RenovoData Weekly Articles

The online blogging service, JournalSpace.com, has learned a hard lesson on the importance of reliable backup after the drives that housed their entire database was destroyed.  It was reported that the bloggers behind JournalSpace depended on a dual-disked mirrored RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) system as their backup solution.  The problem with this is:  their backed up data was never truly backed up.  The rationale was if the primary drive fails, the secondary drive was thought to recover the primary drive.  However, this was a risky way of doing business in that it only provides protection from one drive.  While the RAID mirror technology would prevent the company from collapsing in the event of a single disk failure, it cannot prevent data loss due to software malfunction or disaster caused by external forces.  In the case of JournalSpace, it is speculated that a single individual was responsible for the data loss, sabotaging key servers that caused other servers to follow suit (maybe this is where “redundant” comes in).  Once the data was gone it could not be recovered even by a data recovery company since through a RAID system, when a file is wiped out from one drive, it’s automatically deleted from the other.  And to think:  this company relied on this method as backup for 6 years!

JournalSpace learned at a very high cost the reasons why the mirroring capacity through one of the many RAID configurations is not a sufficient substitution for secure backup.  If JournalSpace would have used a disaster recovery and offsite backup provider, the data would have been saved  and the business would still be operating.  A major benefit of an offsite backup solution is that generations of backup are housed through the tiered architecture whereas if there is a corrupted file, the offsite solution will “rewind” the version of the draft before the damage hits.  In this instance, the company will not only have the benefits of full disaster recovery and business continuity, but also will be further protected from being a victim of data corruption.

Fact:  According to a report by the Gartner Group, 100% of disks and tape drives eventually fail.  Are you safe in knowing you have a reliable disaster recovery plan in place?  Share your thoughts and comment below.