Data Redundancy, Backup & Recovery
Failure
Hard drives are a complex mechanical devices. usually the only or one of the only mechanical devices in your computer. Due to the complexity, sensitivity and intense usage of these components, they fail. Covering and anticipating for this is crucial in order to retain your data in the case of failure. Backup and Redundancy is the best way to guarantee this.
Redundancy
Redundancy is equally as important in business. Often confused with backup, redundancy gives you a form of duplication of your data, otherwise complete failure to the local system will render you without a running copy of your data or even a working system. Redundancy is primarily a solution for maintaining your system and increase up-time in a failure scenario. We implement Redundant Array of Independent Disks (R.A.I.D) to reinforce a system, typically a server and also desktop clients. Configured in the right way, a R.A.I.D solution can keep you computer operational in the case of hard disk failure. This allows maximum up-time and allows your business to continue, unaffected. We recommend this in almost all business scenarios.
Backup
Backup is essential in business. We recommend a solid backup system is implemented to help you retain all your data and in the case of failure, recover your data easily. We offer various backup solutions, using on-site and off-site cloud solutions. Depending on the backup requirement, we backup to our office location and to an ‘on-line’ cloud based location.
Backups are usually implemented and monitored constantly under our Support and Maintenance contracts. One off solutions are also available.
Recovery
In the case where the worst has happened, data recovery is the process of retrieving, or even salvaging your data from a malfunctioning drive. This can include damaged, failed, corrupted or inaccessible drives.
There are two types of recovery; Software and Hardware.
Software Recovery
When all the physical components of a hard disk are intact but the data is inaccessible due a damaged logical structure, software recovery is used to retrieve data. This can be caused by various reasons, most commonly Operating System or file system corruption, malicious software infection or accidental formatting of the disks partitioning.
Recovery of this type can take a long time, depending on the size of the disk and the quantity of data lost. The chances of recovering at least some data are usually quite good. This process may take up to 2 weeks.
Hardware Recovery
When a drives physical components have failed, hardware recovery is used. This can be caused by power failure, head crash or platter damage.
Recovery of this type, if possible takes a long time, and severe data loss is highly likely. we perform partial hardware recovery but due to the complexity and the requirement of specialist equipment, we use a third-party specialist for this operation. This process can take weeks to months to perform.
Obviously, in the case where software or hardware recovery has been performed. After completion, we advise a backup and/or redundancy solution to be implemented to stop re-occurrence.