mouse level perceptions of
the data recovery market
Editor:- September 14, 2018 - In a new
blog on StorageSearch.com -
19 years
of editor conversations with the data recovery market - I look back at some
of the things which surprised and impressed me the most about the DR market, its
ways of doing business and its awesome technical investments. ...read the
article
data recovery from server RAM?
Editor:- August 4,
2016 - data recovery from RAM... is that even a real thing? - some of you may
be asking. Yeah I thought everyone knew that. There are good and bad aspects to
this too as I discuss in my blog -
is data
remanence a new risk factor in persistent memory?
introsepctive insights from SSD recovery market
Editor:-
January 23, 2015 - It looks like the market for
recovering data from
flash SSDs is finally starting to grow up and share useful introspective
insights such as:- the comparative incidence of DR for SSDs versus HDDs with
the same usage patterns, and the most likely causes of SSD failure which are
likely to lead to a data recovery. ...read the article on
StorageSearch.com
flooded drives article resurfaces
Editor:- November
9, 2012 - Sadly for all those affected - one of the top 10 articles on the
mouse site this month has been a 5 years old article -
Recovering
Data from Drowned / Flooded Hard Drives which includes useful
counter-intuitive advice about what you should do to prevent making things
even worse before you contact any
data recovery companies.
If you know people affected - you may want to pass this on.
I'm
in 2-3 minds about data recovery and striking the right balance in giving this
subject visibility.
On the one hand it seems ghoulish to give the
subject visibility which is timed to coincide with anticipated and actual
disasters.
On the other hand the right knowledge and resources can be
helpful at a difficult time - so it would be perverse not to mention it.
And
on the 3rd other hand (apologies to those of you who saw my alpha centauri
feature a few weeeks ago - which is still lurking around somewhere low down
on the left hand side of the home page
- and who have come across this "last" other-hand before) - but
finally on the last of these other hands - most of you - who luckily aren't
in a dire data recovery needy situation right now - aren't interested in DR or
hard drives. That's why
getting the balance right is so tricky.
SSDs or hard drives? - the data forensics differences
Editor:-
October 23, 2012 - When you need to retrieve critical unbacked up data from a
damaged notebook (which you left in the car when you clambered out the
window after realizing that the puddle across the road was much deeper than you
first thought) you call the process "data recovery" - but
when a court seizes a suspect's notebook to try and retrieve data which may have
been deliberately "deleted" - they call it "data forensics"
- either way - in the most demanding cases the experts who work on these tasks
are the same.
SSD Data Recovery
(as opposed to dumb flash memory recovery) is a relatively new market which
didn't exist 5 years ago.
A recent article
Why
SSD Drives Destroy Court Evidence - on a site called
ForensicFocus.com - discusses how
techniques which are essential to the operation of flash SSDs (such as
garbage collection
and wear leveling)
mean that from the forensic viewpoint SSDs yield up potentially much less
deliberately deleted recoverable data than hard drives.
believable recovery tips re blue screen PCs
Editor:-
October 3, 2011 -
Recovering
Data When Windows Won't Boot is a practical blog by ioSafe who sell
indestructable storage.
Because they aren't a software or DR company
their article isn't one of those "download our software" teasers.
calm down about your drive data
Editor:-
September 9, 2011 -
Hard Drives and Earthquakes and
Hurricanes, Oh My! - is the subject of a new blog by Mark Flournoy,
VP of Government & Defense at STEC who says - "...while
computer hacking typically gets top billing when it comes to bringing down a
network, shock, heat and other environmental factors are equally effective..."
As you'd expect - from a blog from one of the
world's top 3 SSD
companies - solid state storage makes an appearance - and there's a happy
ending. ...read the article
SandForce names trusted partner for SSD data recovery
Editor:-
May 5, 2011 - SandForce
today named DriveSavers
as a member of its trusted partners program.
"DriveSavers was our
first choice to expand the SandForce Trusted program to include
data recovery services,"
said Kent Smith, Senior Director of Product Marketing for SandForce. "While
SandForce SSD Processors eliminate the most common data loss scenarios through
DuraClass NAND flash management features, DriveSavers can provide the SSD a
safety net should the unexpected SSD failure happen and data loss occurs."
Editor's comments:- although many data recovery companies have
developed techniques
to deal with SSDs - some SSDs are difficult or impossible to recover without
the support of the original
controller company.
