How Are Clean Room Used In Data Recovery?
Clean rooms used are rooms that have been designed to reduce the level of particulates in the air like dust and airborne microbes. Clean room construction employs filters extensively. Staff would usually have to enter clean rooms through airlocks and wear protective gear while working inside the rooms.
For professional data recovery companies a clean room is an essential asset as hard drive repair often requires the use of exceptionally clean working conditions.
External air literally has to go through a range of extremely fine filters to ensure that any airflow into the clean room is totally clear of any harmful particles and often secondary systems are also in place with directed airflows to reduce the risk of internally generated contaminants coming into contact with the actual workbench area or surface.
There are different “classes” of clean rooms, with each class limiting permissible different numbers of particles per cubic meter, as well as the maximum sizes particles. Thus a Class 1 clean room is one where the number of particles should not exceed 1000 particles per cubic meter.
Clean rooms are not only used in data recovery operations though, they are widely found in all manner of industries ranging from medical labs to pharmaceutical manufacturing plants and of course electronics manufacturing plants. Rooms can be a few feet square or can encompass an entire manufacturing plant area depending on the operation in question.
Why Are Clean Rooms Essential For Hard Drive Repair?
The internal components of a hard drive and in particular the disk platters (many drives have more than one) are exceptionally susceptible to further damage from airborne particulates once opened. Even the most microscopic particles can further damage the extremely sensitive platter surfaces as can damage from ESD, so a clean room environment is essential for a success repair in many instances.
With each generation of disks, data is packed more and more densely on the disk platters. It is thus increasingly important that data recovery be attempted in exceptionally clean rooms.
Another consideration for using a clean room though is the warranty on your drive that will be made invalid if not repaired by an authorised agent or in a clean room environment although in reality the value of the accumulated data on most drives is by far massively more valuable than the drive itself, so all the more reason to ensure that it is only worked on in the cleanest of environments to prevent further damage.
Thus clean rooms are necessary for data recovery on both performance and product warranty considerations. Disk drives should only be opened in clean rooms and kept there until the recovery is complete and the drive is closed. Data storage media are getting packed with data more and more densely with each new generation of drives. It is thus extremely important to attempt data recovery in exceptionally dust free rooms.
If you need to hand over your hard drive to a data recovery services company check the validation of their clean room. At the very least it should be class 100 certified although the top companies will have invested in even better standards, for example ISO class 3.