If you’re a business owner faced with data loss, your first instinct might be to panic. If your IT staff fails at their attempts to retrieve lost data, you may call a data recovery service to help. But it’s important to stop, take a breath, and consider data recovery in the same light as any other investment you make in your business.

If you’re running a business that relies on 24-7 computer operations, such as an online e-commerce website, every second counts. Don’t attempt do-it-yourself data recovery, even with a well-trained IT staff. Not only does this waste time,  it could result in rendering your mission critical data irretrievable.

If you’re a business owner using your computers internally, and your business won’t stop dead with one hard drive failure, you may have a little more time to think. In either case, it’s important not to panic. (Did we mention that before?)

First, consider your back-ups. When was the last back-up performed? How quickly and inexpensively can you recover this data? Is this good enough? 

If it’s been days, or, in some cases, even hours since your last data back-up, this may not be good enough for your business. You may require complete data recovery up to the minute your system failed. Then it’s time to call a data recovery service. Be ready to provide information such as the make and model of your storage device, how and when the data loss occured, and what happened just prior to the data loss or hard drive failure.

Cost-Benefit Analysis for Data Recovery

What’s the likelihood the data can be retrieved by an expert data recovery firm? And what’s the projected cost? With 24 Hour Data, there’s no risk, because there’s no charge if we can’t recover the lost data.

Once you receive your free diagnostic and learn the likelihood of whether or not your data can be recovered, it’s time to perform a quick cost/benefit analysis. How much will the lost data cost, in regard to the time to replicate it, man-hours, and potential lost business?

With these two figures in your mind — the cost of retrieving your data vs. the cost of not retrieving that data — only you can determine whether or not it’s time for data recovery. 

When you know you’re on the phone with a company you can trust, you’ll be able to make the determination and rest easy whatever you decide.