When you are faced with the possibility of spending a not inconsiderable amount of money on Data Recovery, you may well be tempted by the online adverts for what appears to be cheap, fixed fee services. After all, your primary concern is the recovery of the data for the best possible price. It is worth noting however that some of these services are known to have some less that satisfactory outcomes that could end up at best, delaying the data recovery or at worst, causing permanent loss of the data.
The Fixed Fee Model
When we look at the fixed fee model, it makes sense that the prices have to look cheap, after all if they are high they won’t be attractive in the first place. These low, fixed fee services will of course draw in a large number of recovery cases and quite often are the first port of call for the end user following a web search for data recovery services.
This though is where it gets interesting, for little investment in some ‘specialist’ equipment it may be possible to recover a percentage of cases with very little effort. It’s these cases that the fixed fee providers are looking for, the low hanging fruit, unfortunately they have no qualms in risking your data in the process.
Fixed fee providers often make a couple of attempts to recover the data using their ‘specialist’ hardware and software (often free or cheap software freely available online!) when unsuccessful the will tell you that the data is unrecoverable or that it is possibly recoverable for an additional fee. Why the additional fee? If you are lucky, they’ll be sending it elsewhere for recovery.
What this means for You & Your Data
Sending your device for data recovery to a fixed fee service MAY turn out well for you, you’ll get a full recovery for a cheap price, however you will likely be in the minority. For many others this may be the start of a nightmare. You’ll either be left believing that the data is unrecoverable which may have serious a financial or sentimental impact on you or your business.
Alternatively, you may decide to try another provider in the hope that they may have more luck. This is great if you get the device to a good lab, otherwise you’ll end up with the same result from another fixed fee provider!
Your Data, Your Choice
We strongly recommend choosing a data recovery company that you can trust, while this may be difficult to establish, at least try and research them first.
Why Choose BC Data Management Limited?
We’ve been doing data recovery for a long time and our technicians have a wealth of experience. Importantly we know when a task is beyond our experience/tools/techniques and will speak to our trusted partner labs to find a cost effective solution for your data recovery requirements. While we don’t offer a fixed fee service, our pricing is transparent, our lab is well equipped we offer a free evaluation service and we’ll happily take on jobs that have been deemed unrecoverable elsewhere!
If you have any questions, please contact us and we’d be delighted to help.