Editor's Note: In the following chart, we present some essential and basic information about some of the industry leaders in data recovery and disk repair. Several companies did not respond to our request for information. It is also worth noting that in gathering the data for the matrix that begins on the next page, almost every single provider was reluctant to take part, claiming that the data recovery and disk repair industry was full of specious companies, most of whom make false promises. We removed from the charts claims about being the best, or being first. Because data recovery typically involves vital data worth paying for, we suggest that you do your homework and check references.
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DataMechanix
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DriveSavers
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DTI Data Recovery
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Flashback Data
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Gillware Data Recovery
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Secure Data Recovery
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The Data Rescue Center
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WeRecoverData
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KrollOntrack
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Go
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| Years in Business | 22 | 28 | 16 | 10 | 10 | 17 | 5 | 11 | 29 |
| Number of Technicians | 9 | 26 | 10 | 3 | 20 | 22 | No details provided | Confidential | 125 |
| Repair Staff Avg. Experience | 12 | 6 | 20 | 15 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 17.5 | 10 |
| Receiving Locations | 2 (Irvine, CA, Sidney, Austrailia) | 14,000 referral partners worldwide | 3 (hundreds of partner locations in U.S.) | 1 HQ with 11 authorized drop off centers | 1, with 1200 active partners | 57: N. America, Mexico, Australia, UK | 1 (HQ). Free expedited shipping for 5000 partners | 40 in U.S., 10 in Canada, 1 in Mexico. | 19 |
| Technician Certifications | Every Engineer has a minimum A+ certification, Every Engineer passes the certification outlined by NIST and the DOD ASCLD/ ISO 17025 2005 | Windows, Apple and Novell certified. PGP, Ultimaco Software, SafeGuard Enterprise, Access Data, Pointsec Check Point, EnCase Guidance, Cellebrite, Blackbag, Paraben and many others. | Ace Lab avdanced training, MCSE, Cisco, Apple | ASCLD/LAB International accredited crime lab (ISO 17025); examiners with many digital forensics certifications, including CFCE and EnCE. | No specifics provided | Apple Mac Certification, MCPD, A+. SSAE 16 SOC 1 Type II, Class ISO 4 Cleanroom, BBB Accredited with A+ Rating | Apple and Windows Certifications | MAC certified, Microsoft Certified Professionals. Forensic and e-discovery engineers hold CCE (Certified Computer Examiner), EnCE (Encase Certified Examiner), CHFI (Certified Hacking Forensic Investigator) | Certified Mac Technician. VMware Certified |
| Average Turnaround Time | 4 days | 1-2 business days | 5 business days | Standard Service, 3-4 business days. Expedited services as fast as same-day turnaround. | 6 business days standard. Advantage service takes 3-4r business days (additional $350). Priority service averages one business day (additional $700) | 1 - 3 days depending on the size and condition of the disk | 3- 5 days, but overnight expedited recovery service for an extra fee | Standard service at 5-7 business day; Priority service 2-3 business days. Weekend service is 2-3 days. For emergency service most cases are recovered within 24 hours. | 3-5 business days |
| Turnaround Time Guarantees | Yes (24 hours for priority and 3-5 days for standard service) | Round the clock priority service, 1-2 business days and 5-7 business days. 97% turn-around time result. | Only Expedited Service | No, due to the nature of damaged drives. | Difficult to guarantee recovery turnaround time due to the uncertainty involved in many of the recovery procedures | Emergency service options with option for same day service. | Hard drive recovery is variable based on the unique circumstances. | Turnaround times are guaranteed. Our time frames are based on similar cases | No |
| Vendors Who List Company as Authorized Repair Depot | Western Digital (Hitachi) and Toshiba. | 5 SSD manufacturers; 4 Notebook/desktop/server manufacturers; 8 storage system manufacturers; 3 hard disk manufacturers | 2 publicly on their sites. All accept our work without voiding warranties. | Western Digital. Also listed with several external HDD makers such as Verbatim, Rocstor, etc. | Dell, Western Digital, Intel for SSDs | 20+ | Listed by G-Technology and Hitachi. | N/A | Authorized by all major hard drive manufacturers |
| Ability to do Forensic Repairs and Recoveries | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes. Accredited crime lab (ASCLD/LAB International (ISO 17025), same as FBI labs) | Yes | We have capabilities to handle any recovery but we do not forensically document them as part of our service | No | Yes | Yes |
