Clean Room Technology

Data loss incidents due to mechanical, electrical, or logical errors are very common. When this happens, you will have to give your hard disk or data storage device to a data recovery expert for evaluation and rectification of the problem. However, hard disks can only be operated in a clean room environment.

What is a Clean Room?

Clean room is a controlled environment wherein various factors such as humidity, airborne particles, dust, room pressure, air distribution and supply, and temperature are regulated as per the specified standards. It is very important for the clean room to meet these specified standards in order to be classified as a clean room environment.

Why do clean rooms have to adhere to such standards? Simply put, just as any form of contamination can spoil the food and water we consume, any amount of contamination in the air can spoil the hard disks and microprocessors beyond repair. Hard disks and microprocessors are made of intricate internal components and the working structure of these components is even more intricate. Even a miniscule dust particle has the ability to ruin thousands of transistors within a microprocessor.

Did you know that even human skin is one of the contaminants that can potentially ruin the hard disk and microprocessor? Human skin sheds approximately one billion skin flakes in an hour. Therefore, it is not surprising to note that the clean room environment requires people working in the clean room to wear special protective clothing so as to avoid human skin contaminants.

Other forms of contaminants include, but are not limited to, cosmetics and perfume, walls and wall paint, cloth fibre, bacteria, and cleaning material. Therefore, a clean room has to be designed specifically to avoid these contaminants. In addition, clean rooms have to have high degree air filtration systems so that the air inside the clean room remains clean.

In order to achieve this objective, these filtration systems clean the air within the clean room approximately 10 times per minute. It is only with these stringent cleanliness standards that a clean room environment is able to avoid any form of contamination.

Clean rooms are ideal environments for evaluating damaged data storage media and microprocessors. However, the tools and mechanical equipment used for evaluating hard disks and microprocessors also need to be clean room-friendly. All the efforts of keeping a clean room truly clean can go down the drain if the machinery or tools used inside the clean room dispel contaminants.

How Are Clean Rooms Classified?

Clean rooms are classified according to the number of contaminants found in the air within the clean room premises. Clean rooms are classified as per the International Standards Organisation (ISO) standards. These standards are helpful in classifying the clean room. Clean room classification for particulate contaminants is defined as per the maximum allowable particle diameter and maximum allowable number of particles per cubic metre.

You must have often read or heard about most companies using a Class 100 clean room. This classification is based on maximum allowable density specification for non-particulate contaminants per cubic metre. A class 100 clean room means that there are 100 particles in each cubic foot of air space within the clean room environment.

Types of Clean Rooms and How They Are Set Up

A data recovery company can choose to have modular, soft wall, or permanent clean rooms. The choice of clean room will depend on the need of the data recovery company. A soft wall clean room is set up in such a way that it is ideal for companies that need to have portable clean rooms. Permanent clean rooms are set up in such a way that they offer higher quality and totality of design than modular or soft wall clean rooms.

Why Are Clean Rooms Needed By Data Recovery Companies?

Clean rooms are mostly used by data recovery companies to evaluate and rectify damaged data storage media such as hard disks. Hard disks are extremely delicate and prone to contamination. Therefore, it is only possible to recover data from a damaged hard disk in a clean room environment.

Clean room environment ensures that the damaged data storage media is not damaged further due to environmental or human contamination because exposing an already damaged hard disk to more contaminants can make a data loss problem a permanent one.

Article Directory: http://www.everyonesarticles.com

James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on Data Recovery see www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated