The Essential Data Recovery Report

Written by Greg Duffield


Continued from page 1

The time frame for recovery is generally 5-10 business days for physical issues and 2-4 days for logical issues. Sometimes if components are not readily available, then it may take weeks to completerepparttar recovery. Some firms offer expedite service and you definitely pay for this added attention.

What About Data Recovery Software

This is one area where you really do get what you pay for. Try to stay away from software inrepparttar 107727 $20-$60 range, since these utilities are generally very limited in what they can do. Also make sure that you NEVER and just to emphasize, NEVER EVER get data recovery software that writes anything at all torepparttar 107728 damaged disk. You runrepparttar 107729 risk of overwriting data that may otherwise have been recoverable, but will be lost forever. If you are fairly computer savvy, then there are a few good data recovery software solutions available.

What To Look For When Shopping For Data Recovery

There’s an old saying, “you get what you pay for.” In most cases this is true. However, just because a company with a fancy website quotes you $3,500 for data recovery, does not mean that they are any better than a company that quotes you $1,500. Also, try to stay away from companies that want to charge $50-$300 for evaluating your drive. There has been a movement inrepparttar 107730 data recovery industry overrepparttar 107731 last couple of years to offer a number of free services. Most reputable data recovery companies will evaluate standard IDE drives free of charge; so don’t letrepparttar 107732 word “free” this or “free” that stop you. The data recovery market is quickly becoming saturated, and a company does not necessarily cheapen itself or lack expertise by offering free evaluations.

You will find as you shop around for data recovery that prices vary greatly. You will get quotes that range from $300 to $5,000 for standard hard drive recoveries. It’s not uncommon to literally get quotes that have at least a $1,500 high/low spread. We shopped one prominent data recovery company where we gave them specific indicators of a physical hard drive failure. We were eventually quoted a price range of $600 to $2,900 forrepparttar 107733 recovery. Many times this is a bait and switch type tactic. They get you to send inrepparttar 107734 drive withrepparttar 107735 low-end $600 price, then they let you know it’s going to cost $2,100 forrepparttar 107736 recovery. You end up being well underrepparttar 107737 $2,900 high-end price, but well over what other reputable companies would charge. Since most customers won’t go throughrepparttar 107738 pain of havingrepparttar 107739 drive sent back, only to have to send it out to another company, these bait and switch companies end up making huge profits off of unsuspecting customers. Try to find a company that will give you an up front cost for either a logical or physical recovery. Most companies will be able to tell you within a couple hundred dollarsrepparttar 107740 cost of a recovery. However, don’t misunderstand a company that gives you a price for two different procedures. For example, some companies will give you a price ifrepparttar 107741 failure is logical and a price ifrepparttar 107742 problem ends up being physical. We called one firm and were told that ifrepparttar 107743 drive had a logical failurerepparttar 107744 price would be $400 and if it ended up being a physical issuerepparttar 107745 price would be $1,600. This is not a high/low spread as mentioned inrepparttar 107746 earlier example, this is simply quoting a price for two different types of recoveries.

On average you can expect to pay anywhere from $400 to $600 for logical recoveries, and $1,200 to $2,000 for physical recoveries on standard IDE hard drives. If you have RAID drives, SCSI, etc. depending onrepparttar 107747 configuration prices can be as high as $15,000. Remember, backup backup backup backup backup!!

Can My Data Be Recovered?

In most casesrepparttar 107748 answer to this question is yes. On average,repparttar 107749 success rate for data recovery professionals is about 75-85%. However, there are times whenrepparttar 107750 data is just lost, either due to extensive damage torepparttar 107751 platter or unavailability of replacement parts. How Do I Get Started?

If you have a hard drive that has crashed,repparttar 107752 most important thing you can do is contact a data recovery professional immediately. Make sure you aren’t being charged an evaluation fee if you have a standard IDE hard drive. Most companies only charge evaluation fees for complex RAID and network server drives.

It is important to do your homework, call and talk withrepparttar 107753 companies. When you find one that you feel comfortable with, give them a chance. Your hardest job, may be finding data recovery firms that actually have someone available to answerrepparttar 107754 phones. Ask questions and be sure to haverepparttar 107755 following information available:

· Size ofrepparttar 107756 drive · Operating system (i.e. Windows 98, Windows XP, etc.) · Situation of failure (what happened just beforerepparttar 107757 drive stopped working) · Isrepparttar 107758 drive recognized byrepparttar 107759 computer or not

Good luck in getting your data recovered, and make sure you always backup your important information on a daily basis.

