One of a business’ worst nightmares is suffering a data loss event. Most modern companies revolve around data in one way or another, with a tendency to store data digitally rather than physically. The benefits of this far outweigh the negatives, of course, but should a data loss occur for any reason, it can be devastating if the company isn’t properly prepared. When these events happen, you need a well-prepared data recovery plan in place. The team here at Nutbourne, a leading managed service provider in London, wanted to look at the different types of data loss, and what you should do in the event of one.
What Are The Types Of Data Loss?
There are numerous reasons why a data loss event might take place. These include:
- Site-related. Though we’re fortunate in the UK not to be on the receiving end of too much extreme weather, we’re not entirely without risks. Floods and severe storms can pose a real risk to a company’s stored data.
- Human error. One of the most frustrating (and avoidable) causes of data loss is human error. However, mistakes do happen and employees often unknowingly delete, corrupt or otherwise damage data in a way that requires subsequent recovery measures.
- File corruption. Corrupted files are amongst the most common causes of data loss events. They can stem from malicious virus attacks or from something as mundane (but equally damaging) as a software error/crash.
- Failure of hardware. The most common cause of data loss, however, comes from hardware issues. Power surges and drive failures account for a huge proportion of these incidents. An example of this kind of failure would be the disconnection of a USB drive without first ejecting it; this leads to ‘logical’ data losses – occurs at the software logic level.
How Does Data Recovery Work?
If your business does experience a data loss, then you’ll want to recover that data as quickly and efficiently as possible. Fortunately, thanks to modern data recovery software, your company can expect to restore a good deal of its lost data relatively quickly and efficiently. In fact, total data losses are now relatively uncommon thanks to modern technology
How the data is actually recovered very much depends on how it was first lost. Recovering manually deleted files, for instance, revolves around software using what are called ‘heuristic’ algorithms to determine the location of lost files. Once that’s ascertained, the software attempts to recover the data. In the case of corrupted data as a result of file system formatting, algorithms locate data and reformat it as best they can.
A similar process is carried out for damaged logical data, and whilst the prognosis for all of these data recovery types can be good, it very much depends on the system being used and its characteristics; some drives remain certain information, for instance, whereas others don’t, which makes data recovery much more problematic. In other words, whilst data recovery is now often feasible, and whilst your chances of recovering data are certainly better than they once were, these software packages aren’t necessarily able to work miracles.
That’s why data backups are also so important (as we’ll come onto shortly). There’s a range of different data recovery software available to businesses (ranging from basic free products to enterprise-level paid packages) and what you want to implement very much depends on your business’ own needs and goals.
Other Ways To Mitigate Data Loss
Regular backups are probably the best way to protect yourself from the worst consequences of data loss events. In fact, as a managed service provider in London we’d advocate you regularly backing up your systems as a matter of course. Backup strategies in reality are more complex than that, however, and total backups can be cumbersome to carry out regularly. If you’re unsure as a business as to what exactly you should be backing up, then Nutbourne can help!
Contact Us
Whatever IT solution you’re looking for as a business, whether it’s protecting your data or broader day-to-day management and support, we’re here to guide you all the way. So, if you’d like to find out more about our work as a managed service provider in London, then just get in touch! Contact Nutbourne today on +44 (0) 203 137 7273 or by filling out one of our online enquiry forms on our website.