Backups

[mattm04]

I have friend who is a intern in our schools IT dept. One of the things they stress in backups. They even help students make sure they are backing up important data.

Today all the students get a e-mail. It seems a HD on the student file server died. Was it a RAID array? No. Was it backed up? Yes. On Sept 5th.

So about 1/4 of the students do not have access to their files on said server while the drive is being shipped off to a company to try to get the data off.

Thankfully I had most of my important stuff on that drive was backed up on my PC.

Oh, yeah the will take the server down next week and reconfigure at as RAID-5 array. Whoops. too late.

[lordlundar]

Gotta love the concept of waiting until after the building has burn down to decide to put in the fire alarm, metaphorically speaking.

[mattm04]

They just got the data back. It was all recovered.

Now this weekend they will make the server a RAID Array and do off site backups, daily like they should have in the first place.

[Polenicus]

Sounds to me like a case of the administration penny-pinching.

IT wants to stress backups. says they're important. Administration agrees. IT wants to do daily backups. Administration likes the idea. IT extolls the virtues of RAID mirroring, which ensures there is a running backup at all times. Admin agrees this is ideal.

IT tells them they need additional tape drives and equipment to allow them to do the backups, as well as time to insert the code to allow them to do scheduled backups. Tells them they need to contract an off-site backup secure storage facility, rated to handle all the sensitive student records and such. Tells them they need to double their existing storage capacity (At least) to set up the RAID mirroring. Tells them they'll need to take the servers down completely for a while to set everything up. Then IT gives them the estimate.

Admin is less enthusiastic. Admin wants to think about it. Admin says to continue on with how we've been doing things (Likely old procedures left over frm the 80's, which are simple unfeasable with the current equipment and volumes of data involved). Tells them they'll 'see if it's in the budget'

Bad things happen. Servers go down. Backups? Nope. Recovery plan? Still not approved yet, much less implemented.

Admin pays through the nose for data recovery. Admin then quietly approves IT's proposal, and greenlights them to go ahead with it immediately.

In my experience, this is how it works. Colleges and Universities tend not to pay for something unless they absolutely have to, and only after much squabbling about who's departmental budget it's going to come out of.

[technical.angel]

In my experience, this is how it works. Colleges and Universities tend not to pay for something unless they absolutely have to, and only after much squabbling about who's departmental budget it's going to come out of.

Well, if you can make it run with bubble gum and shoestrings, why pay ACTUAL MONEY to fix it?

I severly HATE politics.

Politics is why we still have our graduate and adult studies toll free number living on a server so old, it was installed by the dinosaurs.

[PepperElf]

I <3 RAID.... especially RAID-5.

Eh, i don't know how expensive they are... i know they can get pricy tho.... but at my last branch the gear i worked on had 3 RAIDs on one unit and 2 on the other. But ooohhh so easy to maintain. Drive does down? Ok rebuild. Rebuild failed? Ok, replace the drive with a new one and... rebuild. Come back three hours later and put the unit back up online.

So yeah a raid can be expensive, but it can also save a lot of time and data.


Though on a personal note, with what I know about computers now... I'd never use a college server as my primary storage point. Access is limited to whatever the college would allow and... as seen in the OP, sometimes they break... and I have external drives.

[otakuneko]

Indeed. All my school stuff is kept on three hard drives in three separate computers, and a flash drive that's almost always with me, and regularly synced up.

[powerboy]

I will be getting a external hard drive with my next paycheck. Just so I can keep my important files and documents on it also. I also have a 4GB Micro Flash drive, that I use and keep all the important files and documents on it also.