Data Recovery Blog

Looking for external hard drives with 500GB capacity? please refer to this guide.

Today’s Storage disks’ capacity upgrade day by day. A few years ago, purchased a 1GB U-disk, you would already feel it was a great capacity and could not expect the 8GB, 16GB U-disks become noting in today. Moreover, the capacity of the external hard drive is extremely huge. You can see 1TB, 2TB’s external hard drives everywhere, greatly eased people’s requirement to massive data transmission. Many manufacturers have launched promotions for this capacity external hard drive. I have collected many promotions information to shall with you. Before you purchase these external hard drives, you can refer:

Seagate Expansion 500GB Desktop External Hard Drive ST305004EXA101-RK
(Model: ST305004EXA101-RK Price: $99.99 Amazon.com Price: $58.19 Form Factor: 3.5″)

Review: “I easily reformatted it with fdisk (to make a Linux partition) and mkfs (to make an ext3 file system) so as to make it friendly with my Linux machine (running Scientific Linux—basically RHEL 5.0), and it works like a charm. It is immediately recognized; all I need to do is to plug in the USB. It is also very quiet.”

Cirago CST4500 500GB USB2.0 External Hard Drive
(Model: CST4500 Price: $59.99 Form Factor: 3.5″)

Review: “I haven’t delved into the accuracy of the advertised specs but it functions exactly as I expected when I made the purchase. I know my system holds it back from full speed performance(laptop HDD not as fast as this thing so copy speeds aren’t phenomenal) so that’s not something I hold against it. Actual usable space is something like 460GB but don’t quote me on that. The stand is nice, helps it stay cool I s’pose. Speaking of which, I’ve had ZERO heat problems after the year or so I’ve owned and used it.”

Seagate Expansion 500GB USB2.0 External Hard Drive ST905004EXA101-RK
(Model: ST905004EXA101-RK Price: $89.00 Amazon.com Price: $59.99 Form Factor: 2.5″)

Review: “Acceptable transfer rate over USB 2.0, doesn’t need an external power source, extremely portable.”

Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB External Hard Drive
(Model: WDBACY5000ABL-NESN Price: $99.99 Amazon.com Price: $78.52 USB2.0/3.0)

Review: “Fast and easy, runs very cool. Of course I have it on top of my HAF 932, and that big old fan makes sure it don’t even get warm. Can’t beat the price for what you are getting. Disk Image of Win7 Prem, and X/P Home in under 3 Hours start to finish 382 GiGs. Great shipping from the EGG, as they never fail.”

Samsung S2 500GB External Hard Drive HXMU050DA/G22
(Model: HXMU050DA/G22 Price: $103.99 Amazon.com Price: $77.99 Form Factor: 2.5″)

Review: “”Really small, comes with a cable. Some people complain about the cable being small but it is for a reason. With this short cable it allows fast transfer speeds. “

Considerations for External Hard Drives

One drawback to using external hard drives for backups is that they are still relatively new for home computer use. They come with Windows drivers; should Windows fail, you will not be able to access your external drive through DOS. There are DOS drivers available but they can be difficult to find and most manufacturers do not provide support for them. This isn’t a frequent occurrence, just something to keep in mind as you select your external hard drive.

Data Recovery

The Truth about Data Recovery

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago5 years ago05 mins

Computers can, without a doubt, be complicated beasts; one minute they are doing exactly what you want them to do, and the next they are suddenly going off and doing their own thing. And before you know it, your computer crashes, leaving you with missing files, an increased heart rate and a bad temper. But before you’re ready to throw your computer out the window in anger, let’s take a few deep breathes and talk about what actually happens when a file accidentally deleted and explore possible ways of getting that information back again.

For starters, when you unintentionally delete a file and begin to have a panic attack once the file has disappeared, you can rest assured that your file is not lost forever (phew!). The file will not be immediately visible in the directory or folder that you (or the computer) thought you stored it in. Instead, the file gets re-named so that the path it was using can be overwritten and can then be found in a hidden index file. The good news is, it can be completely recovered from this file if needed. In fact, all data continues to be stored on your computer until it is completely overwritten. And just to clear something up, by overwritten, I do not mean different information. It takes a random mix of binary code (0 and 1) to completely obliterate a data or file’s information. This is why hard drives should be absolutely and completely destroyed to an unrecognizable pulp or at least be overwritten by using a program that exists to overwrite data. Do not just recycle your computer or sell it to someone else without getting rid of your data properly first, or you could come to regret it later. This is especially important if you have sensitive information or media on the computer!

