The following are true experiences from the files of Datasafe. The companies names have been disguised.

And these were during the early years in the mid 1990's.  Imagine the amount of data and associated costs in today's dollars!

Story #1

Set up: A data based company with 4 workstations (dumb stations) and a server.

Amount of information: 4 employees entering data 7 1/2 hours each per day, 5 days a week. In business for 7 years.

Back up procedure: Monday - Thursday (incremental backups), Friday (full back up)

Disaster: Friday morning, 1 hour before the full backup is performed, the hard drive failed. Went to retrieve the full and incremental backups only to find that there was not any data on any of the incremental tapes. They had to go back to the previous Friday backup and then re-enter all of that weeks data manually.

Losses: One week of data input from four workstations

Cost to return to "business as usual": It took 6 weeks, paying overtime for the 4 data entry employees to work from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., to restore the lost week. Total labor dollars spent: $6,750.00

 

Story #2

Set up: Medical consultant with 1PS/2 and 2 laptops (all purchased used - no original software disks were provided when the computers were purchased).

Amount of information: Approx. 30 patient records entered per day. In business 4 months

Back up procedure: Remote data back up (automated and daily)

Disaster: Power company surge then power failure causing the FAT table to be scrambled and corrupt. Computer was completely down.

Losses: All operating software and company data

Cost to return to "business as usual": Computer was restored by Datasafe. All information was current up to the previous night's download. Total labor dollars spent: $0.00

  

Story #3

Set up: An attorney, single workstation PC.

Amount of information: All client records, templates and causes since starting his practice 2 years prior.

Back up procedure: No back up procedure in place.

Disaster: Hard drive started to make funny sound and not responding quickly. Took the hard drive to a repair shop. Replace the drive. When tested the next day, the old drive would not work.

Losses: Did not lose any data and has not started a back up procedure.

Cost to return to "business as usual": Total dollars spent: $340.00

  

Story # 4

Set up: A Computer company that was upgrading a 486DX4 to use Windows 95.

Amount of information: Operating systems and a few note files.

Back up procedure: Prior to this procedure all of the information was sent over the network to another computer for safe keeping.

Disaster: Hard drive locked up and there after was unusable.

Losses: Operating systems and a few note files.

Cost to return to "business as usual": Total dollars spent: $416.00

  

Story # 5

Set up: A restaurant with 5 stand alone computers ranging in class from 386SX to P133.

Amount of information: All employee and payroll records, A/R, A/P for the previous 8 months. Staff of over 75 employees.

Back up procedure: Tape drives but they had one set of info on one format of tape and the more current info on another format of tape. In the case of the information that was lost, the back up software being used to back up the system could not be found. This was due to the fact that the system was installed many years before. Until now the software was not needed.

Disaster: A hard drive in one of the accounting computers failed. In order to restore the information the data will have to be recovered from two different tape operating systems, one of which was missing all of the software.

Losses: All employee and payroll records, A/R, A/P for the previous 8 months.

Cost to return to "business as usual": 7 weeks with 3 employees working overtime to reenter the information. Total labor dollars spent: $7,560.00

 

 Story # 6

Set up: An apartment complex with several different computers

Amount of information: All accounting, legal, maintenance and misc. records.

Back up procedure: Tape back up. Unknown if procedure was being followed.

Disaster: Fire at the office but not entering the computer room.

Losses: The losses range over a period of 6 months. The insurance company did not by the apartment complex new computers after the fire. It was not until 6 months later that the insurance carrier finally agreed to pay for new computers. During that time the operation lost their data on 3 separate occasions. All 3 losses were due to a hard drive failure. The drives were left over from the fire and so were the back up tapes. The tapes were useless. The following was the cost of reentering the accounting data for one of the 3 failures. This does not include any of the other information that was lost.

Cost to return to "business as usual": 17 hours each for 2 employees Total labor dollars spent: $510.00. Multiply that times the three events: $1530.00

  

Story #7

Set up: Business Consultant with 2 stand alone computers.

Amount of information: 3 years of client data, ongoing projects, contact manager information, accounting information, and contracts.

