February 17th, 2021, 10:18
February 23rd, 2021, 8:15
February 23rd, 2021, 19:20
February 24th, 2021, 3:43
forensicronny wrote:So what is your experience, how did you end up being a data recovery professional (if you are)?
March 8th, 2021, 15:58
March 8th, 2021, 19:06
March 8th, 2021, 21:52
March 10th, 2021, 13:14
fzabkar wrote:ISTM that people in the DR business should consider the lemons that are coming in the future and use them to make lemonade. Now is the time to acquire the skills that will differentiate you from the run-of-the-mill outfits. As the jobs get harder, the lesser skilled competition will disappear. If your shop just sits back and waits for new solutions in your PC3000 update box, then your business deserves to die.
March 10th, 2021, 17:52
ddrecovery wrote:fzabkar wrote:ISTM that people in the DR business should consider the lemons that are coming in the future and use them to make lemonade. Now is the time to acquire the skills that will differentiate you from the run-of-the-mill outfits. As the jobs get harder, the lesser skilled competition will disappear. If your shop just sits back and waits for new solutions in your PC3000 update box, then your business deserves to die.
I think if you spent some time at a data recovery lab you may have a different opinion of us 'pros'. We have one main aim each month and that's to make enough money to run the business, pay ourselves, staff, rent, insurance etc. So we work 6 or 7 days a week recovering drives to make that happen. We have very limited time for R&D.
March 10th, 2021, 18:03
fzabkar wrote:ddrecovery wrote:fzabkar wrote:ISTM that people in the DR business should consider the lemons that are coming in the future and use them to make lemonade. Now is the time to acquire the skills that will differentiate you from the run-of-the-mill outfits. As the jobs get harder, the lesser skilled competition will disappear. If your shop just sits back and waits for new solutions in your PC3000 update box, then your business deserves to die.
I think if you spent some time at a data recovery lab you may have a different opinion of us 'pros'. We have one main aim each month and that's to make enough money to run the business, pay ourselves, staff, rent, insurance etc. So we work 6 or 7 days a week recovering drives to make that happen. We have very limited time for R&D.
Perhaps you should factor "personal development" into your business costs? In fact I notice that you appear to be quite knowledgeable about RAID, so that could be a niche for you.
March 17th, 2021, 9:33
fzabkar wrote:ISTM that people in the DR business should consider the lemons that are coming in the future and use them to make lemonade. Now is the time to acquire the skills that will differentiate you from the run-of-the-mill outfits. As the jobs get harder, the lesser skilled competition will disappear. If your shop just sits back and waits for new solutions in your PC3000 update box, then your business deserves to die.
March 18th, 2021, 15:40
HaQue wrote:fzabkar wrote:ISTM that people in the DR business should consider the lemons that are coming in the future and use them to make lemonade. Now is the time to acquire the skills that will differentiate you from the run-of-the-mill outfits. As the jobs get harder, the lesser skilled competition will disappear. If your shop just sits back and waits for new solutions in your PC3000 update box, then your business deserves to die.
while it is hard to argue with this, and I agree with the shape up or ship out motto, there are actual roadblocks, such as LDPC in newer flash drives. not sure I have seen any meaningful reversing of it, nor would many in the elite DR field have the required skills IMHO.
with SSD's it has never been easier to create a black box, or some feature that stops you in your tracks.
I think a greater threat to the DR industry includes:
- there are less and less manuals/technical info around than ever before.
- the shitty quality of parts with minute tolerances.. and some crazy schemes so your data can still be read when it is half full of bit errors
- the sheer size of drives.. very time consuming, slow recovery (ecc correction for example), and massive storage needs in house
- much of the data people care about in cloud solutions, iCloud, dropbox, facebook & Instagram even etc.. etc
- data businesses care about have better than ever backup solutions
- people are starting to care less about their data.. when they had 200 photos they were irreplaceable, now they don't seem to care about losing 200,00 of them.
I don't think DR is a lost cause as yet, but I also think anyone coming into it now better have some chops (and a fair amount of $$)
March 18th, 2021, 16:56
ddrecovery wrote:I think if you spent some time at a data recovery lab you may have a different opinion of us 'pros'. We have one main aim each month and that's to make enough money to run the business, pay ourselves, staff, rent, insurance etc. So we work 6 or 7 days a week recovering drives to make that happen. We have very limited time for R&D.
Ace Labs are totally the opposite. They have a team of highly skilled engineers working 6 or 7 days a week making money by developing 'fixes' as and when new drives and technologies appear. It is symbiotic. They do the development work, we pay for it and use it. I think its unreasonable to expect your average data recovery company to invest in such development. The only way we could do it is to employ someone. Perhaps at a cost of $75,000 per year. Then Ace Labs come out with the same 'fix' the next day and you are out $75,000. Yes we should all be learning new ways to recover data such as understanding electronics as the market changes. But trying to compete with Ace Labs is just not feasible.
There is a faction in data recovery who are doing what you say (Digilab comes to mind). But those guys come from a background of working in the HDD industry so have information and contacts the average 'pro' does not have. As such they develop a totally different business model to just data recovery.
I think you are right that lesser skilled data recovery companies are leaving the market. Perhaps a beter description is 'less committed' to updating knowledge or equipment as the job gets harder, which has made a lot of us even busier, which actually leaves us less time for development.
Perhaps you are right that we may pay the price in the future for not investing in development. Its a tough one.
March 18th, 2021, 17:25
March 18th, 2021, 18:54
fzabkar wrote:I'm just an observer, but from my perspective the DR business is dominated by rote learners. That is, people learn what to do without understanding why they do it. It's like someone learning to drive one particular car and then having to relearn how to drive each and every other car. Conversely, someone who learns principles would be able to step into an unfamiliar car and drive away.
So it's not just a case of being dependent on one's tool supplier. You also need to be able to understand the technology.
I've been watching this group for more than 10 years. I still see the same people asking the same questions, which tells me that they haven't learned anything. Why do people still need help locating a read channel? Why can't people find a TVS diode or a fuse? Why can't people locate the power supply test points on an HDD/SSD in a matter of minutes? Why is it so hard for people to locate a dead short?
March 25th, 2021, 5:56
March 25th, 2021, 12:08
ddrecovery wrote:fzabkar wrote:I'm just an observer, but from my perspective the DR business is dominated by rote learners. That is, people learn what to do without understanding why they do it. It's like someone learning to drive one particular car and then having to relearn how to drive each and every other car. Conversely, someone who learns principles would be able to step into an unfamiliar car and drive away.
So it's not just a case of being dependent on one's tool supplier. You also need to be able to understand the technology.
I've been watching this group for more than 10 years. I still see the same people asking the same questions, which tells me that they haven't learned anything. Why do people still need help locating a read channel? Why can't people find a TVS diode or a fuse? Why can't people locate the power supply test points on an HDD/SSD in a matter of minutes? Why is it so hard for people to locate a dead short?
All fair points, but you have to remember that not all members of this forum are from professional data recovery companies. There are a lot of people who are IT specialists and come on here to ask data recovery questions.
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