This is a significant announcement because it makes SandForce SSDs more
attractive in consumer markets. Over 90% of consumers don't do reliable
backups.
what happens in SSDs when power goes down? - and why you should
care
Editor:- February 24, 2011 - StorageSearch.com today published
a new article -
SSD power is
going down! - which surveys power down management design factors in
SSDs.
Why should you care what happens in an SSD when the power goes
down?
This important design feature - which barely rates a mention in
most SSD datasheets and press releases - is really important in determining SSD
data integrity and operational reliability. This article will help you
understand why some SSDs which work perfectly well in one type of application
might fail in others... even when the changes in the operational environment
appear to be negligible. If you thought
endurance
was the end of the SSD
reliability story - think again. ...read the
article
new article - SSD Data Recovery Concepts and Technologies
Editor:-
December 1, 2010 -
StorageSearch.com today
published a new article -
Introduction to SSD
Data Recovery Concepts and Technologies - written by Jeremy Brock,
President, A+
Perfect Computers.
It's hard enough understanding the
design of any single SSD. And there are so many different designs in the
market.
If you've ever wondered what it looks like at the other end of
the SSD supply chain - when a user has a damaged SSD which contains priceless
data with no usable backup - this article - written by one of a rare new
breed of SSD recovery
experts will give you some idea. I've waited more than 3 years to find
someone to write an article on this subject for you. And now it's only a click
away - read the
article
What do data recovery stats tell us about HDD vs SSD reliability?
Editor:-
November 5, 2010 - how do SSDs
compare with
HDDs for
reliability in the
real world?
Forget all the theoretical calculations about MTBF - which are
grossly over optimistic...
On the home page of StorageSearch.com - I share
what's known about the stats for SSD data recovery. See the footnotes to the
article about ActionFront - to learn more.
SSD Data Recovery - view from the UK
Editor:-
September 27, 2010 - joining in the debate about
SSD Data Recovery
- Andy Butler Director of
UK based ABC Data
Recovery told me this.
"We have yet to see what I would
call an enterprise class
PCIe SSD and I am not
in a hurry to buy one at $11,000 just to experiment, if you have contacts
willing to provide us with a test scenario it would be a good way to do a
whitepaper.
"The 256GB commercial SSD we do recover have wear levelling and
need every NAND chip to be read. Of the SSD we do see, most suffer
from damage caused by power fluctuations or physical damage and as yet
enquiry levels are very low. However we are ready for the increase in demand
as more people make the move to SSD.
"The majority of our work is still hard drives, server RAID and
about 20% of our capacity is dedicated to memory sticks / flash memory.
SSD represented less than 0.1% of our income for 2009 /10.
" Because of the complexity of the work and how time consuming it
is, the service is charged at a premium and so does put off many enquiries.
Where we suspect just file corruption we just charge for a logical recovery so
they are not counted in our statistics as SSD recoveries. Why not do some
test calls of the main labs including mine and see how they handle SSD
enquiries?"
SSD Data Recovery - update
Editor:- September 15,
2010 - regular readers of
StorageSearch.com know that
I'm skeptical about the claims which most data recovery companies put on their
web sites about their abilities to
recover data from
failed SSDs.
David Foster,
General Manager of Memofix
emailed me to say - "I was reading what you were saying about SSD drives
and data recovery. I agree 100% with your view that most recovery companies
cannot deal with most SSD hardware issues. But please remember a large portion
of the cases any recovery company sees are the result of file system damaged or
corruption .. and these cases are easily handled by any half descent DR
company.
"Memofix has only ever seen 3 SSD drives for data
recovery and 2 cases were file system damage including a simple deletion case.
In the other case we were able to replace a non-memory component and make the
device accessible again.
"Additionally we do dozens of
USB flash drives with
anywhere from 1-4 actual memory chips onboard, so we do intimately understand
the intricies of translation tables and putting all the pieces back together."
Editor:- it's good to hear from people who know what they're doing in
this new area of SSD data recovery. David Foster also writes a
blog in which he
discusses storage
reliability and recovery in a more informative way than many others I've
seen - based on his long experience in the industry.
For example - did
you know that 2.5"
drives are more recoverable than 3.5" drives? - I didn't - and would
have expected it to be the other way round.
survey shows most users think they can't afford zero loss disaster
recovery
Editor:- June 9, 2010 - Axxana today
published
findings from a survey it funded to understand the role that
cost plays in
inhibiting user adoption of zero data loss disaster recovery solutions
such as its own SSD based solutions.
'This survey has really shown
how today's end users still feel that eliminating data loss though a disaster
recovery strategy is still out of their budget,' said Eli Efrat, Axxana's CEO.
