Proper packaging of hard drives is essential to avoiding costly physical damage, yet according to ESS Data Recovery, a worldwide leader in data recovery technologies, thousands of drives are unnecessarily damaged due to poor packaging every year—many of them during shipment to data recovery companies.
ESS has received both over-packed and under-packed drives in its 9 year history. "We had one client wrap his drive in bubble wrap until it was over a foot thick," said Kevin Thole, customer service manager for the company's Illinois division. "On the other hand, we'll get drives that were simply stuck in envelopes without padding nearly every day."
Some of the more unusual packaging choices have made recoveries very difficult. "We had a client who wrapped his drive in duct tape, no sort of box or packaging, and put his shipping label over the top of it. Another time, a client completely disassembled his drive and sent us the parts—needless to say, that didn't make our job much easier."
And though it sounds obvious, something as simple as proper postage can derail a recovery for weeks—sometimes years. Kevin was surprised when one shipping service handed him a package from a client that had been lost in their mail system for over twelve months. "We called the client, and he still needed his data. Within a few days, we had it recovered and sent it back to him—using a different shipping service, of course."
While most improperly packaged cases ended up recovered, Thole insists that clients looking to keep costs down should take care when packaging their drives. ESS recommends packing hard drives in an anti-static bag, snugly surrounded by about 3-5 inches of static-free bubble wrap and placed an a medium sized box (small enough that the drive does not have any mobility inside the box during shipment).
Even with the clearest of standards, ESS Data Recovery has recently opted to offer its clients a free packaging and shipping service via The UPS Store—customers take their drives and a case number to any UPS Store location, and the employees handle the packaging and shipping for them. This cuts down significantly on confusion, and ESS has seen the amount of shipping-related damage to drives drop by over 60% since implementing the program.
Kevin Thole says the new service is greatly beneficial to people in need of data recovery. "Of course, anything that keeps the cost of recovery down is something we'd recommend. With a little bit of care, there's no reason for a drive to be damaged in shipment."
About ESS Data recovery
The most trusted name in the data recovery industry, ESS has offered fast, highly technical data recovery for nine years.. With an exceptionally high recovery rate and multiple locations, ESS has extensive experience with all manner of hard drives, and offers free evaluations for nearly all of its services. ESS can be found online at www.essdatarecovery.com.
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Press Contact: Ben Carmitchel
Company Name: ESS DATA RECOVERY, INC.
Email: john.krane@essdr.com
Phone: 6186543553
Website: http://www.essdatarecovery.com
AndhraNews.net News for May 22, 2006