Obsidian Data Solutions is an independent technical services firm based in the Raleigh-Durham Triangle. We exist because the most important moments in technology — the ones where the wrong call has lasting consequences — deserve the right kind of attention.
The market for IT, data recovery, and security services is structured around organizations large enough to have procurement departments. Pricing reflects it. Sales motions reflect it. The result is that a small accounting firm dealing with a failing server gets handed the same playbook as a regional bank, and ends up paying for things they don't need to solve a problem nobody actually understood.
Obsidian was founded to do the opposite. We work with clients who don't have an IT department, who don't have a CISO on speed dial, and who need someone who will tell them what's actually wrong, what's actually needed, and what isn't. The work is technical. The communication is plain. The recommendations don't have a margin baked into them.
Values are easy to write and hard to operate by. These are the four we keep returning to when a decision actually costs us something.
If a problem is outside our capability or doesn't justify our involvement, we say so. The first hour of any engagement is figuring out whether we should be doing it at all — not how to keep the meter running.
Recovery and forensics work that can't be documented and reproduced isn't trustworthy. Every engagement follows established procedure, produces a written record, and stands up to someone else looking over our shoulder.
Acronyms and vendor-speak are how technical work gets sold to people who can't push back on it. Our job is to make the situation legible — what the problem is, what the options are, and what the tradeoffs look like in real terms.
A control nobody follows is a control that doesn't exist. We recommend security measures that match how your organization actually operates — not a copy-paste of an enterprise framework that was never going to be implemented anyway.
No mystery, no proprietary process diagrams. The same shape every time, scaled to the work at hand.
First contact is a conversation — what's happening, when it started, what's at stake. We're trying to understand the situation, not run you through a script. If we're not the right fit, you'll know in that conversation.
For recovery and forensics work, this means a diagnostic — what's the device's actual condition, what's recoverable, what isn't. For consulting and security, it means a candid read of where you actually stand. No assessment is sugarcoated to make the engagement easier to sell.
A written scope: what we'll do, what we won't, what it costs, what success looks like, and what the realistic risks are. If the scope changes during the engagement, you find out before the bill, not after.
Documented methodology, proper handling of devices and data, status updates that match what's actually happening. No theatrical urgency, no surprise complications that conveniently double the budget.
Every engagement closes with something on paper — a recovery report, a forensic findings document, a security assessment, a remediation plan. The deliverable is the thing you can hand to counsel, leadership, insurance, or your own future self.
If any of this sounds like the kind of work you need done, we'd like to hear about it. Most engagements start with a fifteen-minute conversation and an honest read on whether we're the right fit.
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