Back up procedure: Company would make printed copies of all documents.

Disaster: Hard drive crash.

Losses: All information on the drive.

Cost to return to "business as usual": It took 3 days of lost business as they rebuilt enough information to start work again. Then 2 weeks of reentering the information necessary to get them back up to speed where it was not noticeable from the clients perspective. To date they are still entering data "as they go". That is to say, when they need a document that is not in the computer, they enter it at that time.Total labor dollars spent: Not able to determine....

  

Story # 8

Set up: Home based business with one computer.

Amount of information: All business records

Back up procedure: Remote data back up (automated and daily)

Disaster: Accidentally deleted the client database file.

Losses: Client Database file

Cost to return to "business as usual": File was accessed and retrieved within 5 minutes. Total labor dollars spent: $0.00.

  

Story # 9

Set up: Student with a computer for college

Amount of information: All of the students college work through her junior year

Back up procedure: None

Disaster: Virus infected the hard drive and corrupted the root directory. This destroyed the ability to retrieve any files from the drive. The computer could only be booted from floppy.

Losses: Entire hard drive

Cost to return to "business as usual": Never recovered. The student was too busy to get the computer running again. She had to finish all of her term papers and classwork manually by typewriter and calculator.

  

Story # 10

Set up: Retail business with two stand alone computer.

Amount of information: All day to day records, as well as, some special database programs used to run the business.

Back up procedure: None

Disaster: Employee accidentally scrambled the File Allocation Table (FAT). This render the computer useless.

Losses: All data

Cost to return to "business as usual": 28 hours of reentry time by an employee. To date the system is still not "the same", and the database program is not what it was prior to the accident. Total labor dollars spent: $266.00.

  

Story # 11

Set up: Home based business with two computers.

Amount of information: All company information for the prior 3 years were kept on this computer. The second computer was for word processing.

Back up procedure: Remote data back up (automated and daily)

Disaster: Motherboard failure, unknown origin.

Losses: All company records

Cost to return to "business as usual": RBS provider brought all the company information over to the second computer the next morning. Then was no down time or interruption in business. Total labor dollars spent: $0.00

  

Story # 12

Set up: Retail business with one computer.

Amount of information: All company records

Back up procedure: Remote data back up (automated and daily)

Disaster: While the manager was off. The owner came in and "changed a few things". This caused some linking problems and the custom software for this business was not useable.

Losses: None of the files were accessible by their custom software.

Cost to return to "business as usual": The RBS provider brought the original program that was from the on-site backup and copied over the program. This reset all of the "changes" to the way they were. There was not any business downtime. Total labor dollars spent: $0.00.

  

Story # 13

Set up: Computer repair company with 3 stand alone computers.

Amount of information: This computer contained all of the technical note and documents for repairing various computers.

Back up procedure: None

Disaster: Lightning strike nearby caused a hard drive failure.

Losses: All information on the disk.

Cost to return to "business as usual": They are still rebuilding their database at the writing (8-16-96) of this story. It has been 13 months and all of the information has still not been reentered. The process will probably continue for another year. Total dollars spent: Not able to determine....

  

Story # 14

Set up: Internet service provider with multiple computers.

Amount of information: All files associated with running an Internet service.

Back up procedure: In addition to a proper disaster recovery plan. This ISP also uses a Remote data back up (automated and daily).

Disaster: It was discovered that the client records had become corrupt. This would have led to the inability of the client to be able to dial in.

Losses: Client database records.

Cost to return to "business as usual": Rather than reinstall from his tapes, he dialed the RBS provider and retrieve a the most recent client record file that was not corrupt. Total labor dollars spent: $0.00

  

Story # 15

Set up: Commercial and residential cleaning service with one computer.

Amount of information: All records for the company from the point they bought the company one and a half years prior.

Back up procedure: None

Disaster: This company had 3 data losses over the course of the first two months as the new owners. In one case the grand daughter was playing a game and deleted the company records. The other two times, the computer was stolen

Losses: All records were lost all three times. They were reentering the data at the time the next loss occurred.