So now that we have established that data recovery is possible, how is it done? Well, there are a number of cleverly devised free and paid versions of data recovery programs available, depending on what your data recovering needs are. For example, you may have just accidentally deleted a file. Recovering this is relatively simple when compared to trying to recover data from a damaged or corrupted file. Not only can you retrieve the data but you can also use the software to recover other types of deleted information such as emails or email attachments.

Some paid data recovery programs have a “no recovery – no fee” guarantee. This may seem like a pretty high guarantee to offer, but if self-recovery or the free programs aren’t giving you the results you need, the paid programs might be better route to take. Furthermore, the free programs may have a smaller range of capabilities; how/why your data was lost in to begin with will likely determine how it can be recovered. No matter how you lost your data and how hopeless you think the situation may be in returning that data to your computer, fear not. There are data recovery experts available to help you no matter how severe your data loss may (seem to) be!

Data Recovery

Data Recovery Price Comparison

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago5 years ago06 mins

It is important for customers to have a feel of data recovery pricing before they send their disks to recovery companies. Pricing comes down to Drive Size, Media Type (Hard Drive, RAID, SSD), and Issue with the Drive:

Types of disk (interface, model and size)
Failure modes
Types of operating system
User attempts before sending
Any special user ‘s requirements

1. Types of hard drive (interface, model and size)

Interface
The hard drive could be IDE, SATA or SCSI, ranging from a few gigabytes (GB) to a few terabytes (TB) from different manufacturers. It is a well known fact that SCSI disk is harder to recover than IDE disk.
Size
It is also more difficult to recover data from a larger disk capacity as the magnetic density, the number of read write heads and the level of technological complexity increase with disk capacity.
Model
It is also not surprise that certain disk models are extremely difficult to service due to the manufacturing technology, material and methodology.

2. Failure Modes
Hard disk may fail logically or physically. In general, it is harder to service a physically damaged disk and hence the cost of recovery will be higher.

3. Types of OS
The operating system are many and varied. Recovering data from a UNIX file system will be more difficult and costly than from a Windows operating System. Some recovery may even involve “legacy” system and may need to be treated as a special project.

4. User’s Attempts
Unsound attempts by the users to rescue the data very often cause the data media to suffer more damages. Very often, in order to recover data from damaged media, earlier user’s action has to be reversed and this may add additional costs as a result.

5. Special User’s Requirement
Some recovery jobs may have special requirements. For instance, the disk could be from a special machine and therefore one may need to recover the booting operating system besides the data. In other instance, besides the normal disk failure, the customer may have special encrypted file system so recovering data from it could be a challenge.

In general, the data recovery pricing does not depend on the amount of data recovered. It depends on job complexity as outline above.

Data Recovery Price UK
The following is a sample of prices for data recovery of hard drives in UK.
IDE Hard Drive:
Size of Drive: 2-250 GB —- Price Ranges from £199 to £1000
Size of Drive: 250 – 500 GB —- Price Ranges from £199 to £1500
SATA Hard Drives
All Drives – Price Ranges from £199 to £1500.
SCSI Hard Drive
All Drives – Price Ranges from £300 to £2000.
RAID Recovery Price
RAID RECOVERY price for all RAID types including SAN, NAS and SNAP Servers starts from 500.
Fixed Price for Medias:
All removable media recovery prices are fixed depending upon the size of the media and type of media.
Floppy Disk: £99
CD ROM: £99
CD R/W: £99
DVD ROM: £150
DVD R/W: £150
Memory Stick: £99
Flash Card: £99
Iomega Zip: £199
Jaz disk: £199
Panasonic Optical 1.5Gb: £299
Pinnacle Optical 4.6Gb: £299
Imation Super Disks 120Mb ATA: £199
Flashcards such as Smart Media and Compact Flash etc: £99

Data Recovery Price USA
The following is a sample of prices for data recovery of hard drives in USA.
Logical Hard Drive Recovery: $85/hour
Logical Hard Drive Emergency Recovery: $149/hour
Physical Hard Drive Recovery: $149/hour
Physical Hard Drive Emergency Recovery: $250/hour
RAID Recovery: $250/hour
SSD Recovery: $250 an hour
VMware & Virtual Recovery: $149/hour
Flash Drive Recovery: $500 plus parts

About “No Data, No Charge”
Many data recovery companies maintained a no data, no charge policy. If the recovery process fails to produce usable data for clients, the storage media is returned free of cost.

