DR – Business

[D_R]

Hi,

first of all, I’d like to introduce myself. I own a company that is specialized in the repair of old computers / mainframes used by banks of insurance companies. But we also do DR but in a small kind of way, based on the electronic (no power on HDD, oxidated contacts, broken USB Port on a stick) and FS-level, mostly for business customers.

Well, today a lot of companies are moving away from the outdated mainframes to regular servers, so I’d like to move on with my business and DR is one of the options. And yes, I have a great equipped workshop with a clean room.

That’s why I’d like to discuss the DR in general and if there is a future in DR at all.

I see three problems in DR.

1) How much is a (private) customer willing to pay for DR? Some people say, that the data is just worth about 300-500$. Everything above a user doesn’t want to pay for the data.

2) Backup Solutions and Cloud based backups are getting cheaper and the uplinks are getting greater. So in future everyone is going to be able to backup his files offsite.

3) In future, SSDs are getting more and more popular. So there won’t be the typical HDD problems but only software based problems. Except for liquid damage.

So what do you think, is there a future in DR?

[fzabkar]

I'm not involved in data recovery, but I have a mini/mainframe background dating back to the early 1980s. Like you, I had a business maintaining such equipment. In those days PCBs cost US$10K - $20K apiece, so I made my living from on-site chip-level repair. I didn't have any competition (my competitors merely swapped boards), but today's PCBs cost only a few dollars. Even so, your electronics experience should give you a significant head-start over the typical players who include IT "technicians" and programmers. It's amazing how much ignorance there is in this area, even among those who have been in the business for decades.

Your big advantage, AISI, is that you already have substantial connections to the corporate world where data is valued much more highly. Perhaps you could consider specialising in RAID recoveries.

Actually, I'm thinking about blowing the dust off my toolkit and going doorknocking again.

US nuclear arsenal controlled by 1970s computers with 8in floppy disks:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... oppy-disks