'Although cost is still an important consideration, the results support our
strategy and I am confident that a year from now solutions such as our Phoenix
System will have a much bigger foothold in the market because they make zero
data loss DR an affordable option.'
SSD Backup
reaching for the petabyte SSD
Editor:- March 16,
2010 - previewing the final chapters in the long running
SSD vs HDD wars -
StorageSearch.com today
published an industry changing new article -
SSDs - reaching for
the Petabyte.
What will the PB SSD look like? When will it appear?
What technology problems do
SSD designers have to
solve to get there? What about the
storage architecture
that the PB SSD fits into? How much electrical power will it consume? And...
you may be curious - how much will it cost?
All these questions and
more - are discussed and answered in this article which - I anticipate -
will inspire product managers and company founders to create completely new
types of SSDs. ...read
the article
In Space the Data Recovery Engineer can't hear You Scream
Editor:-
February 15, 2010 -
NASA's
Solar Dynamics Observatory, launched last week, uses an SSD error
correction architecture designed by ECC Technologies.
Phil
White, inventor of this scheme says - "You can think of the SDO spacecraft
as containing a parallel-transfer, fault-tolerant
SSD that uses DRAM chips
instead of NAND Flash chips... Multiple DRAM chips can fail with no loss of
data or performance."
Editor's comments:-
understanding the data
failure modes in solid state storage arrays isn't rocket science. But
rocket science thinking (high mission cost of data failure without the
cushion of a service engineer or data recovery) - is a critical starting point
in the design of SSDs with high
data integrity.
ioSafe Launches Disaster Proof Backup SSD
Editor:-
January 5, 2010 - ioSafe
launched the
ioSafe Solo SSD - an ultra rugged
USB /
eSATA
external
flash SSD with
upto 256GB capacity ($1,250) designed to provide data protection against
disasters such as fire, flood, and building collapse.
ioSafe offers
a "no questions asked"
Data Recovery policy
to help customers recover from any data disaster including accidental deletion,
virus or physical disaster.
Recalibrating Consumer Assumptions about SSD Data Recovery
Editor:-
December 7, 2009 -
StorageSearch.com today
published a new update on the theme of -
Data Recovery for
flash SSDs.
Market
research consistently shows that most small businesses and consumers don't
do adequate backups.
Such users unwittingly offer themselves as prospective future customers for
data recovery. This is another area in which the user experience of
hard drives is unlike
that for SSDs. The SSD you
buy today determines whether a future data recovery is economically or
technically viable. ...read the article
SSD Data Recovery Company Secures $18 million series C funding
Editor:-
November 2, 2009 -
Link_A_Media Devices
has secured $18 million series C funding - enabling it to bring its products
to market sooner.
Lightspeed Venture Partners, a new investor in the company, led the
funding round. Other key investors are ITOCHU Technology Ventures, Keynote
Ventures, SunAmerica Ventures and several strategic partners.
"I
am very pleased with Link_A_Media's ability to attract new and previous
investors to this round. The interest we generated from the
investment community
is a direct reflection of the huge opportunity for the company in the storage
markets based on our technology leadership," said Dr. Hemant Thapar, CEO
and chairman of Link_A_Media. "Over the past 2 years, we have begun
deploying our leading technologies into custom
SoC products for our
customers to enable their next generation products. Strong customer interest in
our technology is validating the imminent transitions in
data recovery
technology trends for peripheral storage devices, both
HDDs and
SSDs."
Fast Purge flash SSDs
Editor:- September 25, 2009 -
StorageSearch.com today
published a new directory of Fast Purge flash SSDs.
The
need for fast and secure data erase - in which vital parts of a flash SSD or
its data are destroyed in seconds - has always been a requirement in military
projects.
Fast purge SSDs are the antithesis of ideal consumer /
enterprise SSDs - because they are designed to defeat
data recovery. The
problem for military SSD designers is that as recovery techniques get better and
raw computing power increases - the demands on the purge systems are increased. |
|
| New Book
on Forensic Data Recovery |
Editor:- June 4, 2009 Ontrack this week
announced availability of the second 2nd edition of the American Bar
Association book,
"Electronic
Evidence and Discovery: What Every Lawyer Should Know Now."
The
authors, both have strong connections to Ontrack and more than 20 years
combined experience in the legal technology industry.
Michele C.S. Lange
serves as a director for the Legal Technologies business line for Kroll Ontrack.
