2021 is well underway, and many digital leaders have been hard at work preparing their company for disruptions both now and in the future. Undoubtedly, the business sector will experience permanent changes and disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Technological change can be disruptive, but it also opens the doors for many opportunities.

Meanwhile, continued cyber security hacks and other issues have eroded customer trust. And while many people are focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, and rightly so, technological disasters are also a severe risk.

A cyber security threat could result in vast amounts of cyber threats on sensitive data. Whether caused by hackers or something else, Downtime can knock IT systems offline, grinding business processes to a halt. Yet, regardless of the challenges that emerge, market forces will continue, and companies must strive for continuity.

When it comes to continuity and supporting your company’s efforts, a disaster recovery plan, including data backup, is now vital for companies big and small. With so much data and work stored online, failing to implement data backup protocols exposes your company to massive risks.

What’s at risk for companies amid disasters?

Be prepared for whatever the future holds, and disaster response and recovery plans are now vital. IT outages could significantly impact your business both in the near term and far into the future.

• System outages, especially for customer-facing services like CRM and communication tools, can cost revenues as customers demand refunds for Downtime, or worse, switch to another solution provider.
• When IT systems go down, employee productivity may ground to a halt since workers can no longer access various tools and systems.
• With overburdened IT departments, an outage can overwhelm even well-staffed teams.
• Some data may be lost forever, which can have a direct impact on your bottom line.
• Employees may need to start from scratch to gather new data.

All of the above and other issues could ripple throughout your supply chain and ecosystem.

The above factors, among others, can increase customer dissatisfaction and trust in your products and services. If problems on your end knock out IT systems that other companies rely on, they’ll face many of the above issues too. As a result, disasters could cause long-term damage to your brand and customer loyalty.

Further, the stress can sap employee morale during a crisis. Employees may see a lot of their hard work destroyed. Employee engagement is a severe challenge to companies during the best of times. A disaster can make a recovery quite challenging.

Social media also complicates matters. Disgruntled customers may share their bad experiences on social media and leave poor reviews that could discourage potential future customers for years to come.

Meanwhile, with more companies operating remotely and coordinating teams and employees worldwide, any system failures could quickly ripple across the globe. Given the risks, a disaster response team is now vital for every company.

What should a disaster response plan include in 2021?

We have seen a new standard emerge over the past year. The COVID-19 pandemic will hopefully subside, and in-person meetings and conferences may become more common. Even in a best-case scenario, many challenges will remain, and a disaster response plan is vital.

A disaster response plan can reduce the impact of unexpected crises on your business. Through leveraging cloud-based solutions, data centers, and backup solutions, you can protect your company and its bottom line. A DR plan won’t just safeguard technology. It will also help you protect your brand, customer loyalty, and day-to-day operations. It would help if you also considered data backup options and recovery cost services.

Considerations for crafting a disaster response plan

Servers: How old are your servers? How efficient are they? Is there any inherent reliability, or are there security concerns? Switching to cloud solutions may help you reduce both costs and risks in the long run.

IT staffing limitations: Your IT team is probably working hard to provide an excellent IT infrastructure for your company. Regardless, your unit may be short on staff and other resources. It may be possible to switch over to cloud-based solutions and managed services that will reduce the burden on your IT team so they can focus on the most critical aspects of their job.

Recovery Point Objectives: Your RPOs help companies determine how much data they could lose if a disaster did unfold. Through DR plans, companies can reduce how much data they could lose.

Recovery Time Objectives: Another essential element of your DR plan, RTO, outlines how much time will be spent from the beginning to completing the recovery process. IT teams should work to reduce RTO times so that companies can get back on their feet quickly after a disaster event.

Reduced dependence on on-premise backups: At first glance, an on-premise backup may seem more secure than an off-premise. However, natural disasters, such as floods and blizzards, can quickly threaten on-premise facilities. Ransomware, too, can threaten physical facilities.

Implement a 3-2-1 strategy

So how can companies craft a disaster response plan? One simple, approachable method is a 3-2-1 strategy. You’ll have three sets of data, two kept on local devices, including your local server and another backup system. Then one additional copy is kept offsite, perhaps on the cloud.

Ensuring your DR plan works

Plans often work great on paper, but the best-laid plans can quickly break down in the real world. You shouldn’t wait until a disaster unfolds to see if your disaster response plan works. Instead, you should perform live tests to see how your hardware and personnel respond to events.

Quite likely, testing will uncover some mistakes and some systems and methods that don’t perform as well as hoped. This should be seen as a good thing. By exposing these flaws, you can address them and strengthen your disaster response.

One of your primary goals during the testing phase is to figure out ways to reduce Downtime. By reducing Downtime, you can reduce disruptions to your business and your customers as well. Other significant considerations include data recovery and data loss.

Data recovery cost services outlined and explained

It can happen to businesses big and small. Perhaps the hard drive on your business laptop starts making odd clicking noises, or your computer refuses to boot up. You take your laptop to the local computer repair depot, and they inform you that your best bet is a data recovery lab.

Data recovery is now necessary. So how much will that cost? There isn’t a one size-fits-all price structure since each recovery case is different.