Greg Duffield is the founder of ACS Data Recovery, a premier provider of data recovery services. You can visit them on the web at www.acsdata.com or call toll-free 1-877-646-0546.


Memory Bandwidth vs. Latency Timings

Written by Ron Merts


Continued from page 1

As always, everything always boils down to money and that's why we have this dilemma; to run faster memory with slower access times, or run slower memory with faster access times.

There are two trains of thought on this,repparttar first is that high speed DIMMs (like PC4000 DDR) can make up for running slower timings byrepparttar 107726 amount of bandwidth provided torepparttar 107727 processor. Specifically, bandwidth isrepparttar 107728 amount of data that can be moved from one given device to another.

Most DIMMs that run tight timings, such as certain PC3200 & PC3500 modules, have to runrepparttar 107729 memory at lower MHz thanrepparttar 107730 FSB. However, when overclocking to extreme speeds these DIMMs are bandwidth limitingrepparttar 107731 processor. What I mean by this, is that whenrepparttar 107732 processor requires a great deal of bandwidth,repparttar 107733 CPU will have to wait for another clock cycle before being filled, asrepparttar 107734 memory is just not fast enough to keep up atrepparttar 107735 same pace. Having a large pool of bandwidth is great when you're working with applications that process a lot of raw data, such as Photoshop or databases for example.

The other point of view is that CAS2-rated PC3200 & 3500 memory can make up forrepparttar 107736 lack of bandwidth becauserepparttar 107737 memory has a lower latency that in effect moves data betweenrepparttar 107738 CPU and memory faster. Programs that do not require a large amount of bandwidth tend to benefit more from quicker data transfers betweenrepparttar 107739 memory andrepparttar 107740 rest ofrepparttar 107741 computer such as games or 3D applications.

2-3% Improvement

While bandwidth is still very important torepparttar 107742 Intel Pentium 4, it's not as important as it once was inrepparttar 107743 i845PE days of single channel memory controllers. Thanks torepparttar 107744 i865PE/i875P's dual channel memory controller things are much brighter. On average,repparttar 107745 system withrepparttar 107746 memory running at 400 MHz (5:4 memory divider enabled) with aggressive memory timings performed 2-3% faster thanrepparttar 107747 system using high speed memory with loose timings.

While that may not seem like a lot to most people, it can make a world of a difference torepparttar 107748 enthusiast, especially if you're gunning for that high score in a clan match where every FPS counts.

It seems as if allrepparttar 107749 large memory manufacturers/suppliers are afraid to lose face by not pumping out high speed memory modules with lax memory timings just so they can list them in their product lines. Many enthusiasts I know, tend to favor slower memory which allows them to run aggressive timings however.

One might say thatrepparttar 107750 benchmarks we used were stacked against memory that uses conservative timings, but if you think about it, games and simple 2D applications arerepparttar 107751 programs that most consumers run where speedy performance really is important. That's why we ranrepparttar 107752 benchmarks we did; office environments with their servers or workstation PC are more interested in stability, and overclocking has an element of risk involved for both hardware and software.

Athlon64 based systems seem to act a lot likerepparttar 107753 800 MHz FSB Pentium 4 processors in regard to their memory bandwidth and timings when overclocked. However, before conclusions can be drawn in this field, more research has to be done before....

If you're inrepparttar 107754 market for new memory for your Pentium 4 system and you're only thinking about gaming performance, then you're best bet is to get DDR which is rated to run aggressive timings. Some examples include Mushkin's PC3500 Level II which is rated to run 2-2-2-5 at 217 MHz FSB or Corsair's TwinX-3200LL which are rated for 2-2-2-5 at 200 MHz.

If you're a newbie/novice overclocker and would prefer to buy something that takes a little less work while still producing good numbers on your Pentium 4 system, then by all means get some ofrepparttar 107755 high speed DIMMs that are available onrepparttar 107756 market. They're not quite as fast asrepparttar 107757 low latency modules as we've shown, but they're much easier to set up. Now for AMD systems, becauserepparttar 107758 AthlonXP cannot hit as high speeds asrepparttar 107759 Pentium 4 in general, it is always best to pair an AMD processor with nice low latency memory forrepparttar 107760 best results.

For more technical articles go to http://www.tornadocomputers.com echie.php

CIO & Sr. Vice President for Tornado Computers. Has over 25 years of working with computers. BS in Computer Science from Central State University in Oklahoma.


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