As one of the nation's most knowledgeable experts, Lange is frequently called
upon by journalists to comment on cutting-edge law and technology developments,
and she also routinely shares her expertise and knowledge as a guest speaker for
legal associations, CLE programs and law school courses. Lange graduated from
the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse with highest honors and the
University of Minnesota Law School, cum laude.
Kristin
M. Nimsger, president, Kroll Ontrack, leads the company's more than 30
offices of employees who work to produce products and services for legal,
corporate and government entities through three product lines: Legal
Technologies and Consulting, Data Recovery and Advanced Search Technologies.
Prior to joining Kroll Ontrack, Nimsger practiced law in the areas of complex
product liability litigation, and property and casualty insurance defense.
Nimsger earned her J.D. cum laude from William Mitchell College of Law, St.
Paul, Minnesota, and received her B.A. in English/Communications from the
University of Minnesota, Duluth.
See also:-
"book"
- editor mentions, Storage
People, Data Recovery |
Data Recovery Enters Top 5 Storage Searches
Editor:-
January 7, 2009 - Data Recovery (this page you're viewing now) entered the top 5
subjects viewed by StorageSearch.com readers in December 2008 for the
1st time in 10 years.
"Like any rescue service of last resort,
Data Recovery is something which it's healthy to spend little or no time
thinking about. But when something goes wrong with your operating data and
backups - you are forced to become an instant expert" said editor, Zsolt
Kerekes. "The icon used for Data Recovery on the mouse site since 1999 is
still one of my favorites. You can see a larger version of the image
here."
The
list of top articles and subjects will be updated later today on the
market research page.
Xytron Joins IPDRA
Editor:- November 10, 2008 -
Xytron
has joined the International Professional
Data Recovery Association.
Founded in August 2008 by
Disklabs, the IPDRA
vets prospective members for
Data Recovery
experience and publishes a code of conduct for members.
In an
industry where anybody can set up a web site to attract your broken hard disks /
tapes / flash storage - IPDRA aims to be a major leap forward helping
clients decide who they will send their critical or precious data to.
Seagate Services Renamed i365
Editor:- September 23, 2008 -
Seagate today announced a comprehensive rebranding of its EVault,
MetaLINCS, and Seagate Recovery Services companies into a single new brand -
i365
i365, a Seagate Company, focuses on the unique needs
and expectations of small, mid-size and enterprise companies. The "i"
in the name represents information and "365" for commitment to be
reliably available and accessible to customers.
...i365 profile,
renamed storage companies
CBL Data Recovery Launches a Different Type of Data Recovery
Service
MARKHAM,
ON / ARMONK, NY - July 29, 2008 - CBL Data Recovery Technologies Inc.
today announced a new service offering which shields computer users from the
expense of data recovery when data loss disaster strikes unexpectedly.
The CBL Data Recovery Service Protection Plan provides 3 years of unlimited
data recovery coverage of a hard drive for $99.99.
"It's not a matter of if data loss will happen; it's simply a
matter of when," said CBL's President and CEO Bill Margeson. "The CBL
DRSPP is a preemptive, affordable alternative to standard data recovery service
fees which can exceed $1,000 when physical damage to a hard drive prevents
access to files. For some computer users, such an unplanned expenditure is not
financially feasible. The CBL Data Recovery Service Protection Plan shields them
from the unexpected expense."
Eligibility? - Any make or model of new and existing internal or
external hard drives are eligible for DRSPP coverage. The hard drive must be
functional at the time of registration and accessible from a computer running a
Windows operating system. The hard drive's serial number is captured during
online registration so when a DRSPP customer incurs data loss, they simply ship
the registered hard drive to CBL. CBL DRSPP coverage extends to data loss
resulting from virtually every cause including user errors, mechanical or
electrical failures, software malfunctions, viruses, and natural disasters.
The CBL Data Recovery Service Protection Plan offers 1 or 3 years of
coverage for $49.99 and $99.99 respectively inclusive of parts, laboratory
time and labor. Shipping and applicable taxes are extra. CBL DRSPP coverage
commences 30 days after payment and registration. ...CBL Data Recovery profile,
Data Recovery,
Storage Services
editor's comments:- the Data Recovery market is a difficult one for
vendors to operate in because no-one wants (or plans) to be a customer in this
segment. It's only when disaster strikes that most customers investigate this
subject.
You could argue that if users thought ahead they would spend
their money on backups. But backups frequently go wrong - or can be affected by
the same common mode failures which render the original data media unreadable
(fire, flood, virus etc).
It will be interesting to see how successful
the new business model is - and (if so) how long it will be before it gets
copied. | |
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