Data Recovery can be defined as the process of salvaging data from damaged, failed, corrupted or inaccessible storage media. Usually, data recovery methods are used to retrieve data from primary storage formats of hard disk drives, storage tapes, CDs, DVDs, RAID, memory cards and other electronics. Since 1997, there has been a significant increase in the digitaisation of data leading to all information being stored on computers and other IT media formats. Consequently, the sole dependency on IT machinery has increased data loss vulnerability. The art of data recovery has suddenly become a lucrative business with traditional global IT firms such as IBM and Kurt Computers flooding the market with data recovery software. This has led to a gross fragmentation of the market with many IT companies openly competing for consumer business. It has been observed that, sometimes, these companies sell improper data recovery software which further corrupts data leading to incomparable data loss. The company is able to garner more business and profit from the same consumer. This is the latest ‘get-rich-quick scheme’ being followed in the market – whether a big manufacturing or consulting organisation or a personal user – all fall prey to this current ploy of data recovery firms.
To establish a data recovery firm is basically following the same guidelines as to opening a company. All IT firms such as Hewlett Packard, Dell and even Sony have branched into data recovery firms. In 2000, there were only 10 recognised data recovery firms including Toshiba’s CBL Data Recovery Services and Hewlett Packard. At the end of 2006, this number had increased to more than 40 with Kurt Computer Solutions Ltd. in
- Get registered legally i.e.fill in the company establishment form and state the type of company to be formed including its name, location, expected profit and number of employees
- Get financial status of the firm ensured i.e., open a bank account in company’s name.
- Advertise about the company services and start operation
Data recovery firms occupy more than 48% of the market generating a profit of more than 65% as compared to manufacturing and automobile firms which churn out a gross profit of 55%. Data recovery firms can be catogerised into two types:
General Data Recovery: These firms deal with general small problems of data recovery usually catering to personal users.
Specialised Data Recovery: Disklabs, CBL, Ontrack and IBM are some of the few IT firms providing specialised data recovery services. These services usually deal with hardware problems of mechanical head crashes, electrostatic discharges and natural or man-made disasters of flood, fire or terrorism. On the other hand, these firms deal with software and system malfunctions including server or network problems, virus and hacking troubles.
The Data Recovery firm of Disklabs serves clients such as Inland Revenue, Saudi Arabian Airlines, BBC, Microsoft and Shell providing more than 78% of data retrieval from malfunctioned software systems and programs. It also allows for data-based replication tackling departmental data recovery. In short, Disklabs does not have the means and the capital to provide high-powered reliable data recovery systems for entire organisations. Its systems are built on the concept of asynchronous data replication allowing only focused data recovery. On the other hand, Data Recovery UK uses anti-RAID data recovery technology specialising in server and network problems. Anti-RAID is a highly advanced and complex recovery software providing data retrieval of only server problems of hard drives, operating and filing systems.
CBL Technologies deals with virus problems leading to data losses. The company claims that organisations are vulnerable to virus attacks and malicious hacking. CBL technicians have been working to provide a standard solution to this virulent problem. The European data recovery giant firm of Kurt Computer Solutions Ltd. is currently shifting base to
The common trend in the modern market for data recovery firms is that of mergers and acquisitions – if you can’t go higher in a straight way, it is time to expand horizontally – and this is exactly what has been happening in the data recovery arena. The biggest merger occurred in 2007 when Hewlett Packard acquired a photo shop, Tabblo, and sought to expand from print storage into video and web storage.