Data Recovery

Hard Drive Data Recovery In Sydney Australia

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago5 years ago02 mins

Sydney is the largest and most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia’s south-east coast of the Tasman Sea.

Looking for a professional data recovery service in Sydney area? Here is a collection of recovery companies for your referance:

Payam Forensic Data Recovery Pty Ltd
www.payam.com.au
3/54 Miller Street, North Sydney
(02) 9957 2288

Sydney Data Recovery Technology
www.sydneydatarecovery.com.au
2A 6 Herbert Street, St Leonards, Sydney
(02) 9437 5755

Data Detect Pty Ltd
www.datadetect.com.au
148 Pacific Hwy, North Sydney New South Wales
(02) 9929 4822

Absolute Data Recovery
www.a-data-recovery.com.au
439 Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst
(02) 9029 1955

Data Recovery Services Pty Ltd
www.datarecovery.com.au
3 Grove Street, Lilyfield
(02) 9810 2000

If you are living in Sydney area maybe you have heard about one or some all of them, they are all top-customer-reviews recovery companies that can help you so much. If you also know other companies can provide professional recovery services please feel free to contact me, I can list them here in time. Thank you!

Data Storage

Recommended 2TB Internal Hard Drives

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago3 years ago06 mins

Require more storage for the games, images, music and films? An 2TB internal hard drive upgrade or perhaps a second drive might be what you’re searching for. Internal hard disk drives are utilized as primary storage in desktop Computers, work stations, and servers. Nowadays, small form factor internal hard disk drives are utilized in consumer electronic items like audio players and digital camera models too. No matter the application, this post will present a comprehensive choice of internal hard disk drive items that you should select from, from hard disk producers like Western Digital, Seagate, HItachi, LaCie, Maxtor yet others.

Bestselling 2TB Internal Hard Drives on Amazon.com

Western Digital 2TB Caviar Green 64MB Cache Desktop Hard Drive – WD20EARS
(Model: WD20EARS, Cache: 64MB, Price: $159.99, Amazon.com Price: $79.99)

Review: “I’m using 4 of these for personal storage, and I put about 8 of these in other people’s systems. I’ve yet to have a problem. I especially like them for external enclosure since they run cool and quiet.”

Samsung Spinpoint F4EG 2TB 5400rpm 32MB Hard Drive – HD204UI/Z4
(Model: HD204UI, Cache: 32MB, Price: $114.16, Amazon.com Price: $79.99)

Review: “These drives are simply the best you can ask for at this price and size. 2TB formats to 1.81TB in NTFS. HDTune reports average read of 107.3MB/s and average write of 104.3MB/s. Nothing more you could ask for when using these in a file server over gigabit connection. They run at around 25c Idle and 29c when being used (ambient ~23c). Inexpensive (53.9GB/$ – bought at $75 each).”

Hitachi Deskstar 2TB CoolSpin RPM 32MB Cache Internal Hard Drive – 0F12117
(Model: 0F12117, Cache: 32MB, Price: $144.40, Amazon.com Price: $79.99)

Review: “I have this drive and a 1.5TB Samsung 5400rpm drive installed in the same older system that only supports SATA2. I haven’t done any tuning on the drives, just factory settings and Windows 7 x64 defaults. According to HD Tune 2.55 the 5K3000 has an average transfer rate of 101MB/s while the Samsung averages 80.8MB/s. The burst rate is 161.6MB/s vs 148.5MB/s.”

Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 7200RPM 32MB Internal Hard Drive – 0F10311
(Model: 0F10311, Cache: 32MB, Price: $213.80, Amazon.com Price: $95.00)

Review: “I purchased 10 retail boxed versions of these HDs back in November 2009; configured in a RAID6 array for 16TB of storage. I added 3 more of the bare drive versions (being reviewed) 13 months later (December 2010). I haven’t had ONE drive go bad after 24/7 operation for 18 months! Performance: 300+MB/s (that’s megaBYTEs) sustained file transfers from one partition to another on the same RADI6 array…”

How to choose a 2TB Internal Hard Drive?

