If you ever were the unlucky recipient of a data recovery job, you surely begged the 
question: “Why does data recovery cost so much?” There were also probably a few expletives in that question as well. Is it the labor time? Well, partially.
The bulk of the cost is due to the expensive facilities and machinery. 
The facility itself has to be a dust-free, Clean 100 Lab room. Picture “bubble boy” but much larger and cleaner. Any dust, debris, or bacteria can kill a hard drive when opened. So, the air, temperature, and ventilation are constantly monitored for the health of the hard drives. This is an expensive piece of the equation.
The other piece of the equation is the machinery cost. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on these robotic armed equipment that handle the drives and parts instead of human hands. The human finger, by nature, is not as precise and accurate as machinery. The machinery does most of the heavy moving and replacing.
The last piece of the pie that you’re paying for with data recovery is part replacements. Whether the head, spindle motor, or arm of the drive fails, the exact same part needs to be ordered. This means the part needs to have the same model number, manufacturing date, and other identifiers to be the right match. These parts are usually in overseas markets and requires part and shipping costs for acquiring.
So, hopefully you’ll have a backup of your files the next time your hard drive fails. It will save you thousands in data recovery service.
