6 Importance of Data Recovery to Your Company’s Success

In this era where cybercrimes are prevalent, all businesses should have a data backup and recovery plan for their most critical data. Regardless of the size of your business, it’s likely that data is an essential aspect of running it. If you don’t yet have a solid plan to keep your data safe, there are three things you should consider:

• All humans make errors.
• All computer systems crash.
• Disasters happen when you’re least prepared.

In the event of any of the above situations, you need to have your data backed up and available.

What causes data loss?

The corruption or deletion of data can occur in several ways, and both human error or uncontrollable factors may be to blame. One of the most common reasons for data loss is that a user accidentally deletes crucial data or overwrites essential files. Users may also reformat a disk or hard drive, unknowingly overwriting or reformatting the data that was previously stored there. And who hasn’t accidentally removed a USB or portable hard drive without properly ejecting the device? Unfortunately, this can also lead to a partial or complete corruption of stored data.

But it is not only human error that leads to data loss. Power outages (or power surges) can damage hardware and lead to sudden power loss of in-use devices. Hardware failures often occur randomly and may lead to organizations lamenting an act of God. And finally, the risk of viruses or malicious software corrupting your data is an ever-present risk for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Luckily, in the majority of data loss scenarios, a good portion of your data may be salvageable. This is where the best data recovery software comes into play.

Reasons Your Company Must Have Data Recovery

1. Technology Fails

Throughout the last 15 years, we’ve seen massive changes in the technology that we use. Many businesses are now virtually paper-free. So, important documents are stored locally, on computers.

The problem? All equipment fails eventually. Desktops get infected with ransomware and viruses. Laptops inexplicably stop working. Power surges blow out hard drives.

If your business relies on data (which most businesses do these days), this is bad news. Telling a customer that their service will be interrupted or losing the information you need to make a key business decision is the last thing you need.

2. People Make Mistakes

While we may wish that our employees were perfect, they’re only human.

That means that they’ll make mistakes. A data backup and recovery solution is crucial. This will ensure that any mistakes can be corrected.

It’s easy to overlook an important step in a certain process. You can accidentally enter the wrong data or delete data. Sure, you need to have quality assurance programs and efficient processes in place. However, having an online backup plan is just as important.

Employees accidentally leave laptops on public transport. A cup of coffee can fry a hard drive in less than a minute. Disgruntled employees delete key data on their way out the door.

If any of the above happens, you need to have a data backup and recovery solution in place.

3. Mother Nature

Unfortunately, mother nature is unpredictable and can be devastating to your business. All over the world, mother nature has wreaked havoc on company technology systems.

These events include extreme heat, deep freezes, mass flooding, and natural disasters like earthquakes and tornados. And of course, electrical faults and fires can also happen at anytime.

If you don’t have a data backup and recovery plan in place and you’re trying to resume operations after a natural disaster, you’re in big trouble.

When businesses have a backup solution in place, they don’t need to worry about damage to their operations or reputation. Instead, they can simply locate key information from their storage solution on the Cloud. Then, they can continue business as usual.

4. Competitive Advantage

When you have a data backup and recovery solution ready to go, you have an advantage over your competition.

Businesses around the world have suffered huge losses and reputation damage after losing data. TalkTalk lost £60m after a major hack in October 2015, after IT costs and the loss of 101,000 customers.

More than 156,000 had their personal details accessed by hackers, causing many customers to jump ship.

And who can forget Salesforce, which lost four hours of transactions and customer data in May 2016? Lloyds, Barclays, and Bank of America have also all had customer data losses and malicious data hacks as well.

These types of breaches reduce trust in the business itself. It affects customer relationship the most. So is the confidence of staff, investors, shareholders, and future customers.

When you can guarantee your customers that you have a solid data backup and recovery plan, you stand above businesses that can’t say the same.

5. Theft

Sadly, corporate theft is on the rise. Biscom found that 85% of employees have admitted to taking information and company documents they created.

30% admitted that they took company information and documents that they didn’t create.

20% of the employees who joined in a survey said they are more likely to take data due to the anger they’re experiencing from unfair dismissl. They also said they would be more likely to pass it off to a competitor.

Unfortunately, when these employees steal data, they’re often trying to hurt your business. So, back up your data or it will be deleted permanently from your system.

6. The Future is Here

Businesses get left behind by not embracing new trends in technology. Storing data locally and risking losing important information is no way to run a company.

An online backup service allows you and your employees to access your data whenever you like, from wherever you are. This means that your team can work remotely, collaborate on the same document or task, and ensure the integrity of that information.

Businesses are faced with problems by neglecting to upgrade their systems is corrupted or incomplete data. It’s not uncommon for multiple employees to have edited versions of the same document saved locally on their computers.

And of course, each believes that they have the most relevant or updated version.

How data recovery software works

Before launching data recovery software, businesses should immediately stop using the affected device, and disconnect it from the network. This will ensure new data doesn’t overwrite the corrupted or missing data, making it impossible to restore. You should make sure to disconnect the device from the network. This will prevent the corrupted data from being uploaded to the cloud storage or shared with other devices using the network.

File recovery programs work by harnessing the power of deterministic and heuristic algorithms. The software first conducts a scan of the drive or folder in question in order to gain a clearer picture of the file system in use and the extent of damage to the data. The program then searches for crucial identifying information (allocation information/directory records/file names) that help it repair or reformat the data.

However, the exact process for recovering deleted or corrupted data depends on the type of data loss that has occurred. The type of file system the device in question is using also influences the chance of success.

As a general rule of thumb, you can recover corrupted or deleted data with moderate success from NTFS or ApFS file systems (most Windows 10 and macOS devices). Devices using FAT or BSD UFS file systems are, however, notoriously difficult to recover data from.

In most cases, you can recover a significant proportion of data from reformatted drives or damaged drives. The exact amount of data that is recovered, however, is dependent on the extent and nature of the file damage or corruption. Significantly corrupted file systems may be unrecoverable.

However, data recovery software can’t help in recovering files from physically damaged hard drives or devices. Whether it’s because of human error or mechanical failure, users should immediately stop using a physically damaged hard drive and take it to a data recovery specialist. These businesses have specialized equipment that increases your business’ chances of recovering data from the damaged drive.

Preparing for data loss in your business

Given how highly exposed most businesses are to the possibility of data loss, particularly due to risks associated with online activity, it is essential for them to have a data recovery plan.

Because almost all file systems maintain some or all of a file’s information until a new file overwrites it, swift action ensures your organization can immediately work to recover and repair lost or damaged data and minimize disruption to your business’ operations.

A core component of any data recovery plan is file recovery software. Fortunately, such software solutions are increasingly efficient and come at only a fraction of the cost of in-person services. However, you must invest in data recovery software before data loss occurs, as this is the best way to ensure your business against the potentially debilitating costs of data loss.

Summary

An online data backup and recovery solution provides peace of mind for you, your employees, and your customers. That means you can retain your credibility, boost your reputation, and protect your data and information. In the event that you lose your data, you can easily recover it and continue on with your day. It will be beneficial to your company to also have a recovery backup software such as Iolo Search and Recover so that in the event that you lose your data, you can easily recover it and continue on with your day. No more worrying about data loss and no more

A data recovery plan ensures your business can act decisively when a data loss occurs and maximizes the chances of successfully recovering data. To help you find more ways to recover your data, read our article on the foolproof ways to restore deleted and missing files.