Surviving The Perfect Storm - The Data Protection Strategy Paid Off!

You have had these sort of events before. This was a doozie of a
Perfect Storm though...I had finally picked up some good consulting
work. This took me out of town for just a few days, not even a week. I
had no idea of what was brewing up. Fortunately, I had used my own
advice - Build A Solid Data Protection Strategy, and you will never
fear system breakdowns!And it's true. Data Protection Strategies
ensure that you will not be left high and dry with no good data. Data
protection strategies are not just about "The Backup". It goes
*beyond* just the backup! Thorough data protection strategies
incorporate redundant disks and redundant backup systems. This gives
you the security your business *requires* to survive a
computer/server/facilities event that could otherwise put you out of
business.Let's see how the strategy that I implemented plays out in my
real life Hard Drive Perfect Storm...Returning to my home office the
last week of June I suddenly began receiving warnings from the hard
drives S.M.A.R.T. system. S.M.A.R.T. is the acronym for
Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology that is now built
into virtually all the hard drives we use these days. It's something
you DO want to be using on your computers.S.M.A.R.T. will review what
is happening in your hard drive and will warn you before most hard
drive failures happen. With enough warning, you have the time to
perform any backups or software inventories that will help you quickly
recover your operating system!Nothing like getting some warning before
trouble strikes! So I ordered up a new drive - 1Tb Western Digital,
and headed down the road. With all the safety nets from my data
protection strategy, I had nothing to worry about!At least that is
what I thought...I had been reviewing several online backup products,
and had selected Mozy Remote Backup. The Unlimited Mozy Remote Backup
product was the winner over Acronis and Carbonite products. The
ability to backup the data to online storage AND to a local USB or
other 'locally attached' drive was the deciding factor. After
installing Mozy I found out just how long it will take to send 62Gb of
data to the "Internet Storage"! Trust me on this, it takes a while to
move 62Gb across the internet, even with a 10Mb outbound cable.I had
recognized that recovering the data from the Internet Storage would be
extremely slow. The idea of restoring the data from a locally
connected USB disk really closed the deal for me. I made the purchase,
and began the backup process.In the meantime, the 1Tb WD hard drive
showed up. I installed it, and began to recover the hard drive from my
Windows Home Server Bare Metal Recovery Disk. This is where things
started going... bad - Very BAD.The WHS (Windows Home Server) has been
awesome in the past. The recovery of a 40Gb hard drive in a notebook
took about 20 to 30 minutes the first couple of tests that were run to
assure the 'bare metal' recovery of a system from the Windows Home
Server system. The 'Bare Metal' recovery is typically initiated with a
CD or a USB external drive which sets up a network connection to a
saved image that is simply restored to the system that needs to be
recovered. It's fast, and easy when it works.But it wasn't working
NOW!Further research revealed that the WHS required a re-installation
of the complete operating system! The data was safe, but I had a
couple years of enhancements and customizations in there - {sigh}.
Time to do it again.I had just wrapped up the WHS system recovery,
when here comes just another little event to cause a nice pucker
factor. The other hard drive in my primary system began reporting the
same hard drive error! It was also failing with the same issue!Here is
another tip - Sometimes it isn't the best thing to order 2 of the same
hard drives from the same vendor for use in the same computer. This is
because if there is a flaw in the drives, and they are in the same
batch, it may affect BOTH drives. This is exactly what happened in
this case! Purchased in 2007 with a 5 year warranty they had failed
less than 4 years later within 14 days of each other!Well Shucks is
almost what I said. (LOL)Then I got a flash - Time to change
tactics.For years I have recommended to my business clients that you
use a RAID 1 drive for your business computers if you are a home based
business with only 1 or 2 computers. I have seen this method work very
well for the clients I had using this strategy.I made the good
decision that it is time to take my own advice.I ordered up another 1
Tb drive from a different manufacturer and continued backing up my
slowly failing second drive. I also took the time to take inventory of
*needed* applications. I then gathered up all the disks and downloads
required to make the installation easy, and waited for the drive to
arrive.The Mozy Remote Backup continued to keep my data backed up. The
external hard drive attached to the desktop is a great idea. I was
very confident that I was ready to go!The good news is that everything
turned around after the second drive showed up! The WHS was refreshed
and all the computers were backing up nicely.The second drive showed
up and I did set it up as a RAID 1 disk. RAID is the acronym for
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Discs or Redundant Array of Independent
Disks. There are many ways to build a RAID, but the best for the SOHO
(Small Office/Home Office) is the RAID 1 disk. RAID 1 requires 2 hard
drives which will be mirrors of each other. Should one drive fail, the
other drive keeps the system running! Yes, it's sweet, and RAID 1 is
great for a SOHO business. It is a fast, reliable system, relatively
inexpensive, and a vital part of a solid data protection strategy.I
got the new RAID 1 drive setup, and Windows 7 installed without a
hiccup. From there, I simply began downloading the 62Gigs of data to
my hard drive once again. While the data was restoring I was
installing software.It was nice to finally get this done. It took
about a week to get back to fully functional primary computer.
Remember, I had to rebuild TWO systems, and one of the two systems I
had to reinstall twice!The really good news is that when everything
was failing, I had already instituted an upgrade to my existing Data
Protection Strategy by adding the Mozy Remote Backup. Now that the
data "seed" process is completed, Mozy Remote Backup is really FAST
too!Taking the time to reinstall to the RAID 1 drive was completely
worth the effort! Now I have two drives protecting the system drive
and data on my computer. To top it all off, it is just as fast as it
ever was. This is an easy protection strategy that you can implement,
but it will take some time to do it right.So - I hope that my work was
not in vain. I hope that you will take a hard look at your Data
Protection Strategy and decide to upgrade your protection systems NOW
so that you can save some heartache later. It can be a bother to get
it setup, but trust me - when we have the lightning storms, the power
bumps, and the S.M.A.R.T. hard drive warnings going off we are sooooo
happy to have several safety nets in place!Let's review the basic Data
Protection Strategy as bullet points:For Good Data Protection:Use 2
disks in a RAID 1 for hard drive data protection
Protect your data using AT LEAST one backup system
Perform a data restoration AT LEAST once a monthGood protection is
okay, but for business, data protection is critical! No Data, No
Business!!!This is the full data protection strategy that I use:All
data is protected by being stored on 2 different systems
All data is backed up to online storage (Using Mozy)
All data is backed up to a local USB drive (Again, using Mozy)
Primary workstation runs a RAID1 hard drive system
Server system runs a JBOD RAID using Shadow Copy (WHS)
Backup workstation running most applications as a backup (Just In
Case!)In the end, the strategy that you select to protect your data
will be your choice. You really don't need to be as complex as what I
have outlined above. Most folks would be very well served (and better
protected than their peers or neighbors) if they would simply add the
Mozy Remote Backup solution to their backup strategy!Here's to your
new Data Protection Strategy, and your continued operation through the
hard drive Perfect Storms of life!