Top Stories of Disaster Recovery 2011

It’s unfortunate, but computer hardware is bound to fail at some point…

Here are the Top 10 Data Disasters of 2011:

1. Triple whammy: When a lightning strike caused a fire that sent a famous Caribbean island home up in smoke, the computer servers were burned and then doused with water by the fire squad. The media then corroded while the building sat idle until it was safe to re-enter. In the end, the triple whammy of a lightning strike, fire and water damage was overcome in the Level 3 Data Recovery Center.
2. Doggy eat dog world: A man encouraged his girlfriend to back up her photo library, which contained thousands of high-resolution photos from her photo studio. She diligently moved the data from her laptop to an external hard drive, and unfortunately that became the only good copy. A friend then pulled into the driveway and the couple went out to meet her, but not before the hyper, happy family dog heard someone at the door and came tearing out from underneath the table where the drive is sitting. The drive went crashing to the floor, damaging the only good copy of this data
3. A little piece of history: A freelance photographer happened to be with a camera in the midst of the recent London riots. Some rioters saw they were being filmed and opted to smash the camera in order to destroy the potentially incriminating evidence. The camera made its way to the Level 3 Data Recovery Center where 100 percent of the data and the video footage was recovered and supplied to the police.
4. In the safe not on the safe: To avoid arriving late to a business meeting, an IT person opted to put a tape drive on top of the waterproof safe instead of inside it. Within an hour of doing so, the city was struck by a powerful earthquake and the tape was knocked to the ground. Then, the premises was engulfed by mud, water and sand. The tape looked unrecoverable, but the Level 3 Data Recovery Center proprietary tape recovery technology was able to recover 100 percent of the data, which included one year of TV and web animations.
5. Smoking kills: A newly hired security guard was doing his first evening security check in a chemical ingredients warehouse. While he was informed that smoking is forbidden, he pondered who could possibly spot him enjoying a cigarette after company hours. After it was lit, the fire alarm sounded and prompted the anti-fire sprinkler system. All the electronic equipment included 44 desktops and two servers were flooded.
6. Sunken business deal: Two businessmen met in a pub to discuss their future deal over a beer. The server accidently knocked over one of the glasses she was delivering, soaking the laptop which contained the business plans. A paper towel was not enough to save the laptop and its important deal files.
7. End of month disaster: A corporate accounting department stayed late to reconcile the books for the month. While rejuvenating on a coffee break, a power outage occurred. All of the computers shut down including financial server. Luckily the department’s computers were connected to UPS. However, the continual brewing of their cups of java drained the UPS battery, resulting in a crashed server.
8. Magnetic attraction: A laptop was set down on a desk near some rare earth magnets. The earth magnets came into contact with the laptop and when the user went to turn on the machine, it did not boot up all the way and there was a clicking noise. While there was physical damage to the platters, proprietary techniques overcame the damage and the data was recovered.
9. Virtual reality: To increase system performance, an IT administrator split the C and D partition of his virtual server across two different systems. Running out of space, the admin needed to rush and consolidate C and D onto the same system. Not knowing that the same naming convention already existed on the target system, he copied over the important data set.
10. Bad image: An actor deleted her entire portfolio including her model card samples and recent pictures by accidently selecting the wrong externally attached USB drive using the MAC disk utility program. Our Level 3 Data Recovery Center was able to recover her image entirely.

Our Certified Data Recovery Specialists at Orange County Computer have found that companies are not testing their data storage hardware or disaster recovery plans. We urge clients to test backups and schedule weekly backups at a mimimum in the event of a catastrophic data loss. Wisely choose a Data Recovery Provider to work with in the unlikely event that your company needs to retrieve data.

Common Precursors of Data Loss Events:

• Human Error
• Storage Hardware Failure
• IT disaster recovery plan that is weak or not exercised regularly
• Overconfidence in a SAN Storage redundancy
• Corrupted or unreadable backups or archives of missing data

Jumpstart the New Year with a Free Network Evaluation. Contact our Technical Support Center at 949-699-6619, via email at support@orangecountycomputer.com, or visit our site for more information at www.orangecountycomputer.com.

