rant
Trust me, your hard drive will die some day.
07.17.07
So you might be one of the lucky ones who gets
through ownership of a particular computer without
a drive failure, but keep it around long enough and
it'll die. Sans backup, so too will your precious
data. Bye bye to your financial data, emails,
pictures from your vacations, iTunes music and
whatever else you didn't think to backup. It's not
just time that'll kill a drive. As the prices of
computers drop, so too has the quality of many
components including the hard drive. If you own a
laptop, you're considerably more vulnerable to
losing data from a hard drive crash or even theft.
The point of this rant? Well, in July, two of my clients suffered catastrophic hard drive failures on their servers. Sadly, one of the drives was all of 6 months old, lest you think the grim reaper of hard drives only targets old hard drives! One particular client had a backup solution (which shall remain unnamed) setup by someone else that completely failed to deliver when it came time to restore. Thankfully, the second client had a backup solution in place that makes bootable backups and thus was able to simply tell the server to boot off the most recent backup drive and they were back up and running. In fact, I was able to walk them through this over the phone! Ahh, many cheers to Synchronize Pro X!
Backups are like insurance for your car. It's not as if you get a thrill from sending a check off to the insurance company, but it sure is handy to have if a deer attacks your car while driving past Eagle Creek Park. (Saw this happen once, which is why I mention it. Seriously, this deer came tearing out of the woods and ran right into the side of the car in front of me. Scary how fast it all happened.) Similarly, you hope you never need to use that backup of your system(s), but if ever you do, it'll be worth every penny you spent on the system.
Sadly, most individuals don't backup until they first lose data. Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice.... If you're a business, however, you can't afford not to backup. Sorta like taxes. If you don't pay 'em, it'll eventually catch up with with a fury.
Indeed, in business, the only thing you're assured of is death (of your hard drive) and taxes. ;-)
The Sound of Failure
Thanks to the Flaming Lips for that nice title....
Care to hear what a failing hard drive sounds like? This is not for the faint of heart. For anyone who's lost data from a failed drive, this is tantamount to the sound of having your heart ripped out.
Listen up! to the sounds of failure.
The point of this rant? Well, in July, two of my clients suffered catastrophic hard drive failures on their servers. Sadly, one of the drives was all of 6 months old, lest you think the grim reaper of hard drives only targets old hard drives! One particular client had a backup solution (which shall remain unnamed) setup by someone else that completely failed to deliver when it came time to restore. Thankfully, the second client had a backup solution in place that makes bootable backups and thus was able to simply tell the server to boot off the most recent backup drive and they were back up and running. In fact, I was able to walk them through this over the phone! Ahh, many cheers to Synchronize Pro X!
Backups are like insurance for your car. It's not as if you get a thrill from sending a check off to the insurance company, but it sure is handy to have if a deer attacks your car while driving past Eagle Creek Park. (Saw this happen once, which is why I mention it. Seriously, this deer came tearing out of the woods and ran right into the side of the car in front of me. Scary how fast it all happened.) Similarly, you hope you never need to use that backup of your system(s), but if ever you do, it'll be worth every penny you spent on the system.
Sadly, most individuals don't backup until they first lose data. Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice.... If you're a business, however, you can't afford not to backup. Sorta like taxes. If you don't pay 'em, it'll eventually catch up with with a fury.
Indeed, in business, the only thing you're assured of is death (of your hard drive) and taxes. ;-)
The Sound of Failure
Thanks to the Flaming Lips for that nice title....
Care to hear what a failing hard drive sounds like? This is not for the faint of heart. For anyone who's lost data from a failed drive, this is tantamount to the sound of having your heart ripped out.
Listen up! to the sounds of failure.
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