SignalTrace: Data Recovery Gauntlet Thrown Down

The data recovery company ActionFront is challenging competitors with their new SignalTrace technology. SignalTrace claims to offer a drive-independent means of recovering hard disk drive (HDD) data. The drive independence is signficant, since ActionFront claims that success rates for some data recovery companies may be 0% on specific types of disk drives.

ActionFront demonstrated a prototype of their SignalTrace system at the 2004 IEEE NASA Mass Storage Systems and Technology Conference. The system provides its own replacement for the PCB electronics of the drive whose data is to be recovered. In the prototype, much of the analysis of the hard drive read head signals was done in the attached PC; ActionFront says that some of this work will be implemented in hardware (via an FPGA).

One interesting thread in this white paper is an exposition of the various ways that increasing disk density make the risk of data loss grow, and the prospects for data recovery shrink. The shrinking magnetic domains used to implement 1's and 0's leave less margin for error, and fewer actual atoms per bit to "vote" on the correct magnetic orientation.

Another interesting tidbit is ActionFront's estimate that 300,000 hard drives around the world are sent to data recovery companies each year. Wow. That's a lot. Let's figure an absolute minimum average of $1,000 to recover data off of a hard drive that anyone is desperate to disconnect and mail in. That's about a third of a billion dollars per year, and when you consider that most of the folks in the disk data recovery business are small companies, that ain't bad money. On the other hand, if the white paper's speculation about poor success rates for hard disk data recovery are true, that may drop the figure significantly -- most data recovery firms offer a policy that you don't pay if they fail to recover your data.

Oddly, the white paper is available as a large text file (HTML), or as an emailed PDF file. The company does not offer it as a downloadable PDF for some reason. Apart from the company's pitch for their own data recovery technology, this is a good read for anyone trying to get up to speed on the process of recovering data from a hard disk drive.

July 28, 2004July