don’t have a data recovery service.
Imagine the mountains of cash thrown at digging around in a maze of files and folders, with little hope of catching that needle in the haystack.
Avoid that hassle by doing two things:
- Creating a backup schedule
- Buddy up with a data recovery service
Your bottom line will thank you. Just know that doing this alone could create its own sprouting mountain of costs, as you gaze up at the mass of data files to be sorted through.
Access to Experienced Experts
There’s a growing ocean of software that claims to be able to dig up any file that you lost. Some – maybe – can hold up to that promise. But most of them, if not all, are very limited in how they do that.
When you are talking about companies that operate on complex servers that are vacuums for huge wafts of data, then you need someone who can make sense of all of that.
So, instead of wrestling with your systems, and throwing your hope and trust behind a piece of software that has engineered limitations, why not rely on professionals to do it for you?
$200,000.
That’s how much just one cyberattack can suck from your company.
Added Protection
These cyber assaults are threats that can cripple a business, especially when there was a disastrous event that plunged it into the depths of information deletion. Thankfully, when you pair up with a trusted data recovery service, you also get a comprehensive backup plan.
So, if you’re lying awake at night sweating bullets about the various files and documents that you have to create, then you don’t have to sweat any additional ones, because those files will be well-protected. What tangible benefits does this bring for your business?
Well, by recovering quickly from a power outage, you can keep any clients that would otherwise start toe-tapping, because extended periods of recovery can stonewall operations. Why is that?
Because remember that little tidbit about how creating new files can forever delete the precious ones that you’d already lost? You can see the dilemma here, right? So, if you can’t start sending files and documents out to your clients, then they could jump ship before you pull your files from the bottom of the dark digital abyss.
Don’t make this something that’s waiting on the horizon for your company. By investing in a data recovery solution, you can craft effective backups that aid in lightning-quick recovery, while deploying a rapid recovery effort that finds what is lost, so that you can get back in the game!
It also shields you from something else – something that induces more headaches into your mornings.
Regulatory Compliance
If you want to avoid the compliance ban hammer, and avoid any unsavory fines, then data backup and recovery can deflect that ban. That’s because data breaches come paired with hefty fines, as well as another crucial factor – privacy.
By implementing a data recovery and backup plan, you can help shield user data from hackers looking to ninja their way into your infrastructure fortress.
Should the worst come to pass, then compliance regulators want to make sure that you have a plan in place to recover any lost data within seconds.
Don’t make fines the reason that you’re motivated to implement these changes. By toeing the line with compliance regulations, you can avoid any unsightly fines from digging into your bottom line, while also building good data practices.
So, stop living life in the regulatory fast lane. Your profits, your clients, and the regulators will thank you.
Ease and Flexibility
Once your profits have grown, your business will need more room to expand. Just make sure that your storage needs expand with it. By employing data recovery services, you can add more bandwidth and storage with ease, so that your storage adapts as your business does.
But this bestows another wondrous benefit on your and your teams – furious production.
A tangled mess of data can hamstring production across all departments, not to mention communication. Data recovery services not only shield your data from hackers, but they allow your employees to become production warriors by giving them the ability to locate files quickly and easily.
Faster Response
Businesses’ crutch is electronic data. Without it, it’s hard to streamline any business process. But with it, comes significant dangers and threats, especially in this age of digital hackers.
The worst part? This data runs in real-time. So, if you happen to experience a catastrophic loss of data, then you have just lost the ability or your business to function on a basic level. Unless you have some carrier pigeons holed up in your office, then you’d best get your power back, and your data restored.
But this isn’t Game of Thrones, and you don’t have ravens to send out.
If you want to avoid this crippling downtime, then data and recovery services give you a fast response time, which can recover your data in time to get your business back up to speed. This gives your employees a sense of calm and keeps them working at a good clip, without the uncertainty that data loss hangs over all of your departments.
Zero Impact on Performance
But if you haven’t invested in data recovery, then your departments will be left scrambling, trying to rework various things so that they can recover their lost data.
Just imagine the avalanche-like effect that gets bigger as your data dilemma snowballs into something beyond your control.
Deadlines are pushed back, overtime hours climb up, employee burnout increases, resulting in loss of talent in addition to the valuable loss of data. Then the compliance hounds come barking, grinding your business under the boot of fines.
It’s no small wonder that many businesses flounder and disappear after disasters.
With comprehensive data recovery and a backup plan, you can put up a shield against these outcomes by protecting your data from any catastrophic threat. The performance wonders for your employees extend beyond the initial disaster.
By building a stellar backup plan, you can streamline the work process of your employees, making it less of a headache for them to sift through a tangled mass of data to find the files they need.
This improves your production, making your company culture sing as it has never done before. So, start belting out the tunes of work productivity, while sleeping soundly knowing that your hundreds of thousands of documents are shielded from the prying eyes of hackers, storms, and accidental goofs.
Scalability
If you’re a business, then your first goal is to do one thing: to grow. What does that mean for your computing and data storage needs? That needs to grow as well.
After all, storage is finite, so it will need to expand as your business does.
This can create a chilling nightmare for your computing team, as scaling proprietary software can grow the logistical and business costs for your company.
How do data recovery services fix this issue? Giving more flexibility, which allows for growth as your business grows.
By taking away the need to run and maintain your proprietary software, you can slice your cost of doing business, which means good things for your bottom line and more growth for your company.
This allows you to grow, without the worry of managing a growing, messy web of computing needs. As businesses grow, they can become burdened by the weight of storage space and file depositories.
Cut that dead weight away, by enlisting the aid of a data recovery and backup solution, that not only takes that weight off your shoulders, but can streamline it, making it less of a liability and more of an asset.
Take Advantage of New Platforms and Infrastructure
But if you’re business is an outdated dinosaur living with prehistoric apps and software solutions, then you will find it hard to capitalize on any performance boost. As more companies utilize container-based applications, as well as multi-cloud deployment, then the race is one to see who can streamline their data more efficiently.
The effective deployment and storage of data is key to boosting your arsenal of productivity, and companies know this.
As a result, if your organization is hamstrung by outdated backup strategies, then not only will you be crippled in a crisis, but you’ll also be ill-equipped to fight back against other companies’ effective production practices.
If adapting to changing customer demands, and leveraging the power of an economical execution platform sounds good to you, then investing in data recovery solutions can help you stand toe-to-toe with your competitors.
Competitive Advantage
As a result, it helps to practice this, so that you can get a leg up on your competitors. Studies show that 85% of businesses don’t back up their data regularly.
This exposes them to the risks of ransomware and malware intrusions, which are impossible to combat if you don’t have a team of recovery experts on your side.
But if you do, you can continue rolling on providing the superior customer service that you have become known for. Before you know it, you can regain a larger market share by pulling customers away from your competitors.
So, build up that reputation, and maintain that integrity in the storm of digital threats that constantly lurk in the digital cloud.
And it will happen, especially if you’re a business just starting.
43% of small businesses are zeroed in by cyberattacks. Good thing that you have your recovery and a backup plan, isn’t it?
Still Tangling With That Web of Data?
You don’t have to be.
With effective data recovery services and a backup plan, you can cut that web of worry out of your mind. To start uploading data again with a peace of mind, contact our expert team today so that we can start easing your data worries tomorrow.
So, protect your business’s growth and security, and pull your data back out from the trash.