Avoid SSDs for important files, says data recovery firm

Data recovery specialist Kroll Ontrack recommends that consumers and businesses alike store precious data on mechanical disks

Darien Graham-Smith
20 Nov 2013

If your data's important to you, store it on a mechanical hard disk rather than an SSD.

That’s the advice of Phil Bridge, managing director of data recovery specialist Kroll Ontrack.

"My wife asked me if she should buy a laptop with spinning media or solid-state storage," he told PC Pro at the company’s UK premises in Epsom. "Honestly, I’d go with spinning media right now. Because I know that if something goes wrong, and we don’t have a backup, that’s going to be easier and cheaper to recover."

If someone sends in a Western Digital or Seagate drive, we’ve seen those a thousand times before

While recovering lost data from solid-state media is possible, the process can be time-consuming - and therefore expensive.

"With spinning media you’ve got pretty well established sets of standards," Bridge explained. "With solid-state, it’s almost as if every drive that comes in has a different structure and different technology. Many of them require bespoke development to get the data back – whereas if someone sends in a Western Digital or Seagate drive, we’ve seen those a thousand times before."

Kroll Ontrack mainly serves large organisations that can afford to pay for a specialist service, but Bridge emphasised that its services are open to consumers too.

"We can do data recovery in our lab from £299," he said. "If you figure out what the impact is of re-ripping 500 CDs, and ten DVDs... and what’s the value of all of last year's holiday photos? You’ve probably got £300's worth of data right there."

"But if it's going to take a bespoke development job to get them back... that’s not the customer’s fault, but it’s a problem."

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