The size of the hard drive and the amount of data contained could impact overall cost. So too will the nature of the damage itself. In some cases, the repair is a matter of replacing read/write heads or installing firmware. In other cases, the damage may be more deeply rooted.

What about a per-gigabyte data backup and recovery services plan?

Some data recovery experts charge on a per-gigabyte basis, and at first, this may make sense. Cloud storage and CRM solutions often charge for data storage on a per-gigabyte basis. In addition, recovering 10 gigabytes of data is more manageable than 100 gigabytes.

This pricing model often breaks down in practice. If replacing a read/write head is needed, the cost will likely be the same for similar 100 GB and 1000 GB hard drives. Sure, the machine itself might have to invest more time to get up and running, but the time the engineer or repair tech spends is about the same.

Are a flat-rate data backup and recovery plan the best option?

Another popular method is to charge a flat rate. Here too, however, the pricing model fails to account for the reality on the ground. Some repairs take more time than others. Fixing one hard drive might take an hour or two; setting another could span the whole workday or more.

A company charging a flat rate might underestimate how long it takes to repair. After spending a certain amount of time on a project, they may start cutting corners. Likewise, the company may not be able to fix your hardware because the issue is too complex.

A data recovery company could charge the customer the highest likely cost from the get-go. However, if the repair ends up being easy, the customer could overpay dearly.

What are the primary factors for data recovery services costs?

It’s essential to consider the factors at play and what’s fair for you as the client. It’s also important to consider the realistic costs and resources that data recovery experts have to leverage to provide top-notch recovery services. If these costs aren’t considered, you run the risk of getting subpar service.

Hourly costs for expertise: The tech industry is suffering a talent shortage in many roles, including data recovery experts. Depending on skill, education, and location, a data recovery expert typically charges between $100 to $300 per hour. The hourly rates vary depending on expertise and experience.

Replacement parts: Professional data recovery companies often have a substantial stock of parts and drives. That said, rare or parts for older equipment may need to be special ordered. You also don’t want to skip on part costs and use cheap parts. If you do, you may end up with more problems in the future.

R&D costs: Many of the best data recovery firms spend money developing new technologies and methods to recover data and solve other issues caused during a disaster. Data recovery tools and techniques need to be engineered and reverse-engineered, and data recovery experts must test methods and tools in a lab, so clients’ data isn’t put at risk. You don’t want your data to be the guinea pig for a new data recovery method.

Temporary storage costs: Once your data is recovered, it typically needs to be stored somewhere temporarily before it can be transferred back to you. Temporary storage may last hours or weeks, depending on the project. Companies don’t want their data stored, even temporarily, on subpar systems as the risk of data exposure and loss is too high. The best data recovery companies use the most secure and reliable temporary data storage solutions.

Data replacement and transfer: Once your data is recovered, a data recovery company will need to extract it and place it on a secure, stable storage device so that it can be shipped to you. If the recovery expert cuts corners and uses cheap devices, you may suffer more data losses.

Quality assurance: Some data recovery companies try to cut costs by skimping on quality assurance. Unfortunately, this can lead to a lot of future problems, including lost data. It’s best to work with a data recovery company that takes quality control seriously.

Infrastructure and facilities: Data recovery companies have overhead costs. Expert data recovery companies set up clean rooms to protect data and hardware. These rooms can be costly to set up and maintain. Specialized equipment is also needed for many procedures, and the best data recovery companies use the best tools, which can be expensive.

IT security: Your data is valuable and needs to be protected against cybersecurity threats. This includes not just on your server and at your office but also during the data recovery process. Further, human error is always a significant risk in IT security. The best data recovery companies spend a lot of time training and monitoring staff to reduce these risks.

Data reintegration: Recovering data often isn’t enough for businesses. That data needs to be reintegrated into SQL databases and other databases. You may need assistance reintegrating data safely and securely with CRM solutions and other tools.

Quality of customer service: Even if they have good intentions, many budget data recovery companies are stretched thin and can’t provide top-notch customer service. This may slow your ability to put recovered data to use and could cause other issues. It’s best to work with data recovery experts that prioritize customer service.

Understanding data recovery cost services

As you can see, many factors come into play when determining the cost and price of data recovery. Expert data recovery companies approach each project with a lot of experience but also a fresh perspective.

When we recover data, we examine the hardware, the data itself, security risks, what tools are required, and more. We also consider our labor power and who can accomplish the project.

Our team includes a variety of data recovery experts with extensive data recovery skills sets and certifications.

Below are several questions to help determine the price:

• How much is it going to cost to repair your drive to the point we can recover the data?
• Are there any physical or logistical issues?
• What software issues are present, and how can we repair them?
• What donor parts or new hardware are needed?
• Is the data encrypted? If so, how?

Many other factors may be at play depending on what issue caused the data loss. We thoroughly evaluate each project to determine the best course of action for recovering data.

Why should you choose us?

At SSI, our data recovery experts take your data and needs seriously. We put the customer first, and that means providing top-notch service and recovering as much as possible. We also emphasize IT security and work hard to reduce and eliminate risks.

Your data is valuable. As a result, it is crucial to work with data recovery experts who appreciate just how necessary your data is. Our data recovery engineers are well-trained, have extensive experience, and use the most relevant tools to recover your data.

Put your data first, and contact SSI for expert recovery services.