Being a Florida based company, Data Analyzers’ engineers recover data from a variety of data loss situations caused by natural disaster(s). Summer tropical storms cause power outages and electrical surges can result in electrical failure and cause data loss. Here is our Do’s&Don’ts Data Recovery Infographic, just in case. Officially, the Atlantic hurricane season occurs from June 1 to November 30, sharply peaking from late August through September so this might be a good time prepare if you haven’t yet.
Floods
Rain from thunderstorms is falling rapidly causing floods in the summer months. Flood water in a house can damage any electronics with wiring close to the ground. Devices like computer towers placed on the floor are most effected.
Fires
Droughts in the summer pose an increased risk of fires, especially in certain regions. During summer months we receive a number of cases in which fire has destroyed a data storage device and caused a loss of critical data for a home, business or organization.
Tornadoes
In some parts of the country, spring and summer are tornado season. These violent storms can take down not just power lines, but entire blocks and leave devastation in their wake.
Tropical storms are the cause of two of the most prominent seasonal data loss trends our engineers see:
Power Outages
Power outages during storms are very common. In most cases, they can cause computers to shut down improperly. This can cause you to lose any unsaved data you may have been working on. Power outages can also cause a hard drive to fail. If not powered down correctly the drive’s read/write heads will “re-park” which can damage both the heads and the platters, resulting in data loss.
Power Shortages
During summer months excessive use of electricity on your local power grid can cause power shortages when power usage increases due to high demand for air conditioning.
Electrical Surges
Electrical surges can be caused by lightning strikes which can send high levels of voltage through power lines and can damage electronics that are plugged into power outlets. Devices like computers plugged in during a power surge, can be damaged, or the surge can damage electrical components in such way that can lead to failures later. Please note that most of our large home appliances such as refrigerators or air conditioning units can cause electrical surge when voltage temporarily drops, and then rises again posing a threat to any electronic device.
Data Loss Issues & Backup
As we mentioned previously, data storage devices such as hard drives, solid state drives or even RAID systems can be affected with power surges, blackouts, and electrical system failures in few ways: Improper Shutdown or when power is unexpectedly cut to a drive, and the platters slow down or spin to a stop, causing heads to “crash” or to make contact between the heads and the platters, causing the hard drive to fail and data to be lost; Electrical Surge can cause failure of the electronic component when damage is often times visible. However, in the event of an electrical surge, the protective components on the control board can be damaged, meaning voltage and current of higher magnitude can reach the read/write head assembly destroying them.
While losing data due to a drive failure caused by vicious weather is a devastating experience, the recovery success rate in these situations is remarkable high over 95% success rate in these cases.
In most cases of severe tropical weather, data loss prevention is fairly simple: Use a Surge Protector as your first line of defense, these will channel any excessive voltage through its grounding wire rather than the devices plugged into it; Powering down and unplugging is the safest way to handle your devices during a storm; Backup Your Data, the best way to protect your files from data loss in any situation is by using a reliable, 3-2-1 backup strategy. Having a backup strategy will help you recover from any data loss situation easily.
Keep in mind that data loss disasters are preventable!
