Same imaging, same reconstruction, same verification. A firm pricing by volume recovered is really pricing by what you could lose instead of what it has to do. Understanding that which truly sets the cost explains why UK quotes are so varied as to differ by a factor of ten.
Whether you need four gigabytes or four terabytes back is not enough to move the figure much. But it is whether the drive has to be opened, whether donor parts are involved and how many devices must be reassembled together that moves the price.
UK data recovery pricing varies greatly and much of that variation has nothing to do with the amount of work involved. A single drive should cost anywhere from £250 to £600 based on fault class, and array work anywhere from £500 to £1,500. Any figure significantly above or below those price ranges deserves questions.
The prices we set ourselves are as follows: cards and USB media, £250 +VAT; a single drive, £300 +VAT; arrays, £500 +VAT. These are fixed in writing when the free diagnostic is complete. They are published so you can hold them against other firms' prices.
More important than the price itself is how the price will behave after you have committed.
Is the diagnostic free, and can the quote go up? A price that may increase once the drive is opened is merely an estimate, not a quote. Therefore, ask what will happen should the job turn out to be harder than anticipated.
Do you charge a percentage of anything? Charging a percentage gives a data recovery company an economic incentive tied to the value of the information contained within your data, as well as to you believing it can be recovered. Charging a fixed fee does not provide this same incentive.
What can you not recover? This is the most telling of all questions listed here. A lab that does not have a ready answer to this question has either not done enough of this work or would prefer not to say.
Who actually does the work? A lot of UK recovery is done as a sub-contract. This means you will see many people involved (more hands), multiple moves for your device (transit) and many more people that can now view your data.
Partly the fault classification (legitimate) and partly the business model. Both percentage pricing and open-ended estimates generate numbers that have little to do with what was actually done.
Mostly, it should be. If a drive has to be opened, or if donor parts are needed, then these costs occur immediately, so a deposit is appropriate, but you should be told this prior to agreeing to the job.
Maybe on a good drive; maybe it will prevent you from having to pay our fee. Definitely not on a drive making any noise. Call us first and ask; we'll tell you free of charge.
Not always. It's not necessarily incorrect either. Ask the four questions above and base your decision upon how they were answered rather than the price quoted.