When choosing a hard disk, you will find two primary points to consider: speed and capacity. Budget enabling, always choose the quickest drive you are able to. Speed is measured while using Revoltions per minute figure a quicker spinning speed means greater performance, particularly in games, but could cause greater warmth and noise. The capability, measured in GB (gb), should rely on your personal storage needs. A greater capacity drive will almost always cost greater than a lower capacity drive, so an account balance must usually be struck between capacity and price. Additionally, the hard disk interface IDE, SATA, or SCSI determine a drives application: IDE and SATA for private storage and SCSI for enterprise, mission critical storage.

Data Storage

Online Backup Price Comparison 2011

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago5 years ago03 mins

Online backup services are usually priced as a function of the following things:

The total amount of data being backed up;
The number of machines covered by the backup service;
The maximum number of versions of each file that are kept;
Data retention and archiving period options;
Managed backups vs. Unmanaged backups;
The level of service and features available;

Some vendors limit the number of versions of a file that can be kept in the system. Some services omit this restriction and provide an unlimited number of versions. Add-on features (plug-ins), like the ability to back up currently open or locked files, are usually charged as an extra, but some services provide this built in.

Most remote backup services reduce the amount of data to be sent over the wire by only backing up changed files. This approach to backing up means that the customers total stored data is reduced. Reducing the amount of data sent and also stored can be further drastically reduced by only transmitting the changed data bits by binary or block level incremental backups. Solutions that transmit only these changed binary data bits do not waste bandwidth by transmitting the same file data over and over again if only small amounts change.

Online backup Payment Method:

Pay per computer. Additional fee for storage over a threshold.
Pay per computer. Storage per computer is unlimited.
Pay per unit of storage, but unlimited computers may share that storage.
Bandwidth capping or limits are used on accounts.

Recommended Online Backup Services

Carbonite, Keepit.com, IDrive, DropBox, BackBlaze, KeepVault, MozyHome, SugarSync, JungleDisk…

More details: Comparison of online backup services

Data Storage

Recommended 250GB Internal Hard Drives

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago3 years ago05 mins

Require more storage for the games, images, music and films? An internal hard drive upgrade or perhaps a second drive might be what you’re searching for. Internal hard disk drives are utilized as primary storage in desktop Computers, work stations, and servers. Nowadays, small form factor internal hard disk drives are utilized in consumer electronic items like audio players and digital camera models too. No matter the application, this post will present a comprehensive choice of internal hard disk drive items that you should select from, from hard disk producers like Western Digital, Seagate, HItachi, LaCie, Maxtor yet others.

Bestselling 250GB Internal Hard Drives on Amazon.com

Western Digital 250GB 8MB Caviar Blue Desktop Hard Drive – WD2500AAJS
(Model: WD2500AAJS, Cache: 8MB, Price: $53.99, Amazon.com Price: $39.99)

Review: “This drive is very quiet. I’m running this along side of a Seagate Barracuda 250gb booting Windows Vista, with this drive running Ubuntu 10.10, and this drive barely makes a sound when loading. It’s also pretty fast as well.”

Western Digital 250GB Caviar Blue 16MB Cache Desktop Hard Drive – WD2500AAKS
(Model: WD2500AAKS, Cache: 16MB, Price: $57.99, Amazon.com Price: $47.13)

Review: “I bought one of these more than a year ago, and it has served me well. I bought another one recently, and so far so good. It’s not the fastest or biggest drive in the world, but it’s cheap, and that’s good enough for me.”

Seagate Barracuda 250GB 8MB Cache Internal Hard Drive – ST3250318AS
(Model: ST3250318AS, Cache: 8MB, Price: $52.50, Amazon.com Price: $38.00)

Review: “Does exactly what says it does, at the speed it says it does it. I purchased this as a hard drive replacement for a relative who wasn’t too concerned with the cache. It took a lil long to install Windows 7 but after that, the low cache wasn’t noticeable using the typical games/applications that my relative uses.”

Western Digital 250GB 8MB Caviar Blue IDE Desktop Hard Drive – WD2500AAJB
(Model: WD2500AAJB, Cache: 8MB, Price: $79.00, Amazon.com Price: $44.95)

Review: “No problems with this drive, needed one of these PATA type drives for the older computer, relatively quiet, obviously not as fast as a SATA but what do you expect. I like WD’s quality generally, I actually have two of this series AAJB drive in the older machine, this 250GB and a 160GB, same model, both work good.”

How to choose a 250GB Internal Hard Drive?

Data Storage

Recommended 1TB Network Attached Storage (NAS)

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago3 years ago04 mins

Network-attached storage (NAS) is data storage or perhaps a data storage device, like a hard disk or RAID array, attached to some type of computer network, supplying data use of different network clients.

