The Verse - Volume 38
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Tech Tip - Got Data? – Disaster Proof It!

Drive partitions, disk imaging, software protection and hardware fortification are the keys. Here's how to pull them together for systems to withstand anything Mother Nature—and nasty hackers—throw at your systems.

"No Bootable Device." This screen message strikes horror in the hearts of PC users everywhere. Seeing it on your system is the ultimate horror. Even contemplating its possibilities—lost data, a ruined hard drive—is enough to induce a serious case of the heebie-jeebies in an otherwise courageous user.

The sad truth is, system crashes happen. Worse, many users neglect the important task of making backup copies of their vital programs and data. So when those inevitable crashes do occur, users are woefully unprepared.
What's more, even if users have made copies, they still must dedicate serious time and effort to restore crashed system to pre-disaster status. Chances are, they will have to restore the system to "day one" condition as delivered by the vendor. That will then leave the user with the arduous task of personalizing the system all over again. Not to mention long hours, or even days, of painful downtime.

It doesn't have to be this way. Most PC disasters can be avoided—or, at least, easily reversed—with minimal planning, expense and time.

The four key ingredients are: drive partitioning, disk imaging, software protection and hardware fortification.

STEP 1: DRIVE PARTITIONING
The first step in this process is to partition the drive. Today, most new PCs sport hard-drive capacities of 250 GB or greater; some even approach the terabyte level. Drives this large positively beg for multiple partitions.
There are two important reasons why. First, to provide the ability to store programs and data separately, making backup and restoration both easier and more secure. Second, to provide a convenient place to store drive images. That is a key factor in disaster recovery.
At a minimum, you will want to use two partitions. Three are even better. In a three-partition setup, the first partition contains the OS and application software. The second is designated for user data: documents, photos, music, etc. The third acts as a repository for images of the first two. In this way, the user ensures that current images of their OS, applications and critical data are always available.

STEP 2: DISK IMAGING
Disk imaging is currently the best form of disaster recovery. This solution increases the value of your technology investment and enhances the security of your data; and savings in time, money and emotional turmoil in the event of a failure.
With disk imaging, you can tweak a system to your heart's content, then create an exact image of your hard disk—including its various partitions—at any time. What's more, in the event of a fatal system crash or virus attack, you can instantly restore the entire machine, including OS, applications and all data. And you can do so in a matter of minutes. This technology can be applied to PCs and Servers.

STEP 3: SOFTWARE PROTECTION
Virus, spyware and firewall protection is also critical. The most popular products are those from McAfee and Norton. For the home user or extremely budget conscious, there are also free antivirus and spyware applications from Spybot, Ad-Aware and AVG.

No computer should be connected to a network or to the internet today without basic security software already in place.

STEP 4: HARDWARE FORTIFICATION
The hardware itself allows you to build redundancy and protection into each device. These are things like multiple internal hard drives, RAID arrays; external hard drives; and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS).
Most computers still ship with a single hard drive. That’s fine for a PC but for your network server it is unacceptable. For the server a far better alternative is a multi-drive configuration. Data spread across three or more drives provides an added safeguard. By electing a RAID configuration that provides redundancy, data is given an extra dose of security. If one drive fails, it is simply replaced with a new one, with no data lost and in most cases, no down time. Other redundant options for servers include the power supply. After hard drives, the second component most likely to fail is the power supply. Get two and be safe. All computer equipment should be connected to a UPS (battery backup) in the event of a power spike or power failure. It is critical to have an adequate UPS on your server to minimize the possibility of a system crash due to power failure.

Following these simple rules will help keep your data disaster proof.

Source – TechBuilder 2007

As always, if you have questions, please call the purple guys at Versent at 816-221-3900 or email at info@purpleguys.com and "We can do IT for you."

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