What is the typical cost of recovering data per GB? I have a 1-TB Western Digital external hard drive that appears to be faulty. I plan to recover the data in the faulty device by sending it to certified service provider. I would like to know how much does it roughly cost to recover data per GB so that I can evaluate whether the pricing being quoted to me is reasonable. - From Quora.
When your hard drive gets corrupted, physically damaged or formatted and you haven’t backup your data, you may want to know how to recover lost data from hard drives and Google it. And then you will find two methods: in-lab data recovery services and data recovery software. When it comes to data recovery for Mac or for Windows, the cost is one of the factors that many hard drive users care about. How much does data recovery cost? What should you choose when faced with two methods? Below are answers.
Since data recovery apps’ prices are marked clearly, so in this part, I will talk about in-lab data recovery service cost mainly. If you call around, you will find that every in-lab data recovery provider has their own pricing options and they may tell you a price range. So how much does data recovery service cost or what factors the providers will consider to fix the price? The price often depends on two parts: your situation and the company’s situation.
Your situations that affect the cost of data recovery service:
Company’s situations that affect the cost of data recovery service:
In-lab data recovery service pricing is determined on a case to case basis and can up to thousand dollars and you have to contact the provider to inquiry about price and details. While data recovery software’ pricing is marked clearly, you can see the cost of every data recovery app by visiting their product pages. For example, Cisdem Data Recovery which is designed for the Mac OS and Mac-formatted drives only costs you $49.99. There are far more options for Windows, including Recuva ($19.95), as well as Ontrack EasyRecovery ($199) and RecoverMyFiles ($60).
Every hard drive data recovery situation is different: some require only low cost data recovery software to do the job. Meanwhile, some requires professional in-lab recovery service. So which one should you choose?
| Options | In-lab data recovery service | Data recovery software |
|---|---|---|
| Prices | Hundreds or thousands of dollars | In general, $40-$200 per Mac or PC |
| Applicable Situations |
|
|
| Time Spent | Two business days or more includes the time on inquiry, delivery and data recovery. | Less than one day depends on how many files you want to recover. |
| Evaluations before Recovery | Some firms need to evaluate your device before quote, some don’t. You’d better know the final price before you send your device. | None, but many data recovery apps offer free trial version which allow you to see if it can find the data you want before you buy. |
| Additional Costs | Many firms may include the additional costs in quote or raise the price after you send your drive to them. | None, once purchase, you can use the data recovery app on one Mac in your lifetime. But some data recovery apps need additional cost to upgrade to newer version. |
| Supported File Types | Recover all types of lost files, including photos, documents, videos, audio, emails, archives, etc. newer version. | Recover all types of lost files, including photos, documents, videos, audio, emails, archives, etc. newer version. |
| Supported Devices | All kinds of storage devices like hard drive, USB drive, SD Card, Digital Camera, Mobile Phone, MP3/MP4 Player, etc. | Many kinds of storage devices like internal or external hard drive, USB drives, iPods, etc. And you can visit each data recovery’s product page to see its supported devices. |
In-lab data recovery service can help you fix any data issues, but it would be time-consuming and costly. While data recovery app allows you to recover formatted or deleted data accurately and quickly by yourself. So if you want to save time and get your data quickly, data recovery software will be your first choice. But if your data are very important and not very easy to recover by data recovery app, you should contact some in-lab data recovery providers for help.
But it’s important to note that there are some situations you're not able to get your files back. When your files are overwritten, your hard drives are severely damaged or use free data recovery program to recover files, you may be faced with unsuccessful data recovery.
Here is a bonus for Mac users. If you are looking for a powerful but cheap data recovery software which can help you recover deleted files or partitions, Cisdem Data Recovery will be the best choice. Cisdem Data Recovery for Mac or for Windows can recover photos, videos, documents, emails, archives, and other files lost due to formatting, accidental deletion, operate error and other awful situations.
Taking all things into consideration, Cisdem Data Recovery is an efficient and user-friendly application for the Mac that can help you deal with the awful situations when you have lost precious files. – Softpedia.
It can recover more than 300 file types and support all storage devices like Mac/Windows hard drive, external hard drive, USB drive, SD card, Digital Camera, MP3/MP4 Player, iPod, etc. It supports free lifetime upgrade. You can download free trial version of it below and see how many lost or deleted files it can find from your device.
Connie Yu has been a columnist in the field of data recovery since 2011. She studied a lot of data loss situations and tested repeatedly to find a feasible solution tailored for each case. And her solutions are always updated to fix problems from the newest systems, devices and apps.
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Bob
Easy to use and intuitive, an awesome app, thanks
Eoely
Data recovery service is costly. One year ago, my WD hard drive was formatted by mistake and I lost many precious files. Then I brought it to some offline data recovery service providers, the quotes were different, at least one thousand dollars...