Cost to return to "business as usual": A total of 4 1/2 months of data reentry while trying to run the business. The company currently is in the process of failure. Total labor dollars spent: $8,450.00 and the loss of their business.

  

Story # 16

Set up: Computer business with several computer of different makes and models

Amount of information: All company records stored on computer

Back up procedure: In addition to a proper disaster recovery plan. This computer company also uses a Remote data back up (automated and daily).

Disaster: Quickbooks accounting file became corrupt (unknown reason) 838,000 k

Losses: Corrupt file was useless

Cost to return to "business as usual": Rather than reinstall from his tapes, he dialed the RBS provider and retrieve a the most recent client record file that was not corrupt. Total labor dollars spent: $0.00

 

Story #17

Set up: Over the road salesman with a laptop computer

Amount of information: All client records and business expenses

Back up procedure: None

Disaster: Hard drive failure

Losses: All business records for the current year

Cost to return to "business as usual": Unable to determine all costs. (hard drive was over $450.00 alone). He reentered all of the information on his own time.

 

Story #18

Set up: Retail business with one computer.

Amount of information: All company records

Back up procedure: Was on a Remote data back up (automated and daily) but canceled the service.

Disaster: Hard drive developed bad sectors and clusters and in the process lost the FAT tables. Files were unable to be recovered.

Losses: None of the files were accessible by their custom software or recovery software.

Cost to return to "business as usual": Although the service had been canceled 2 months prior, the RBS provider brought the original program that was from the on-site backup and copied over the program on to a new hard drive. The company was able to recover all the data up to the day the service had been canceled. This left about 1 1/2 months of information that needed to be reentered. Total dollars spent: $628.00 ($229.00 for the hard drive)

The company has since gone back on the service

  

Story # 19

Set up: Consulting firm with two computers

Amount of information: All company records

Back up procedure: This computer company uses a Remote data back up (automated and daily).

Disaster: Power supply overheated and burned up. This in turn fried the motherboard and hard drive.

Losses: All company records

Cost to return to "business as usual": The RBS provider brought the original copy of the hard drive and all backups that had been made. There was 6 hours of business downtime. Total labor dollars spent: $289.00.

 

Story # 20

Set up: Shipping company with 2 computers

Amount of information: All accounting records

Back up procedure: This computer company uses a Remote data back up (automated and daily).

Disaster: Employee accidentally copied old files over newer files, deleting the current information.

Losses: All current accounting files.

Cost to return to "business as usual": They dialed the RBS provider and retrieve a the most recent accounting file. Total labor dollars spent: $0.00

 

Story # 21

Set up: Business association with multiple computers on a network.

Amount of information: Various association records.

Back up procedure: Was performing backup to tape onsite, but was not accurate in the procedure.

Disaster: Hard drive mechanical failure. Unable to read the drive.

Losses: All records on one of the hard drives

Cost to return to "business as usual": Needed to send the drive to a class 100 clean room to have the platters removed and placed on a good drive. Then see what could be removed.Total dollars spent: $?.?? ($2,000.00 to $3,000.00 just to open the drive. EST cost $15,000.00)

 

Story # 22

Set up: Insurance company with a network of 3 computers

Amount of information: Software used for rating new clients.

Back up procedure: Onsite tape (but not accurate), a full hard drive copy was made by a RBS provider prior to a hardware upgrade. The back up was 2 weeks old.

Disaster: Bad clusters wiped out the rating software

Losses: All records of new clients and proposals

Cost to return to "business as usual": Although the client was not on the remote backup service, the RBS provider brought the original program that was from the on-site backup and copied it over to the hard drive. The company was able to recover all the data up to the day the back up had been performed. This left about 2 weeks of information that needed to be reentered. Total dollars spent: $45.00

 

 

 This spot is reserved for the next poor soul. Don't let it be you!

Story #

Set up: 

Amount of information: 

Back up procedure: 

Disaster: 

Losses: 

Cost to return to "business as usual": 

Please note, in an effort to keep costs reasonable, all drop offs and pick ups are scheduled.

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