There are so many ways to lose data that most companies already prepare for such an occurrence as best as they can. However, nothing is 100% safe, and digital storage is not 100% reliable even today. Fortunately enough, there are sophisticated techniques to recover lost data even from physically damaged hardware.

Not all data recovery agencies can be trusted, though, especially when they will be dealing with sensitive information. So, without further delay, let’s now look at some essential traits that a trustable and reputed data recovery company should have.

Cleanroom Certification: The Higher the Better

There are generally three standards of cleanroom certification, based on how many particles are allowed per cubic foot within the cleanroom lab. The hierarchy goes from 1,000 particles/cubic feet (lowest grade), right up to 10 particles/cubic feet (highest grade). 100 particles/cubic feet is the industry standard for data recovery cleanrooms.

A cleanroom certification of Class 100 is the bare minimum to look for when selecting a data recovery partner, but the higher the certification level is, the better, and Class 10 ISO 4 cleanroom certification is the one to look for.

While there are indeed a lot of complex parameters based on which the cleanrooms are certified, suffice to say that everything from the ambient temperature and humidity to what the lab engineers are wearing while recovering the data must be monitored and maintained with utmost professionalism and strictness.

The Cost-to-Performance Ratio

The tricky part about selecting the right data recovery agency is in finding the right cost-to-performance ratio. Just like in every other field, high quality work won’t come cheap, but there has to be some correlation in between the price you are paying, the estimated percentage of data that can be recovered and the value of the data that you are trying to recover.

Get a few quotes, compare all the factors mentioned and then decide on your final choice. Do keep in mind that a lab that holds a cleanroom certification of Class 10 ISO 4 won’t be cheap, but they will also have the highest recovery rate, so it all comes down to how much the lost data is worth to you.

If They are Authentic, They Should have a Reputation Too

For business in general, reputation is of extreme importance, and when your business involves dealing with sensitive data 24/7, reputation is all-important. If the agency has a good reputation, you will know be aware of this just by talking to their previous clients. If they don’t have one, they will most likely not be particular about who their previous clients were.

In this day and age of cloud storage, it’s easy to forget about the fact that all that data we are uploading for safe storage needs to also be stored on some sort of a physical storage device after all. On the flipside, if you run a cloud storage service or data center, you know this fact all too well!

Aside from that, every company has a whole lot of private data that they do not upload, and anything from a natural disaster to a hacking attack can end in huge and irreparable data loss. If that happens, don’t panic. Try to salvage as much of what you can right away by calling in the best data recovery service you can possibly get hold of at that time.