NAS systems contain a number of hard drives, frequently arranged into logical, redundant canisters or RAID arrays (redundant arrays of affordable/independent disks). NAS products remove down to file serving using their company servers on the network.

Bestselling 1TB Network Attached Storage (NAS) on Amazon.com:

Seagate BlackArmor NAS 110 1TB Network Attached Storage
(MPN: ST310005MNA10G-RK, Price: $199.99, Amazon.com Price: $149.99)

Review: “A little slower than I hoped. ~40MBps read and ~22MBps write – Sequential. Since the 1Gb ethernet spec can go up to 125MBps theoretical I was hoping it would be in the 80-100MBps range. Encryption requires a USB drive plugged in the front. Just fine if you have a small, old USB flash. The backup software is not the most reliable in recovery, but you get 5 free licenses and for Windows XP it is better than built-in. Use Windows 7’s built-in back up with drive.”

Iomega Home Media 1TB Network Attached Storage
(MPN: 34337, Price: $126.99, Amazon.com Price: $99.99)

Review: “very nice case design, internal fan for hard drive, hooks up to router through network at full speed (1000 mps), very fast, although my comp ethernet card is going at 100 mps, fast enough for now untill i get another eternet card, adjustable light brightness through software.”

Buffalo LinkStation Live 1TB Shared Network Attached Storage
(MPN: LS-CH1.0TL, Price: $129.99, Amazon.com Price: $108.90)

Review: “Super easy setup out of the box. Using with Xbox Media Center with the actual original Xbox’s throughout the house. Kids playroom, living room, office. You can setup access rights so kids can only access Kids folder, etc. Also planning to use with Masscool Media Player.”

NAS provides both storage and file systems. This really is frequently compared with SAN (Storage Space Network) products, which offer only block-based storage leaving filesystem concerns about the “client” side. SAN methods include SCSI, Fibre Funnel, iSCSI, ATA over Ethernet, or HyperSCSI.

NAS Manufactors: Zoysia, Cavalry, D-Link, Hammer Storage, Apple, iomega, LaCie, Linksys, Maxtor, Netgear, QNAP, Thecus, Seagate, Western Digital and Synology.

Data Storage

Recommended 3.5 Inch 1TB Internal Hard Drives

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago2 years ago04 mins

Bestselling 1TB Internal Hard Drives on Amazon.com

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive
(MPN: ST31000528AS, Price: $135.99, Amazon.com Price: $64.99)

Review: “Drive works great i have a couple of these and have yet to have a problem. Speeds are decent. Compared to back in the day ha its not a ssd but i dont really care its for storage anyways.”

Western Digital 1TB Caviar Green 64 MB Cache Hard Drive
(MPN: WD10EARS, Price: $90.99, Amazon.com Price: $59.99)

Review: “plenty of space for video files and pictures and anything else that doesn’t require a very fast drive. This drive is meant to be a storage drive and not a drive to run your operating system or games on, for that get a SSD or 7200rpm drive. Other than that this is an excellent drive and is fairly quiet, hopefully it will last for many years to come!”

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB Desktop Hard Drive
(MPN: WD1002FAEX, Price: $119.99, Amazon.com Price: $89.99)

Review: “Considering the price and performance, it is like the best deal on the market right now”

Hard Disk Repair

Western Digital PCB 2060-701675-001 REV P1

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM15 years ago5 years ago02 mins

Swap Western Digital Circuit Board 2060-701675-001 REV P1 to recover data from damaged hard drives due to PCB failure. 2060-701675-001 REV P1 is the board number on this PCB. If your HDD’s PCB has problems, the drive usually cannot boot up or there may be an inaccurate display in the BIOS of the hard drive’s information. Also power may not get to the hard drive and as a result it will not spin up.

Western Digital PCB 2060-701675-001 REV P1:

Board No.: 2060-701675-001 REV P1
Main Controller IC: 88i9045-TFJ2

Western digital pcb board 2060-701675-001 has 2 different types:

One has 2 BIOS, as the below photo:

When you swap this western digital PCB, you should move both the BIOS(U12&U14 chips) from your original wd PCB’s BIOS to the replacement board.

Other one just has 1 BIOS, as the below photo:

Western digital pcb 2060-701675-004 REV P1 also has the 2 different types as WD 2060-701675-001 REV P1 2.5″ one.

More Western Digital 2.5″ Laptop PCB please visit HDDzone.com.