You're sitting here at your computer, either from work or from the comfort of your home...

All of a sudden.... POOF! Your hard drive's plateaus go crazy and your hard drive is completely broken and data is not recoverable.

[color:"red"] Did you lose anything important? [/color] Do you have recent backups? Are you punching holes through the wall because you're soooo mad at what has just happened?


Hehe! <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> Have a nice day! (now is a good time to make backups!)

No problem. I just replace the harddrive, reinstall the os and applications. (Which is on images). Next I logon to our server, were my data (which is backupped every day on tape) is and do the rest of my work. I gues all it will take is me is 1 hour max.

I call IT and go have a couples beers. Oh, wait, I am IT.

Well, not if it's the server that fails and it turns out that the backups won't fully restore properly, even using earlier backups. Just happened to us on Monday. Some projects were back to normal the same day. Unfortunately, some are up the creek now. Fortunately, I'm not IT.

Backing up is half the battle. Doing test recoveries at regular intervals is the other half. Well, and maybe sending the tapes far, far away is the third half. Anyone, have I missed half? <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Well, not if it's the server that fails

Which is precisly why we installed a SAN running RAID 5 and moved our data to it when we upgraded. (RAID 5 uses an extra hard drive for instant back up. Any drive can fail without losing any data. Replace the bad drive and it is automatically rebuilt.)

The other half is patching, power protection and anti-malware software. We enabled automatic patching for our OS. We have good-sized UPS's on ALL of our computers, servers and switching equipment and quality surge-protectors on all of laser printers, copiers and fax machines. We have also installed auto-updating versions anti-virus and anti-spyware software on everything.

Eternal viligance is also the price of a smooth running network.

At my desk top?

Look at the remains and cry, becuase of big mass of source code for a project I've been working on for a few weeks, since the last back up. That stuff is part of my disertation!

Thanks for the reminder, Bee. Zipping and shipping now <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Bee, good point. Just a note, your last backup is only as reliable as your last restore. Keep that in mind. Murphy usually comes full force from many directions.

Marc

RAID 5 is great if only 1 drive fails. 2 and you are up the .....

6 weeks ago I repaired a RAID 5 system that died. When checking everything I found every drive was ok, controller and cables was ok. Removable drive bays, causing errors and the whole system crashed.

Dont use RAID or any other system as the only fail safe measure. STILL do your backups.

Bee,

On my home PC I copy all our data folders onto CD-ROMs. I also have a 1GB thumb drive that I keep all my data from work on. Our company gave everyone in Information Services a 1GB thumb drive.

What I need to do is scan all my important documents and burn them onto CDs. My wife suggested that having personal information on a thumb drive that you can lose is not a good idea. However she thought a thumb drive with important documents in a secure place in the house was a good idea. If you had to evacuate you could easily keep the thumb drive with you.

Thanks Bee I am going to back up my school work now.