well backups "fails" too i.e RAIDS, NAS,SAN,´even tape´s etc will be fail because are magnetical media, maybe store data on photon could be more safe

Regards

well, now I can talk maybe because backup, 'till now, is our core business. It's like a airplane: very redundant technology that does not fail in itself, only bad operation or human error cause the problems. We charge about US$11 per month per PC, no volume limits "all you can eat" data and email etc. Cheap eh? People STILL don't want to pay.

That's why we are getting into DR: our clients need us sooner or later

I answered the OP. Basically, you're a complete idiot if you put your efforts into DR INSTEAD of a backup. If you read the post, you'd see this person doesn't have a current problem, but is PLANNING on using DR when their drives fail. To be polite, it's the stupidest thing I ever heard. I tried to get this point across in a way that would somehow be received, but some people only hear the tune playing in their own head. If you don't like my answer, perhaps YOU have some wisdom for this guy.

Perhaps I'm rude, but what I'm saying is correct. If someone is dancing on railroad tracks oblivious, and a train is coming, I'm going to yell loudly, and it's not going to be polite. If they still want to dance on the tracks, that's their business.

Oops I forgot to mention "for example"
I wanted to emphasize "to the point"

follow those link, may be helpful

http://forum.csebd.net/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=160

http://forum.csebd.net/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=44

_________________
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There is no substitute for education and experience
THANK YOU
SHAHI
shahi.mahbub@gmail.com

Hello skyunlimited,

Of the factors common to successful businessmen, ONE is :

They EMPLOY first class experts like attorneys, doctors, engineers etc.

A factor common to most failed businesses is they never EMPLOYED any experts.

Think about it.

And that is called a "File Server".

Here is a typical way:

1. Windows Server 2000-2003-2008 whatever
2. Create a share on that server
3. Enable volume shadow copy on that share
4. Enable shadow copy client on your XP Pro or Vista Business machines (no, XP Home is NOT OK)
5. Implement a process to automatically backup the file server to two external hard drives in a mirror configuration. Remove one of the drives offsite.
6. Redirect every user's "My documents" folder to the server share, enable VSS, and enable offline file sync

You need to invite a local Microsoft Certified Partner to your lab and have them implement a plan similar to this. For us, it takes about a day to configure everything properly. For most consultants, it would take a couple of days to stabilize your environment and implement a similar plan.

VSS enables us to recover as many copies of your file as we configured even if it's accidentally overwritten etc. Transparent redirection of My Documents solves the local desktop problem. User saves to My Documents, but in fact they save to the server and keep a local copy of the document in the system's cache. If the desktop dies, the user logs in on a new desktop and the data is instantly available.

You must test the plan. Hard drives die every day. As drives get bigger, our work gets more challenging.

It's a lot cheaper to have a consultant properly implement a business continuity plan than it is to rely on data recovery experts. We are the absolute last resort.

I repeat, hard drives die every day. They will always fail. It does not matter who makes the drive. It's the nature of the beast. Recovering from a physically failed hard drive, if that is even possible, will cost you a 4-digit amount. No one touches a physically failed drive for less. We are the absolute last resort and our fees reflect that.

UPSs must be deployed for every computer you don't want to see fried. Intelligent UPS will shut down the computer safely.

Hi rchadwick,
You are wise and i am a fool, Congratulations!

No One is perfect in the world, i can agree with the 'back up' plan and i can say you are wise to do so! But does the plan win everything? Yes, i am a dude, that's me, i am a dude because i am interseted in the data recovery knowledge, i am in my own shoes to do so, i know there are many people and many areas need data recovery, like the forensics solutions, the police, the government, some important data destroyed by spy and many many others. You mentioned A cure to cancer, yes, it is true that Prevention is better than cure, but does that mean once we get cancer, waiting for death is the only Choice? Does that mean Once you are doing prevention, you will not get cancer? The whole world is managing to find a cure to cancer, i believe soon we will have a working solution!

Thanks to everybody who attend this threads giving so much useful information, like the back up plan, employing some experts,and the useful link provided by Shahij, etc, thanks again to all of you.

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Train yourself before you step into DR

If you want to learn about data recovery, that's a different question entirely. You could say I do my own DR 'in house', yet I back up religiously. With important data, I wouldn't even think of relying on DR as a backup.

To use the cancer analogy... Assuming you want a long an happy life, you could do one of two things. You could quit smoking, test for radon, stay out of the sun, eat healthy, etc..... OR, you can open up your own cancer research center, and HOPE they've found a cure by the time you get cancer. The analogy is flawed a bit. First, a proper backup can be transparent and painless. Second, I suspect more drives die than people. Your odds of having a drive die out of a dozen computers is very high. I take care of my drives, make sure they're well cooled, and I have about a 7% failure per year from my personal drives. They're all backed up, so it's never a tragedy.

Also, while we may be moving towards a cure for cancer, DR is actually moving in the opposite direction. Drives keep getting harder and harder to recover, and I suspect the trend will continue.

That's fine if you just want to learn about DR, but I'll say it again... Relying on DR INSTEAD of a backup is foolish. If you back up right, you'll never need DR. Also, if you want to learn, it's not a good idea to learn on your own drives, with critical data on them. Learn on junk drives. It's a scientific certainty you will go through many drives before you're proficient enough for a real DR job.

Hi rchadwick,

You are a professional "Back up" prince! Hope i can be professional like you too.
Thanks for your kind suggestions. Following what you said, i will give my priority to back up plan, in case any DR was required, i have some knowledge without being a real fool to it.

