Data Recovery Digest

When you’ve lost your data, it can feel like the end of the world. Luckily, there are data recovery techniques to help with logical and mechanical drive failure.

You might be wondering how long it’s going to take to get your data back. That depends on a number of factors, many of which are similar for both logical and mechanical failure.

Generally, if your drive needs to be sent to a specialist recovery company to get the support of a technician, then you could be looking at a business week for recovery. If you are using data recovery software yourself, then it shouldn’t take longer than a day or two at most.

Let’s take a look at the factors which impact how long data recovery takes.

The size of your hard drive is an important component in the speed of recovery. If you have a small hard drive of low capacity, it won’t take too long to clone in order to begin the recovery process. A larger drive, even if it isn’t at full capacity, will take longer because of all the sectors that need to be scanned.

Equally, the type of data that you had on the drive will have an impact. If you have lots of large files, it’s likely that these will be spread out across the drive. This will mean that the engineers or the software have to scan across a larger surface area and try to piece the data back together as a whole.

It also depends on what type of hard drive you have and who manufactured it. Some drives are produced to a higher standard than others. Some of the big data firms will include software or protection on their drives to help with the data recovery process. Cheaper drives are less inclined to and might make the recovery harder and longer.

Something that only matters for recovery on mechanical failure is the environment in which you kept your computer or how the drive got damaged. For example, if your computer has been running at a high heat or shaken by the environment, the damage tends to be worse and this can make the recovery process take longer. Ensure your computer is clear of any blockers so that it can ventilate properly – consider the surface in which its on and that it isn’t up against a wall.

Some recovery programs offer different levels of scans. Many will give you the choice between a quick scan and a deep scan. The former will obviously take less time and is good for recovering common data types like photos, documents and music. If you need recovery of more obscure data, perhaps system files, then you will need to perform a deep scan which can take a much longer time.

There’s no set answer to how long data recovery will take. If there’s a specific bit of data you need, you might recover it quickly. But if you need to deeply scan and recover as much as possible, the process can’t be rushed.