
Image by RobotMachine via Flickr
Written by Dave and Tony Pirog.
888-847-2955 / 630-447-9067
This may be the most important article you will ever read by us!
We know your computer data is important to you. If you haven’t done anything about it yet, what’s stopping you? Give us a call. We’d love to help.
Here’s some food for thought:
THE PROBLEM
Scenario 1
Customer’s desktop crashed and they called us. Their baby was 3 years old and all their baby pictures, from the day he was born, were on the hard drive. They had no other copy! We came armed with our trusty “hard drive to USB” adapter and a laptop, connected them up and there were the pictures, just sitting there nice and pretty. We had other work to do, and the customer told us to leave the pictures till later. We said, “No, let’s do it now.” So we got the pics copied off first and then we finished the rest of the work. By the time we came back the hard drive was dead and couldn’t be revived. The customer almost lost 3 years worth of precious baby pictures!
Lesson #1: Back up your data!
Scenario 2
Customer came to us with a portable hard drive that crashed. He was pleased with himself because he did make a backup. Only problem was, he deleted the originals! Doh! The only copy he had was on the portable drive, and that drive crashed.
Lesson #2: Maintain at least two copies of your data!
Scenario 3
Customer thought he was covered because he had “RAID mirroring” on his computer. Right. All that means is it saves all your data to two disks at the same time. If the main operating system disk fails, all you have to do is replace it with the copy, insert a new one and you’re back in business. Problem is he counted on that and didn’t have any other backups. Somebody had given him some horrible advice! Long story short, he lost some really important data, and there was no way to get it back.
Lesson #3: One backup solution may not be enough.
SOLUTIONS
RAID Mirroring: This is primarily a quick way to get back up and running and should never be depended on for backing up your data … for a number of reasons. What it doesn’t do is protect your data if the computer is destroyed or stolen. Like any on-site backup solution, a fire, flood, lightning strike, theft of the computer, or other catastrophic event could leave you with no backup at all. This is where keeping multiple external drives and online backup come in.
Multiple external hard drives: We encourage our business customers to buy two portable hard drives, swap them out and take one off site once a week. Then, if their system crashes for any reason, they buy a new computer and reload their data fast. If the on-site portable drive gets stolen or damaged, they can bring in the other one while their computer is being rebuilt, repaired or set up, and quickly restore their data without losing more than 7 days worth.
Online backup: Covers the worst case scenario when all on-site hardware has been damaged and up to 7 days of data lost. Downloading from off-site locations can be slow, which is why we recommend the portable drive option. The off-site backup by our preferred vendor keeps as constant, complete, up-to-date copies of all your files as possible and allows for the recovery of that lost 7 days of data.
Call us at 888-847-2955 or 630-447-9067 to talk about our recommendations for online backup. Even if you’re confident of your backup plan, it might be good to call us in to check it over. It can’t hurt to get a second opinion.
Disaster Recovery Plan: Our “Multiple External Drives and Off-site Backup” strategy is low-cost, assures virtually no data loss, and results in minimal disruption. The worst case disaster recovery scenario looks like this:
- Buy a new computer or repair the damaged one.
- Restore your data using the off-site portable drive.
- Make up the balance from the online backup site.
Image copy of system hard drive: The final option we offer and recommend to our business customers is to clone their system hard drive and take it off-site. In the case of a complete system meltdown or hard drive crash, the drive can be brought in, mounted and the system back up and running in no time.
Forensic data recovery: This is what happens when you haven’t got a backup. We have a customer who paid a technician to set up their backup, and so thought they were set. When their hard drive crashed they found out that the backup plan didn’t work and they were stuck with all their business data on a broken hard drive. They sent it to a lab and paid in the region of $2,000 for forensic recovery, their system was down for 2 weeks, and some of their files were never recovered. Even if you pay through the nose for recovery you can’t guarantee all your data back from a damaged drive.
SUMMARY:
For business customers we recommend the following backup strategy:
- Clone the hard drive to be kept off-site.
- Multiple portable hard drives with nightly backups, swapped out weekly. Nightly backups have to be monitored in case something prevents them from running.
- Online backup using our recommended vendor.
- Purchase and install uninterruptable power supplies for each computer.
For residential customers recommend at least:
- Buy a portable drive.
- Set up a nightly backup.
- Don’t delete the original files from your computer.
It’s still a good idea to sign up for online backup. Seriously, one backup really isn’t good enough.
No one is twisting your arm, but if you don’t act, and your hard drive crashes we’ll be delighted to take your money to recover the data. We prefer if our customers and clients are educated and knowledgeable enough to know better though. Please do yourself a favor: spend the time and implement a backup plan so that you won’t need to panic when calamity hits. We’ve told you what needs to be done, so what’s stopping you?
CONTACT US:
Call if you need help setting up the right backup plan for your needs and budget, or if you need someone to review your current backup plan. Once again, our number: 888-847-2955 or 630-447-9067.
Visit our Villa Park site at: http://www.tpteq.com/Illinois/Villa-Park.php