If you have more experience of keeping your data safe, can you please share with us?

There is seldom a DR tool or software handling both logical and physical malfunctions, but recently, one of my friends recommend me one, it's said to be able to handle both malfunctions, but i forget the name, i remember its slogan 'only one beats a group', not sure if it is true. If it is, it can be really a great step forward in DR industry and i will be happy to see that. I will confirm with my friend what it is.

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Train yourself before you step into DR

Different IT people tend to prefer different backup types, but just about everybody can agree that you can't have too many backups. Also, whatever you choose, you need to test it. When I was in Computer Repair, you'd be surprised how many cases I came across where some secretary was carrying a backup tape home every night for years, and it turned out the tape was blank. Personally, I dislike tapes and optical disks. Tapes wear out, and usually have lots of errors. Optical is nice, but if a misplaced speck of dust is on the blank disk, the data may not write properly, and you won't know until you need it. Also, you need to consider a catastrophic event. What if there was a fire in your office? A flood? Theft? It's wise to have a method where you can store your critical data off-site (That's why those secretaries bring tapes home with them). External drives are OK, but be sure you don't drop it or tip it over, and forget about bringing it home with you. USB flash drives are cute, but too damn easy to lose, and I still just don't trust them for backups. There are services that let you back up your data over the Internet every night. If you can get over the trust issues, they may be a good choice. Personally, I have two drives, of two different brands. One holds all my goodies, and the other holds a complete copy of the first. As for disaster, one is in a removable tray, so I can run with it in a second if I need to. Not perfect, but that's what I do. Of the two drives, I've had 3 failures in the past 7 years or so. In all cases, it was a matter of putting in a temporary drive until the warranty replacement arrived.

rchadwick is right....I do still like my LTO 2 tapes a great deal. They are very fast. They store 400GB each. They are very reliable (I do full verifications and never had an error) They are expensive however. I also use removable hard drives encased in protective shells (cartbak model) in addition. I also use raid5 on my file servers. I've just been really lucky i suppose...I change out hard drives every year or two. hot swappable raid makes that a breeze with zero downtime. I use setup similar to wiselo's recommendations above.
one word of warning though.....I visit many companies that have abandoned their tapes completely in favor of one or two external hard drives....very dangerous....a destructive virus could and would easily wipe out a usb device and everything on the network it could gain access to as well...i'm old enough unfortunatley to have witnessed this before...anyway, if you are going to use such devices, definitely have several of them and swap them very frequently...we all have our own preferences like rchadwick said, and each company's data and business puts its own price on their data. Everyone has different amounts. I use Lonetar and Acronis both on my windoze and linux systems. Even if my building exploded, I could get ANY computer and be operational with each (windoze and linux) within 2 hours from scratch (universal restore makes that possible under windoze...in linux everything's a file, so its much easier actually....no HCL). Just .02.

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http://pcrecoveryllc.com

PCRecovery is correct. Having multiple backups is important. I had a customer once who upgraded Quickbooks, and the new version completely hosed the QBW file while converting it. Also, the copy it made before conversion was corrupt. They were backing up on two external USB drives they rotated. For whatever reason, they didn't catch it in time, and all the good files on the backup were overwritten by the corrupt ones. I hate not being able to help customers. I did eventually find a 6 month old backup...

What I do, for small but critical files, like a QBW, is to create a number of directories on the backup medium.... Monday, Tuesday, Etc... Then I configure the backup to backup to the Monday directory on Monday, etc. That way I have a week to find a problem. In addition, I manually make backups occasionally to another location. With lots of backups floating around, my chances of coming out of a disaster with a smile increase greatly.

If your data is very important, you might want to consider using multiple, independent backup systems. Have tape drives to bring home, a RAID for protecting work on-the-fly, a backup drive with many versions of critical files, and perhaps even an offsite backup. Money is the only limit. Back up as much as your budget will allow.

backup is real a vital step.

but i just know in some research institutions the important data are not allowed backup. and even when the data loss, the disk or media is not allowed to bring out their range of vision.

so i think the door-to-door service must be supplied. and this service will require new tools or technology.

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I just love the world.

Badboy, u are a good boy, you get my point.
This world can be always more perfect with our more efforts. It is the same that DR industry need better back up plans according to different situation and better DR tools to cure the data loss. These are the two sides. Back up is the cheapest, DR cure tech can be complicated and expensive, but both are necessary to meet all people's needs.

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Train yourself before you step into DR

Damn it, one of my WD drives go wrong, it can not be detected and i heard a bad noise, fortunately i got a backup of the most important data, but not all, what can i do? What can be the problems?
Two days ago when we were inputing the data we collected by Open-air investigation, the power was cut off suddenly, but when the power is on, everything works normally, but today, when i open my computer, i can not access at all, damn, who can help?

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Train yourself before you step into DR

You can send it to my office in California. If the drive is still detectable in BIOS, my fee will still be in 3 digits range.

You had ample warning.

Hi wiseleo,

The hdd can not be detected at all, there is some new experiment data inside which i haven't got time to back up, but not that urgent.

Do you have or know some 'Tool' which has some auto detection functions and then functions to recover data?

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Train yourself before you step into DR

A quality of all great men like Einstein, Bell, Stevenson etc. is persistance - you have that quality.

Do not forget to EMPLOY experts, it pays in the short term, medium term and long term.

The "Tool" you seek cannot be found - it does not exist.

The 'Tool' you mention is only found between the ears of a Professional. I suspect you'll have a very difficult time buying one. Even if you do, Installation will be very difficult