Bit rot (also known as data decay, data rot, or silent corruption) is the slow, gradual deterioration of a storage medium that causes individual bits of data to flip from 0 to 1 or vice versa. Bit rot occurs at...

If you’re hoping to store digital data on a standard hard disk drive (HDD) for a century, the short answer is no. While most hard drives have an expected lifespan of three to five years with regular use, even a...

Failing hard drives tend to make noises (though not always, as we’ve discussed in other articles). Solid-state drives are more subtle: They may not give any indication whatsoever that they’re near the end of their operational lifespans.  The most...

In simple terms, data corruption occurs when the data within a file or on a storage device is altered from its original state, rendering it unreadable or unusable. You’ve likely experienced this before: a photo that’s suddenly gray or distorted,...

Double-extortion ransomware is an attack where criminals both encrypt your files and steal (exfiltrate) your data. Triple-extortion simply adds a third layer of pressure such as a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack or harassment to your clients or staff. It’s simply...

In 2024, about 59% of organizations were hit by ransomware, per a report from Sophos — and while that number is shocking, it’s actually slightly lower than the numbers for 2023.  For bad actors, ransomware is a lucrative business, and...

Yes, your Solid-State Drive (SSD) can and will eventually fail. No storage device is perfect — and while SSDs don’t have any moving parts (depending on how you define “moving parts,” if you want to get technical), it’s still susceptible...

A grinding hard drive is a critical data emergency. This noise — which is distinct from the repetitive “click of death” — is the sound of an immediate and severe physical failure. The only safe action is to power it...

A “cyclic redundancy check” (CRC) error means that the data on your storage device is corrupt and unreadable. The device’s operating system performed a data-verification check and the result didn’t match what was expected, which means that the raw data...

Running the Check Disk (CHKDSK) utility on a degraded RAID volume can cause catastrophic, irreversible data loss. If you’ve lost data from a RAID array, contact a professional data recovery provider as soon as possible — do not run CHKDSK...