By Paris for I-Net Dynamics
The consequences of a hard disk crash can be difficult to bear for your business, server hard drives are where you hold all your important data, and any damage to it can put your business at risk. Studies have shown that the risk of hard drive failure rates can be as high as 14%, unlike the typical 2% – 3% that are being promoted.
The reasons for a hard drive failure can range from hardware issues to human errors. Once a hard drive has failed, it can be extremely difficult, expensive and time-consuming to recover the lost data. And in some unfortunate situations, the data may not be recoverable at all. In most cases, only a small portion of data will be lost, however, what can be recovered and what is lost are totally beyond control.
From a business point of view, any type of hard drive failure can be financially damaging or worse, bankrupting. Critical business data loss such as customer information, financial transactions, and sales data can take months to recover from. Take financial data as an example: without a healthy hard drive, the accounting department would have to manually record multiple day-to-day transactions and after the system is back up (usually after a few months), have key them into the system all over again manually which might increase the chances of human error, overlap in data and is extremely time consuming,
Many companies often struggle with a dilemma upon hard disk failure – to buy a new system, or to wait for the old ones to be recovered? Whichever option is taken, business still must absorb the opportunity costs during the long wait time and possibly additional expenses associated with recovery of data or purchase of new hard disk.
Fortunately, there are still ways for companies to save themselves from being in any of the situation above – keeping a healthy hard drive environment and having sufficient data backup solutions.
It should be common place for companies to ensure all its important data are backed up constantly lest anything happens to the physical hard disks. One of the most common backup strategy is “3-2-1”. The name directly reminds you that any business needs at least 3 copies of data, 2 onsite but on different machines, and 1 offsite copy.
While this strategy is well known, it is sadly not widely used. Throughout our time in this industry, we have come across several businesses that had to suffer losses because their data backup were on the same server. And before they could apply the “3-2-1” strategy, they had to painfully send their hard drives away for recovery.
Having 3 copies of backup is essential to protect business in the event of hard drive failure. However, besides having enough data backups, there is another layer of prevention that companies can use. Companies can, instead of only focusing on preventive measures (making sure to use the 3-2-1 strategy when backing up), also implement proactive measures to data backup.
The N-able monitoring software tools can help businesses prevent hard drive crashes by informing you of your hard-disks’ health status and inform you of any issues in advance. With the ability to notify you when the drive is almost full, or when the warranty is expired, for instance, this monitoring tool allows companies to proactively act before anything happens.
The consequences of a Hard disk crash are countless and can be devastating to anyone who is not prepared. Don’t take chances and turn your business into statistics, start backing up your data and monitor your hard drive today.
Click here for more information about i-Net’s proactive IT Managed Services, or here for our Offsite Backup Solutions.