| Technicians with Forensic Recovery Certification | All 9 | 6 | 5 | 1 | No details provided | 1 tech and 2 engineers | No details provided | No details provided | 30 |
| Technicians with Expert Witness Experience | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | No details provided | No details provided | N/A | About 50% of our data forensic engineers have served as expert witnesses in court. | 15 |
| Advanced Technology Used | ACE Laboratory's PC-3000, DeepSpar Data Recovery Software, Atola Insight Recovery Tool, Proprietary disk tools for both hardware and software | ACE Laboaratory's PC-3000, DeepSpar Data Recovery Software, Atola Insight data recovery tool, Proprietary software and hardware tools | ACE Laboaratory's PC-3000, DeepSpar Data Recovery Software, Custom Atola Insight data recovery tool, Our own. Sells tools to other DR companies | ACE Laboaratory's PC-3000, DeepSpar Data Recovery Software, Many Others | Proprietary | Other Proprietary | ACE Laboaratory's PC-3000, DeepSpar Data Recovery Software, Atola Insight data recovery tool, Other Proprietary Tools | Proprietary, developed by an in-house R&D lab | Patented Remote Data Recovery technology; hundreds of proprietary tools across all operating system platforms |
| Repairs Onsite or Outsourced | Onsite | Onsite | Onsite | Onsite | Onsite | Onsite | Onsite | Onsite | Onsite |
| Average Price for Repair | $795 | $1600 | $199+ | $700 | $700 | Depends | $400-$1200 | $500-$2500 | $695+ |
| If You Cannot Do Repair, Is There a Fee? | No attempt fee or fee for parts, etc. if data is not recovered | No. We do not charge a fee if the data is not recoverable. | No (diagnostic fees if drive has been opened, or has been to another data recover company) | No, unless the drive seals have been broken by the customer or another data recovery company | No | No fees until data is recovered, unless disk opened by user | No | No-data-no-fee guarantee and 100% data guarantee policy | It depends on the system type and service level selected; eg., if priority or emergency services are selected, there is a fee for $65 |
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Ask a Category Expert
When you askedabout their "advanced recovery" you should have asked if they design their own imaging hardware/controllers.
Everything else can mean just fluff like spacers for HR changers(Gilware) to things like custom software tools(which everyone should have).
Going down the list here's some more information clarification for the readers:
Hard Drive Manufacturers:
Western Digital lists everyone here because they get paid commissions and want the greatest amount of choices. Platinum Partners on the WD partner site like Drivesavers and Ontrack pay monthly for that placement.
Hitachi and G-Technology who are wholly owned subsidiaries of WD have a separate partner site where they separately list partners(Data rescue Center, Ontrack, Drivesavers, etc...).
Toshiiba has an internal support page, Seagate uses there own SRS for Data Recovery.
IN GENERAL; the Drive manufacturers support organizations know little to nothing about the data recovery process and often make things worse in their attempt to troubleshoot.
A good example(though by far not the only one) is G-Tech's relationship with Data rescue center where Data rescue is a reseller of G-Tech's drive and perpetuates bad assumptions about recovery to peddle their software(they were a software company for 20 years before opening a lab).
Also..."Personal data on a damaged hard disk can be restored, he says, without needing to open any files to confirm the restoration".
This is absolutely not true either and this is just a business model decision.
What ends up happening is Ontrack's end users get "compelted" recovery projects with corrupt data and no recourse.
you would think this happens only for things like individual documents(where you obviously can't tell if there's corruption just by staring at a hex dump) but even things like Virtual Machines/databases being unatachable or corrupt come out of this kind of policy by Ontrack(and others of course).
The raw numbers:
I have a lot of skepticism when it comes to the number of technicians being listed here because I know what a serious top tier Lab like SRS9at least before this year) looks like in terms of it's engineers.
Also I have a BIG problem with any lab that refers to it's engineers as "repair...(something)". data recovery involves the repair of drives incidentally...and there's a significant distinction in professionalism and ethics from those that actually TRY to repair drives and data recovery engineers.
There's a lot more I could talk about here and notable companies that are missing(and some that are oddly inconsistent from the RAID recovery article list), but frankly that's kind of the nature of the industry. unless you've been in the trenches for a while, you cna't really peel back the layers completely.
You did a decent job here, though. Better than i've seen as of yet.