ANY DEVICE

Using an inexpensive, easy to use external hard disk drive is one of the best ways to back up your data. Although it’s best to have three forms of data back-up, the best back-up system is the one you use consistently. Of course, an external hard drive stored in the same place as your computer won’t protect your data from localized physical damage such as a fire or flood. But if the main hard disk drive fails, your data back-ups will be easy to access on your external drive. With all this in mind, what should you look for when choosing a back-up external hard drive?1. CapacityThe capacity of the drive is probably the number one factor people consider. With…

Every day, 24 Hour Data helps customers facing a data recovery emergency. In fact, our recovery success rate for extracting mission critical files in less than 48 hours is the best in the business. But it’s important to understand that a percentage of businesses invest in this service because long-term data loss would cost exponentially more than the costs of the data recovery. The other percentage, the vast majority of 24 Hour Data’s customers, make up small businesses and individuals who have lost data and would like it back, but time isn’t of the essence. While we pride ourselves on “emergency data recovery service,” we also have superior success rates for data recovery in non-emergency situations. Which leaves many of…

Hard drives fail. At 24 Hour Data, we know this better than anyone. On the pages of this blog, we frequently talk about physical and logical hard drive failure. Logical failure typically involves corruption of files or accidentally deleted data. Physical failure means damage to the hard disk drive itself. Drives may fail to varying extents. The damage might be complete, with no hope for recovery, or the drive may be easily recoverable. Data loss from logical disk drive failure can usually be fixed by a professional data recovery service.  It’s important to remember that attempting do-it-yourself data recovery can turn what would be a relatively “easy” logical recovery for a professional service into a data recovery disaster, where it…

At 24 Hour Data, we know that small businesses and large organizations, alike, use databases for nearly every aspect of operations, from customer relationship management to sales and marketing and more. So when your database fails, you risk losing mission critical data that can cost your company important business… or even cost your entire business. If you are facing missing or corrupt data in your database or you can’t access your database at all, there are typically three common causes. Let’s look at each one and then determine the best steps to take to recover your lost data. Database Hardware FailureA database is just a combination of software and data. Frequently, when a database fails to boot, it’s due to…

Do you know the number one reason for data loss in cloud storage environments? You might be surprised. It’s not a data breach or attack directed at the service provider. It’s not a  natural disaster. It’s simple human error. According to the Aberdeen Group’s report, “SaaS Data Loss: The Problem You Didn’t Know You Had,” (http://www.aberdeen.com/Aberdeen-Library/8323/AI-cloud-data-loss.aspx) more than one-third of the companies polled have lost data stored in the cloud. Nearly 65 percent of these losses were caused by user error. In 47% of the cases, users deleted the information, and 17% of the time, the information was accidentally overwritten. Only 13% of instances of data loss were caused by hackers deleting information. Cloud-based storage is handy for file-sharing without…

As the amount of mission critical data required by small businesses grows, data loss becomes inevitable. Let’s take a look at some significant 2013 statistics on data loss, researched by a number of reputable organizations and reported by data backup service provider Essentialink. https://essentialink.com/business-continuity-statistics-industry-trends-… Data Loss StatisticsA Gartner survey said that 25% of PCs will fail this year. In many cases, when a hard drive fails, backups are not in place and data will be lost. A Forrester survey revealed that 24% of companies polled said they experienced a full data disaster, meaning the loss of mission critical business data. Finally, 95% of companies experienced a data outage in 2013, according to the Ponemon Institute. If we are to take away…

Restoring a failed RAID array often requires expert help from a professional data recovery service. It’s important to remember that one when hard drive in a RAID array fails, it puts added strain on the other drives in the array and can lead to cascading RAID failure and catastrophic data loss. However, many levels of RAID use built-in redundancy, which makes RAID storage one of the preferred forms of data storage for enterprise-level data storage within small-to-mid-size businesses. RAID 1 and RAID 5 configurations can withstand the failure of one drive before professional data recovery is required. RAID 6, which is rapidly becoming the RAID configuration of choice for enterprise-level data storage, can tolerate the failure of two drives before…

If hard disk drives never died, there’d be very little reason for emergency data recovery.  Of course, there will always be user error, accidental deletion, natural disasters and file corruption caused by viruses and malware. But the second leading cause of data loss, failed hard disk drives, wouldn’t matter. However, even with new SSL and hybrid hard disks, there is one other “constant” in life besides death and taxes: hard drive failure. But how soon will most hard disk drives fail? Many manufacturers offer a one-year warranty against defects on their hard disk drives, which may lead you to believe that most drives will last approximately 13 months or a little longer. Enterprise class hard drives, usually warranted five years,…

Backblaze, an unlimited online backup company, recently published the results of an extensive, four-year study of hard disk drive lifespans. In additional to revealing some useful and interesting statistics on hard drive lifespans, the study also uncovered three common reasons for hard disk drive failure. Since 24 Hour Data specializes in recovering lost data after hard disk failure, let’s look at some of the most common reasons people call us. Hard disk failure reason #1: Manufacturer’s defects – Some hard drives just weren’t built to last. According to the Backblaze study, 5.1% of all drives die within 18 months of use. These failures are usually covered by warranty and are typically due to manufacturer’s defects. A small percentage, 2.5%, of all…

By now, most computer users know that it’s important to back up your data frequently. But knowing what you should do and executing the action plan to get it done are, unfortunately, two different things. Where should you start when it comes to backing up your data? Fortunately, as with most things related to technology today, you have options.  24 Hour Data explores popular options for data backup. We hope you’ll pick one or more of these methods to save yourself from a data recovery emergency. But remember that we’re always here to help. Whether your back-ups have failed, or it’s been weeks or just hours since your last back-up, we can help you recover mission critical data and valuable…