Drobo… Headache Free Data Redundancy

The Data Storage market has become inundated with anything and everything from flash drives to single external drives to 12 Bay Rack Mount hardware storage devices. How do you decipher which Data Storage Solution will meet your needs?

DROBO makes award winning data storage products for small to mid-market businesses and individuals that delivers “Big Storage in a Small Box” to create a simplified and reliable solution.

There are several difference configuration scenarios designed to meet the needs of multiple industries, both big and small.

What Is a Drobo?

Hard drives get full and wear out. A single drive failure can lose your data. Not so with Drobo.

Meet your new storage solution, the safe and expandable Drobo. It’s so simple that anyone can use it, yet powerful enough for business. Drobo connects to your computer or network and provides redundant data protection without the complexities of traditional RAID.

Incomparable Expandability

With Drobo, buy just the storage you need now and change it as your data grows. Mix and match drive brands, capacities, and speeds. Replace your smallest drive with a larger one and immediately use the new capacity in a matter of seconds, not hours! It’s a simple as inserting the new drive into the slot. Expand up to 24 TB on a single volume as larger drive sizes become available. Drobo creates one large storage pool. Dive in and eliminate the need for multiple external storage drives and devices.

Storage on your Terms

Safety access and quick access go hand in hand with Drobo. Whether you’re directly attached to your personal computer, sharing files with others over the network, or backing up a business application—Drobo’s the best choice.

Drobo connects to Mac, Windows, Linux, and server virtualization systems with ease. Everyone can take advantage of simple, powerful, and complete Drobo data protection.

Plug In Peace of Mind

Just plug in Drobo and your data protection is ready. Add disks at any time for additional protected capacity. Drobo can even solve problems by itself. Lights on the front tell you what’s happening—if you can read a traffic light, you’re already a Drobo expert.

Take a look at how the lights on the front work on a four-bay Drobo. They work the same way on all Drobo models.

Contact a member of our Data Storage Team today for pricing and configuration at  949-699-6619 or via email: sales@orangecountycomputer.com

Shortage of Hard Drives hurting the pockets of Consumers

 Since the recent disastrous flooding in Thailand, reports of 14,000 factories have been shut down.

Western Digital faced major damages to their factories and has announced a temporary shutdown, bringing panic to the PC industry and is a direct concern to the pricing on consumer PC and Repair. “You’ll start to see PC makers increase prices for some products. So indirectly, consumers will face some higher prices because of higher Hard Disc Drive prices,” said John Rydning, a Vice President of research at IDC.

IDC is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology markets.

The prices for many several types and sizes of drives in both retail stores and online have already begun to skyrocket.

For example, the average price of Western Digital’s 1.5TB Caviar Green series desktop drive has shot up from $162 to $280 over the past five days. The average price of a Toshiba’s 1TB Canvio Basics external drive has gone from $109 to about $115 in the same period.

Coincidentally, Western Digital’s 250GB and 500GB Black Drives have been placed on strict purchase reserve at Retail Stores, while online, vendors are either completely out or have raised prices to weed out large purchases in attempt to keep what little inventory they have in stock until they are notified of a restock date by manufacturers. An official restock date has not been released yet.

Here’s how we can help:

Given the uncertainty of hard drive availability, we would strongly recommend replacing any desktop/laptop drives that are starting to show signs of failure SOONER rather than LATER and risk having to pay more for a drive. The situation in Thailand, combined with China’s rare earth supply cuts, could impact the price of hard drives causing a huge jump in pricing to a record high in the next three months.

The Team at Orange County Computer provides alternative cost effective solutions even during times of disaster.

Before you are faced with an unanticipated disaster, call us now to see how you can prevent Hard Drive failure; implement Offsite Backup to protect your data, and more! You can reach our Tech Repair center via phone @ 949-699-6619, email us @ support@orangecountycomputer.com & and visit our site http://orangecountycomputer.com to speak to a LIVE Technician.